The Talker

“For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.”   1 Thessalonians 1:8

Have you ever known someone that talks a lot?  I call this kind of a person ‘a talker’?  To my dismay, my wife tells me I am this type.  I don’t believe it but maybe it’s true.  As many of you know, I have been in the auto repair business for years and I have met my share of ‘talkers’.  I don’t know what it is about the auto business that causes the ‘talkers’ to come around but I suppose it’s like the local barber shop in a small town. 

I’m thinking of one man in particular that would come to my shop in Texas.  I knew I was in for a long conversation when he would prop his foot on the rear bumper of a pickup truck, throw his hat back and begin.  Sometimes those conversations seemed to last for hours.  He was ‘a talker’.  I also knew a person that could begin a story and no matter how long the gap they could later pick up where they left off.  It is a hard task to listen to someone that goes on and on about something they think is interesting but to you it means nothing.  I hope this doesn’t mean I’m not a good listener because I know the great importance there is for us to listen to others.  I think you know what I’m talking about. (Smile)  

Talking is not bad in itself; it all depends on what we are talking about.  It can be a great asset to us or it can be our defeat.  The Bible has much to say about the tongue and what comes out of our mouths.  We are warned by Paul, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”(Ephesians 4:29) And again he warns, let “Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient” (Ephesians 5:4) to be a part of our conversation.  What we have to say as believers can have an enormous effect on what others think of us and Who we represent. 

In my title verse the Apostle speaks of a group of believers that certainly had it right in what they spoke.  Their conversation was, “the word of the Lord”!  It was “sounded out” as if it was a trumpet.  In Barns notes, he puts it this way, “The word rendered "sounded out" - ἐξήχηται exēchētai - refers to the sounding of a trumpet (Bloomfield), and the idea is, that the gospel was proclaimed like the sonorous voice of a trumpet echoing from place to place;”.  Wow! A “sonorous voice”, I like that!  These people left nothing undone in their speaking of the things of Christ and the gospel, so much that Paul commented, “so that we need not to speak any thing”. 

Now before I’m accused of being ‘a talker’ by writing a long post, let me bring this home by asking you the same questions I have to ask myself.  What do I talk about? Is it the Word of God?  Am I as excited about Christ and His salvation as I was in the beginning?  Do I shout it out like a trumpet, the love I have for the Savior?

Lord I pray I can be called ‘a talker’ for You and not for myself. I love you, Delle!!!