Speak Life Like Jesus

On Monday, Tim Baumgarten began his seminar at Gaines Auditorium with the title “Speak Life: Mission-Focused Communication.”

He opened by presenting a biblical foundation for his theme using principles from the book of Proverbs, where Solomon counsels God’s people to:

Use their tongues not to make cutting remarks, but to speak in ways that bring healing (Prov. 12:18),

Answer angry remarks gently instead of using harsh words that stir up anger (Prov. 15:1),

Use their tongues to bring life rather than death to people’s spiritual lives (Prov. 18:21).

He expanded on these biblical principles with statements from Ellen White such as:

“It is wise to seek humility and meekness, and carefully to avoid raising a combative spirit, which will close hearts and ears to the truth.” (The Desire of Ages, p. 353)

“The tone of voice reveals the spirit which governs the speaker. It is an indicator of the condition of the heart.” (Manuscript 104, 1902)

“Show a tender, pitiful spirit toward the erring. Present the truth with all the grace and intelligence that you can.” (Evangelism, p. 443)

Baumgarten shared a personal example of the negative impact words can have on people.

When he was only eight years old, he attended a Baptist revival meeting. At the time of the appeal, a man sitting behind him grabbed him by the head and told him to respond immediately to the appeal or he would burn forever in hell. Once the man released him, little Tim ran to his family’s car and hid there until it was time to go home. After that incident, he decided never to attend church again, which he succeeded in doing once he became independent at age 17.

Several participants empathized with the speaker’s story and shared personal experiences of being hurt by negative words spoken by church members, including some traumatic situations. Such examples unfortunately point to the reality that Christians are sometimes poor representatives of the love and grace we profess to believe.

Baumgarten also explained that while we are called to speak the truth, truth without grace becomes legalism, and grace without truth becomes sentimentalism. What we truly need is to speak the truth wrapped in grace—and that requires spiritual wisdom to guide us in what we say, when we say it, and how we say it.

The speaker concluded the first presentation of this week’s series by inviting us not to tolerate a culture of harsh words in the church, but instead to learn from Jesus how to speak with grace always (Col. 4:6).

—Mauricio Schiavenin