Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued… 1 Timothy 3:8
I don’t want to speak badly about so and so but let me tell you how bad he is. I’m not complaining, but here is my complaint. I don’t want to gossip but let me tell you this juicy and defaming bit of information about so and so, just so that you would know (or maybe so that you can pray). I won’t slander, but this person said this, and I want you to think as badly as possible about them even though in context the thing was more understandable than I will share.
No one is as forthright as the above about his or her double-speaking ways. And that is the problem, isn’t it? We might be so given to the double-tongue that we are double-tongued even about our double-tongued-ness. It might be such a pattern in our lives that we don’t even see it as wrong.
Sadly, this might be true of us even in the church. Even as professing Christians.
In our church, the new deacon team and I are working through what the Bible teaches about deacon qualifications (mainly from 1 Timothy 3:8-13). We had to pause on this gem of a word: double-tongued. It is translated from the Greek word δίλογος. The word is constructed by the prefix di, which means two or double, and the root logos which means word. So double-tongued or double-worded or insincere seems to capture the meaning well. Ironically, the word is employed exactly once in the New Testament, and only once in the Greek Apostolic Fathers. The Bible and the Fathers didn’t doubly use di-word. 🙂
Why do we say one thing and mean another, or say one thing to one person and a different thing to another? Why do we often give a disclaimer that is completely out of step with the thing being disclaimed (i.e., I don’t want to gossip or be hurtful but here is some hurtful gossip.)?
Maybe it is because we really want to act ugly while still appearing pure or righteous? Maybe it is because our Christianity is a mere pretense, and we don’t want to let that show through? Maybe it is because life (or church) is a game to us, and it is okay to hurt people in games?
I’m sure there are many reasons. But the Bible makes it clear: being double-tongued is not befitting for a Christian. Sincerity and love ought to be the marks of a people who have been transformed by God’s grace. We should be the one demographic that actually says what we mean (and not mean mean things!).
Christians – all Christians, but especially those who are in church leadership – are called to be sincere and loving in the way that we talk. So much hurt and division can spring up from the insincere speech of one double-tongued person. May it not be so among us!
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. – Ephesians 4:29
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