REPOST Today’s Spiritual Food for Thought is a reprint of Kate Moon’s blog originally posted on May 10, 2014.  Kate continues to serve the Lord in E. Asia.

Spiritual Food for Thought for the Weekend

“One Disadvantage Advantage of Being a Woman”

Titus 2:3

“Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.”

You Just Don’t Understand, by Deborah Tannen, spent four years on the New York Times bestseller list (eight months at number one) because her discussion of the differences between the way that men and women engage in conversation touched a chord.  A look today at some of her insights on the way women use “talking”:

“For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships. Emphasis is placed on displaying similarities and matching experiences . . .. [In contrast,] for most men, talk is primarily a means to preserve independence and negotiate and maintain status in a hierarchical social order. This is done by exhibiting knowledge and skill, and by holding center stage through verbal performance such as storytelling, joking, or imparting information.”

“Girls’ friendships are made and maintained by telling secrets. For grown women too, the essence of friendship is talk, telling each other what they’re thinking and feeling, and what happened that day: who was at the bus stop, who called, what they said, how that made them feel.”

“There is [a] way that the desire to forge connections may be at work in creating gossip. Talking about someone who is not there is a way of establishing rapport with someone who is there. By agreeing about their evaluation of someone else, people reinforce their shared values and world views.”

“Although gossip can be destructive, it isn’t always; it can serve a crucial function in establishing intimacy–especially if it is not ‘talking against’ but simply ‘talking about.’”

What we can see from the excerpts above is that because of the way women use language to engage with one another, they can be much more susceptible to becoming slanderers.  Addressing this tendency, the Bible encourages older women to use their words in more constructive ways.  Teaching others does not necessarily mean by giving lectures (i.e., in the way that Tannen would say is more natural for men).  Women can teach others through conversations that reach out, connect, build intimacy – sharing their lives with others in ways that encourage and build them up, at the same time making every effort to be watchful that they do not cross the line, falling into “talking against” others in the name of sharing what they are going through.

As we share our lives with one another, can we be more mindful of our words today?

Prayer: Lord, remind us of the power of words.  Help us to be alert so that we don’t “let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29).  Amen.

Bible Reading for Today: Isaiah 9