Dr. Deb
Roy, a researcher and cognitive scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, recorded the first 3 years of his child’s life to learn how humans
acquire language. He and his wife rigged their home with recording devices,
which they used to collect over 200,000 hours of audio and video footage.
Amassing, condensing, and editing the recordings enabled them to hear baby
sounds like “gaga” evolve into words like “water.”
If someone
wanted to conduct a research project at your home, would you participate if you
knew that your every syllable would be recorded and analyzed? What would the
study reveal? Proverbs 18 offers insight about some unwise speech patterns. The
writer notes that foolish people express their own opinions instead of trying
to understand what others have to say (v.2). Does this characterize us? Do we
sometimes provoke fights with our words (v.7), or speak impulsively and “answer
a matter before [hearing] it”? (v.13).
We need
to become students of our speech. With God’s help we can identify and transform
destructive dialogue into words of encouragement that are “good for necessary
edification” and that “impart grace to the hearers” (Eph. 4:29).
Our words
have the power to build up or tear down. (RBC)
