What are “Careless Words,” and Will God Really Judge Us By Them?

Photo by Keira Burton

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Matthew 12:33-37

One might look at a verse like this and think “that’s a bit of an overkill, isn’t it? Will my harmless jokes be condemned” or “well this doesn’t apply to me that much, I’m not much of a talker.” I know that I have caught myself thinking this. Will God really look at every word we’ve spoken, weighing how much thought we’ve put into our words, on judgment day? Not everyone speaks careless words, right? Surely Jesus was mostly talking about the Pharisees and other obviously evil people like them…

However, there is a reason that God will carefully judge our words. Our words are powerful, and as seen in my previous article, words reflect the state and treasure of our hearts, which is what God cares about most (Proverbs 21:2). To speak careless words is actually a sin, and underestimating the dark capabilities of our words is not an overreaction from God but pride and a lack of zeal for righteousness on our part. But why are careless words sinful, and how can we identify and prevent this in our own speech?

Words are More Powerful than We Realize

It is not surprising that our words will be judged by God because of how powerful they are. It was through words that God created the earth (Genesis 1:1). It is through words that God guides us “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). Jesus Himself is the manifestation of “the Word,” the greatest revelation: God speaking and walking among us in the flesh. Of course, our words are different from God’s and do not contain His sovereign power, yet in a different sense as image bearers of God, our words can bring and take away life, can guide or misguide, can harm or heal. The Bible’s book of Proverbs shows this especially in the wisdom it offers about our speech:

• “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits” (Proverbs 18:21).

• “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (Proverbs 12:18).

• “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Proverbs 16:24).

• “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11).

• “Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 29:20).

We all know that words are not like small rocks that deflect off of a wall. They leave a mark, whether good or bad. No matter how many words we speak, we speak from our hearts, even if dishonestly, and what we say affects the hearts of others. However, we are often blinded to the impact our words actually have, especially since we still carry the struggle of our flesh with us. Professor and theologian Sinclair Ferguson explains this blindness with a helpful analogy:

Alas, we do not realize how powerful for evil the tongue is because we are so accustomed to its polluting influence. En route to give this address, I rode the hotel elevator with several others. On one floor the elevator stopped, the doors opened, and a woman entered the confined space. The doors closed, and I suspect everyone in the elevator almost instantaneously had the same thought: “She has been smoking!” In this confined “smoke-free” environment her breath could not be disguised. So, says Jesus, the tongue projects the thoughts and intentions of the heart. It is from within, “out of the heart,” that the mouth speaks (compare with Matthew 12:34; 15:18–19). But like the smoker, so accustomed to the odor, the atmosphere in which they live, the person with polluted speech has little or no sense of it — no sense that they exhale bad breath every time they speak.¹

As human beings, we are much more prone to justifying our sin than desiring to see its true weight. Like many other sins, we can become so accustomed to speaking carelessly that we lose awareness of it, or perhaps make excuses for it. The passage from Matthew at the beginning of this article shows a similar situation: Jesus rebuking men, the Pharisees, who were blind to or unwilling to see the fault in their speech, instead believing that there was nothing they said that offended God. It is important that we truly understand what careless speaking is so that we can identify it in our own lives to root it out.

What is a “Careless Word”?

A careless word is much more than speaking-without-thinking. Writer and theologian Greg Morse provides a helpful definition of careless words:

Careless words are idle, purposeless, lazy, and useless. The Greek word for “careless” (argos) is used to describe men who stand around in the marketplace when they should be working (Matthew 20:3–7), people who go from house to house wasting time and causing trouble (1 Timothy 5:13), Cretans who do not produce the good they ought (Titus 1:12). Idle words wander about unproductive, travel around causing trouble, refuse to bless as they ought. And we will give an account for every single one.²

Careless words are really about the posture of our hearts. What are we seeking to do with our words? Do we even have intention in our words? Do we make noise just to make noise - to fill any silence? Do we speak filthy words to make others laugh? Do we speak to show our own greatness rather than God’s? All of these things contribute nothing to our greater purpose of glorifying God. In light of promoting God’s kingdom on earth, words spoken without care of God’s glory, perhaps even relishing in the sin that is so far from Him, are purposeless, idle, lazy, useless. “Every word? For the glory of God? That is too much to think about!” Yet we are certainly commanded “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31, italics added). Even Greg Morse admits, “I am tempted to have low expectations of judgment because I have a low view of words - a view Jesus does not share”. What is Jesus’ view on our words? “He will review our careless words with us because he expects our words to incline toward usefulness, to yield godly effect, to be seasoned with salt, to give grace to hearers.”² A careless word, a word that reflects little thought, purpose, or desire to glorify God, leads to a host of sinful speech: gossip, boasting, pride, obscene and crude speech, insults, blasphemy (i.e., taking the Lord’s name in vain), and dishonesty, to name a few. It is much more than “think before you speak” but “why did you say that?”.

How Can We Root Out the Sin of Careless Words?

The answer from a legalist point of view would say that we must keep track, maybe even write down, how often we say careless words so that we can remind ourselves to do better next time and watch as the numbers of careless words decrease. Soon, it will no longer be a problem for us, and we can be examples to others of how to speak! But brothers and sisters, this is a small view of our weakness in temptation and a small view of God. If you believe that Christ is your only hope for eternity, your only hope to be cleansed from your sin and united with God, your salvation is sealed in Christ, and it will not be removed despite our continued struggle with sin on earth (Ephesians 1:13). This is because only Christ lived the perfect live, and by believing in Him, He gave His own righteousness to us (Philippians 3:9). When we try to use our own strength to be holy and perfect, we will fail. But when we rely on God for our every breath and action, His grace covers our failures, and His strength supplies us in our time of need. Only when we turn from Him to ourselves do we fail. I write not as someone who has perfected my speech but as a person who is still struggling and growing, and in this journey I have learned that there is no better way to fight this sin than to pray for God’s help, to ask Him to open your eyes to any careless word you speak, and to look to Christ’s example in scripture. Only by looking to Christ will we be able to grow in His likeness (1 John 3:2). Pastor and theologian Jon Bloom explains two necessities to speaking in a way that glorifies God, “ Christians know that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” and “the beginning of knowledge” (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7). And one expression of that fear is trembling at God’s holy word, and at our own.”³ This does not mean, of course, that we should be shivering with terror before we speak, but it does mean that we should recognize the weight of our words. We must speak with intention, using the power of our words with wisdom and the desire to glorify God. “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless” (James 1:26). We must fear God and His word to root out carelessness of our speech.

References

1. Ferguson, Sinclair. “The Tongue, the Bridle, and the Blessing: An Exposition of James 3:1–12.” Desiring God, 26 Sept. 2008, https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-tongue-the-bridle-and-the-blessing-an-exposition-of-james-3-1-12.

2. Morse, Greg. “Worthless Conversation: How God Weighs Our Words.” Desiring God, 13 Dec. 2021. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/worthless-conversation

3. Bloom, Jon. “Know What Not To Say.” Desiring God, 16 Feb. 2018, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/know-what-not-to-say.