NOTES for Mat 12:30-37

“...for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned...” These are very frightening words; their severity seems excessive to us. What, one might ask, is so very bad about hurting someone with a word? After all, you did not beat or kill anyone. And afterward you can ask forgiveness, again with a word. We attach no importance to words; they slip through our fingers even more imperceptibly than money. In fact, they have become our loose change. This is what is truly frightening, because the Lord created the world by His word. By His word He communicates with us, and He gave us the supreme happiness of addressing one another with words. As the Apostle says, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb 4:12). But the human word too, because we are created in His likeness, truly possesses enormous power: it can kill and it can heal. We must never forget this immense power and holiness of the word in our actual lives. “How poor the language of joy is!” writes Mandelstam. One wants to rebel against this thought and say: no, it is not poor; look how much biblical and non-biblical poetry there is. Yet in fact he is speaking about something else: when something real happens to us, we do not scatter needless words.