“Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.” -Nathanial Hawthorne, 1804-1864, American Novelist

“But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:36-37

Jesus locates moral gravity in language itself. Words are not vapor; they are a measured record.

Biblical and classical texts once provided a common vocabulary—images and references that anchored discourse. Phrases like “Good Samaritan”, “prodigal son,” and “let there be light” still circulate, but few know their source or weight. When sacred stories are reduced to slogans, they lose the friction that once formed conscience. Detached from fellowship (shared use), they become separated from responsibility. Biblical language once worked because hearers knew the stories.  A parable like the prodigal son carries tension: rebellion, repentance, forgiveness, jealousy. When reduced to a tag for “someone who went astray,” the story becomes a single moral label instead of a mirror for the listener’s soul.

“My impression is that we have seen, for perhaps a hundred and fifty years, a gradual increase in language that is either meaningless or destructive of meaning…this increasing unreliability of language parallels the…disintegration…of persons and communities.”  -Wendell Berry, Essay Standing by Words, 1979 

Language, for Berry, is communal — words are shared, stabilized by use and memory. When they fray, humanity’s bonds weaken.

Consider the Bible’s economy of language—its restraint, repetition, and rootedness— it reminds us what language can be when treated as sacred trust. In Scripture, words are framed by pauses—”selah,” rest, contemplation. Modern speech seldom stops long enough for meaning to settle. Silence once gave words contour; now the deluge drowns them. Scripture encourages discipline and fidelity of language by avoiding noise, encouraging responsibility. Whole stories train empathy and restraint. Return to reading and telling, wrestling words into ploughs of discovery.  Stand by words. 

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. -Psalm 19:14