“If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless” James 1:26
Last week, in my men’s small group Bible study, we were studying the book of James…including the verse above. As often happens in our group, we traveled down a rabbit trail from there.
“Ron” asked the group this question, “I try to keep a rein on my tongue, and I know the best way to do that is to hide God’s Word in my heart. But memorizing scripture is so difficult. What else can I do to keep myself in the right frame of mind so that I don’t go spouting off when I shouldn’t?”
One man’s response was, “What about music?” And off we went on another rabbit trail.
One of the guys talked about being stopped at a red light. A car pulled up beside him with a sound system loud enough that he could clearly make out the lyrics. They weren’t just rude and crude, they were angry, raging, anti-women and anti-minority. So many people in our society immerse themselves in this angry rhetoric.
And do you question that we are imprinted by music? Some months ago we were in a place where the radio was playing 60’s and 70’s music. Yes, I’m a Boomer, but I haven’t regularly listened to popular music for more than 15 years. But I could hear the first couple of measures-sometimes only the first chord-and I found myself naming the song title, the artist, the year it was popular, and usually the car I was driving when it was on the radio!
We all agreed how much we liked the music at church, but few of us listen to Christian music outside of Sunday morning. But what if we did?
Well, it would likely be easier to keep a rein on our tongue.
