An Instructive Ditty: “Be careful, little lips, what you say. Be careful, little ears, what you hear.” Those are some of the lyrics to a children’s ditty I recall from my church-saturated childhood. If you were reared in church, you may remember them, too.

Text: “You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:16).

Teaching: Per Scripture, the tongue is a dangerous creation:

 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell (James 3:5-6).

Ever been slandered? Ever been gossiped about? Of course, we all have. If you haven’t, count yourself lucky.

But God’s people are to be better than that. We are to remember the Lord, that the Lord sees, and that we will answer. “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12).

Encouragement: There’s a lot of biblical wisdom in that children’s ditty, isn’t there?