| Take a few minutes and watch the video to your left. Now that you've watched this very well produced video from TED-Ed, I'd like to take just a moment to discuss something which is very interesting, to me at least, about the topic of poison in light of the Scriptures. I'm sure that this has been used to detract from the Bible's validity at least one time, since it declares that our slithering friends have "poison" instead of venom (Deuteronomy 32:24, 33; Job 6:4, 20:16, etc.). |
There is something to do with poison that I believe many, even those of us who are not part of the part of the population wholly set on destroying the indestructible, might want to say that the Bible got wrong. It's a very simple verse, and yet it is probably one of the more forgotten passages by those of us comprising the body of Christ (cf. Ephesians 1:22-23). And that is, our tongues are like poison (James 3:8).
Did you catch the part in the video where the narrator describes a poison (in the modern vernacular) as something that must be 1) ingested, 2) inhaled or 3) absorbed through the skin? It's right around 1:17 (go back and watch it again if you missed it).
Even though we would like to dismiss this as nothing more than a coincidence, I'm afraid that isn't the case!
I've been told that Christianity isn't about what goes in, but what comes out and that the only way a Christian can be defiled and fall from his wonderful status of salvation in Christ is if what he takes in is allowed to taint his outward life. Frankly, that couldn't be farther from the truth!
No, James wrote that our tongues are full of deadly poison, something which must be taken into the body by personal choice or something which can simply seep in without our knowing, in that they have the ability to trip us up so easily.
What does that mean for us? It means that we have to be careful. Whether it is ingesting something (figuratively speaking of course) or simply allowing it to come in contact with our "skin" and seeping through unnoticed, we have to be careful. Why? Because what we take in has the potential to defile us (1 Corinthians 15:33, Matthew 15:19) and we are going to have the be diligent in order to keep ourselves from that poison (cf. 2 Timothy 2:15).
Just as that special snake takes in the toxins of the frogs it eats (1:56 in the video), our tongues can do the same thing!