Today's Scripture Reading (June 2, 2025): Psalm 52
I love Adam Clarke's
(1762-1832) description of the person described in this verse. The Irish
scholar wrote, 'He was all tongue; a man of words; and these the most deceitful
and injurious (Adam Clarke). It is a graphic description of this person. The
comment that he is all tongue speaks directly to the idea that the person is
all talk and no action. If that wasn't bad enough, his words push the boundary
of purposefully spreading lies and causing harm. Reading the description, my
mind traveled to images of the real fake news stories, not those at which
politicians point, where the author sits behind a computer and invents the
news, and then publishes the resultant fiction to see who will buy into the
lie. These people are all tongue, and there must be at least a bit of a thrill
when people buy into the story and begin to spread the lie like the story that
arose a few years ago, which had key Democratic leaders using a New Jersey
pizza parlor as cover for pedophiles. It is a lie that is still shared among
some true believers, dreamed up not in a Pizza Parlor, but at a kitchen table
as a piece of fiction to be shared as truth. The author was all tongue, someone
filled with nothing but words and a desire to cause harm and spread a lie.
It wasn't the first time that
such a thing had happened. History is filled with fictionalized accounts that once
were treated as truth, including an autobiography of reclusive billionaire
Howard Hughes written by Clifford Irving in the 1970s. The autobiography was
published before people realized that it was a work of fiction and that Howard
Hughes had nothing to do with the writing of the book.
Maybe the bigger question is
why anyone would publish lies, especially if they are harmful. For some, it is simply
for economic gain. Others write these harmful words to further an agenda. For some,
it is nothing more than a reaction to the pain they have suffered from the
utterings of others. For still others, and these would be the ones that I
understand the least, they write harmful, untrue things because they enjoy
causing pain.
It seems to be this last
group that David is addressing. He accuses them of loving "every harmful
word." This means that there is no end to the trouble they can cause
because they enjoy every word they are able to write. They love to see the mischief
that they can cause, knowing that the confusion was authored by their
imagination.
I believe that the reaction
to these people should be a radical honesty, and those of us who stand against
the lie need to make sure that we are as honest as possible. There will be
moments when mistakes will be made, and our enemies might accuse us of being "all
tongue." But these moments must be minimized, quickly admitted, and
apologized for. Nothing better can be said of us other than that we are people
of the truth, even if the truth isn't on our side.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
Psalm 34
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