SUNDAY NIGHT BOOK TALK by Tony Manley

I love Sunday nights more dearly when I don’t have school on Monday!  I don’t understand the difference because Monday is still Monday, and I do love teaching, but there is something that just feels like I am getting a free pass on Sundays with no school Mondays!  It is Sunday night, I am the only awake person in the house and I picked up my friend War of Words by Paul Tripp.  This is a book well worth the moments spent reading or going back through and writing out all the highlights from the first read.

The premise of the book is: 

     1. God has a wonderful plan for my words.

     2. Sin has radically altered my agenda for my words.

     3. In Christ, I find the grace that provides all I need to speak as God intends.

     4. The Bible teaches me how to get from where I am to where God wants  me to be.

     5. God’s plan for my words is married to God’s plan for my heart.

There you have it - the theme and teaching about words from God’s perspective.  I have loved thinking about the truth -  “God has a plan for my words.”  Not just the  verbalizing of my words, but the tone and choice of the words - vocabulary.  Being a person who is consistently dealing with heart issues, I immediately recognized “For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”  Luke 6:45

The book goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden and walks the reader through the process of the fall of talk is nothing more than the fall of man. Sin is now the place of origin for mankind’s talk.  But the good news is: because of the living Word (Jesus and written word), I have hope with my words!  Only in the Word do I find hope to win the war of my words.  James 3 says, “No man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”   This is why I need the Word to be Lord of my heart – He is my victor in this war!

 

This is a book that is honest, transparent, enjoyable, and full of illustrations of the author’s mistakes and victories!  I definitely recommend it to anyone that tends to wonder with Paul in Romans 7, “What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”  Thus, War of Words is a great truth to work /wrestle through as a study in one’s personal time at home or with a group.  God loves to heal the heart, and in turn, my mouth is healed.