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).
