TASTING WORDS

                                                            Tasting Words

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            Job is being rhetorical when he asks, “Does not the ear test words as the tongue tastes food?” (Job 12:7-11). Christian writers know how to distinguish tasteful from untasteful words. For just as there are poison foods, so there are poison words. For example, politicians well-know that a poison-pen will be used to write hit-pieces about them. Those that read these poison pen letters may just as well have drunk the ink straight out of its container! Poison!

How often do we read things that leave a bad taste in the mouth? As choice ingredients make for a good healthy meal, so do carefully chosen words.

One gets the impression that the ex-slave trader, John Newton, understood the art of tasting words. The first stanza of one of his hymns, begins, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear! It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, and drives away his fear.” He, of course, also wrote, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” However, as Christian writers we know that what may be healthy food for Christians, can taste like poison to non-Christians. “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life” (2 Cor. 2:15-16a). Therefore, as Christians we must be mindful that the name of Jesus does not necessarily sound sweet in every ear.

Our intention as Christian writers is to glorify God by our work. Therefore, we serve His Son by making sure that we do not dishonour Him in any of our writings. We ensure this by adding, as it were, Elisha’s flour to make sure there is no death in the pot (2 Kings 4:40-41). Yes, even in writing, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt” (Col. 2:6a).

            Speaking through His Prophets and Apostles, we can easily see that the Bible makes use of the ‘tasting words’ motif. “Jesus answered, ‘It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matt. 4:4; Deut. 8:3). “Taste and see that the LORD is good, blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him” (Psa. 34:8).

When the Gospel is proclaimed, we hear it through the ear. In the Lord’s Supper, we see it with our eyes. However, we are also tasting that the LORD is good as we partake of the bread and the wine – “wine that gladdens human hearts … and bread that sustains their hearts” (Psa. 104:15).

As Christian writers let us be about the business of tasting words before we write them down. And, regardless of our writing genre, may God be pleased to use our writings also to help gladden and sustain human hearts.