Talk is Cheap (or is it)?
(Originally posted Nov 1, 2006 on randehle.com.) I’m sure you’ve heard this. Usually it is meant to express doubt that someone will follow through on what they’ve said. We may be extra sensitive to this right now, with elections just a few days away; it seems that every candidate claims the high ground by focusing on their own promises kept and their opponents’ broken promises. But when was the last time you actually believed a promise made by a political candidate? If you are anything like me, you expect the promises to be broken, if you pay any attention at all to them. Talk becomes cheap when our lives don’t match our words. Paul warned Titus of this, speaking of people he described as corrupted and unbelieving: “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.” (Titus 1:16, NIV) Yet there is another aspect, as well, and that is in our choice of words. We do this by overusing or misusing two kinds of words: First, words that should have special meaning or significance; an...