On Resolving to Control My Tongue, 6-13

In his Some Pastors and Teachers, Sinclair Ferguson “takes a leaf out of Jonathan Edward’s Resolutions” and writes twenty resolutions on the tongue from James (pages 638-642). They are resolutions I need to better keep. I will be posting all twenty, and here are six through thirteen. The first five are here.

(6) Resolved: To speak in the consciousness of the final judgment.

So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty (James 2:12).

(7) Resolved: To never stand on anyone’s face with words that demean, despise, or cause despair.

If a brother or sister comes to us poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? (James 2:15-16).

(8) Resolved: To never claim a reality that I do not experience.

If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the the truth (James 3:14).

(9) Resolved: To resist quarrelsome words as marks of a bad heart.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? (James 4:1).

(10) Resolved: To never speak evil of another.

Do not speak evil agains another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against  the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge (James 4:11).

(11) Resolved: To never boast in what I will accomplish.

Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’–yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes (James 4:13-14).

(12) Resolved: To always speak as one who is subject to the providences of God.

Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’. (James 4:15).

(13) Resolved: To never grumble, knowing that the Judge is at the door.

Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door (James 5:9).