TV news magazine 20/20 just featured the case of Michelle Carter. She was recently convicted and sentenced for involuntary manslaughter in what has been described as the ”texting suicide” case. Carter was deemed responsible for the death of her boyfriend Conrad Roy, primarily through her communications with the victim in which she goaded him to commit suicide. The episode was entitled, “Can Words Kill?”
A review of the text message conversations between Carter and Roy revealed that in the weeks before Roy took his own life, Carter had prodded him to “do it” no less than forty times. She even offered suggestions on how to get it done. Yet, opinions vary whether her words were merely reprehensible or downright criminal. In the end, it appears the guilty verdict was based on the final phone conversations between the two (which Carter recounted to a friend via text message). At that point Roy tried one final time to back out from actually killing himself. But Carter vehemently told him to go back and complete the task. He did.
Whether or not the verdict was justified, the whole account got me to thinking about the power of words and what scripture has to say about the matter. There is no doubt that words have the power to destroy. And their destructive power can be quite extensive, even bring about severe consequences. It is foolish to underestimate their power.
James writes: “A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell” (James 3.5–6 The Message). Jesus himself warns us: “Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously” (Matthew 12.36 The Message).
Now the power of words is not just destructive. Words are also powerful tools for good and building up. The challenge is to be vigilant in the use of words so that we do not become an accomplice to their destructiveness. Rather, scripture urges us: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4.29 ESV).
In this world, a word war rages. Some use words to take down; others to build up. Followers of Christ use words, as would Christ: “The words I told you are spirit, and they give life” (John 6.63 NCV).
—Keith Y. Jainga