War on Words
Matt Professor: Book Review 4-2-13/ box WAR OF WORDS What is one thing that we all struggle with? What is one thing that is the hardest for some of us? Isn’t it how we use our words? Looking into this book War on Words by Paul Tripp was a truth taking book that gripped my understanding of words and exploded it with truth. This book from Tripp allowed me to look into the importance of words and how they affect you and me. In the beginning God spoke the earth into existence, now this might not sound big to some people, but if we think about it what other things could God have done in order to form humanity and Earth?
Well I’m sure he could’ve done many other hand gestures and other things, but he decided that the formed ground on which we stand and the people that we see everyday are to be formed out of the words formed in the very mouth of God. When this was explained in the book I absolutely lost my ability to think and focused on this one thing that truly is important for us as Christians. If God had placed that into thought shouldn’t we understand that our mouth has so much more of significance than we think?
In the beginning Tripp says first there were God’s words and then there were Satan’s words, and Tripp says that there is a difference between words that build up and words that destroy and how Satan is going to use truth but distort it and with his words he will deceive the world of men. God’s words were words of power and purity. This is the call that Tripp asks us to look into, and ask ourselves which ones are we? Then Tripp continues to hit us with the truth he then asks a simple question, he says “what should we take away from our consideration of communication in Genesis 1?
First, our words belong to the Lord. He is the Great Speaker. The wonder, the significance, the glory of human communication has its roots in his glory and in his decision to let us talk with us and allow us to talk with him and others (pg. 15). ” This is not just something that we should take for granted, but that it should be carefully scripted and formed to show others that our words are not of this world but that our words are conformation that the Lord allows us to communicate to others.
The very words that the Lord used in the Garden to communicate to Adam and Eve were the very examples that we need to see, and I know that it sounds strange but the perfect beings that lacked nothing in their humanity still needed that lasting relationship with the Lord though words and feelings spoken through words. Then Tripp takes this interesting movement into what he really means by the war beneath the war of words he says, “The Word would not have come into our world if our struggle were primarily a struggle of flesh and blood,” (pg. 7) he then goes on to say that the problem is our words and an even deeper importance our heart. Tripp goes on to say that the words formed from our mouth are an action of our heart and that we need to go even deeper into our war on words and look into our heart the one thing that the Lord is trying to change. Tripp says these changes can only take place when we ask for a true renewal of our heart through the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
When we realize that this war cannot be fought with our own mind but that the word of God and the living being of God need to be a major and only significant change in our minds and heart, this will change our words from unedifying to encouragement. In a world that uses their own encouragement because it edifies them, the Christian perspective has to be to edify God and not ourselves. In learning this Tripp says scriptures tells us that if we are going to see lasting change in our communication, we must start from within, as we deal with the idolatry of our hearts.
