SPEECH ACT: SANCTIFYING THE SOURCE

Speech-act theory is the belief that the words we utter not only convey information and verbal descriptions of our thoughts and desires. In Matthew 12, when Jesus was preaching about the true meaning of the Sabbath. His restless critics, the Scribes and the Pharisees, were busy persecuting and accusing him of the fallacy of his teaching and that all his miraculous performances were not from God but inspired by Satan. Jesus intelligently silenced his accusers with various arguments and evidence. But part of the answers that he pressed deeply into them has to do with their manner of language. He said in Mt. 12:36-37,

“I tell you, on the Day of Judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

The context tells us that the reason why the critics of Jesus don’t believe his words and disregard his irrefutable works was because their hearts were corrupted by an evil bias towards him. There’s something in their hearts and minds that hinders them from seeing the goodness and truth of Jesus. In other words, their speech-act about Jesus is the product of who they are inside.

Speech or language originates from rationality.

Words have an ability to either provoke or conjure up action which can be manifested in various forms. However, it must be put in mind that the nature of speech is not characterized by what we say alone – verbally. Speech or language originates from rationality. It comes from the mind. We think first and then we speak – that’s the pattern. The forming of words and the verbal expression of words to describe what we think, and feel are intelligent features of the human mind. Think about this: Our thoughts are invisible, but we can give them physical or visible manifestation through speech. We call this physical manifestation as verbal expressions.

However, in the physical process of producing speech, we use our tongues and lips to produce an audible sound using the letters of the alphabet and rules of grammar. Animals cannot do this. They can make sounds that tell us about what they feel. They can produce a unique sound for telling us that they feel comfort or pain. Their sound-speech is a production of their instinct. Yet, we know that they lack the rational and moral capacity to explain the nature and motive of their sound-expression. But human speech is an intelligent speech. It comes from the moral and rational nature given to us by the image of God. Therefore, when we speak, we have a moral responsibility in the sight of the Creator. This is the reason why we are admonished to put away “vain words,” that is, words that are not pleasing in the sight of God, because through them the wrath of God falls upon the wicked (Eph. 5:6).

A productive and blessed speech-act is Christ-honoring.

Words or speech becomes unpleasing to God when we doubt what God says in His word and when we disregard the evidence of His existence. Just like the Scribes and Pharisees who untiringly persecuted Jesus, our speech becomes evil, destructive, and useless when we remove Jesus out of our perspective. A productive and blessed speech-act is Christ-honoring.

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