Several years ago I purchased a book by Dr. Minirth called, A Brilliant Mind: Proven Ways to Increase Your Brainpower. Like you, I’d really like to be smarter. So I had a mild hope that this book might help. What I found astounded and disappointed me. The premise of the entire book is that you’ll be smarter when you increase your vocabulary. So the book is full of lists of words to learn, prefixes, roots of words, adjectives, verbs, etc. After a quick leaf through the book I set it down and chocked it off as not super relevant to me.
The idea kept coming back to me that perhaps Dr. Minirth really knew what he was talking about. Today, I can say I’m pretty sure he did. Language is powerful. Your words can be confusing, irrelevant, boring, disabling and offensive; or they can be inspiring, motivating, informative, equipping and empowering. Here’s a great example from Scripture of the power of words (emphasis mine):
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. John 4:39-41
So many times we can be guilty of just saying whatever comes to mind without thinking about what we are saying and how it is being said. This apply’s both inside and outside of the pulpit. When you work hard at communicating clearly and effectively, you are partnering with God to give the very best to those with whom you are talking to.
This 2 minute video illustrates this idea really well. Check it out.