How to Talk Like a Christian

They say talk is cheap. But the kind of talk Christ calls us to utter — kind, compassionate, caring discourse — is the rarest of commodities and the building block of true Christian conversation.

“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.”

—Ephesians 4:25

 

It’s a simple but reliable principle of human life: how people talk reveals a lot about who they are.

Imagine a person comes up to you and says this: “I was out driving the other day when I had a punctured tyre. I pulled off to the verge and opened the boot. There was no spare. So, I opened the bonnet. Fortunately, a lorry driver saw the raised bonnet and stopped to help me out.”

Anyone who follows that has likely spent some time in the British Isles. Winston Churchill once said the English and Americans are “two great peoples divided by a common language,” and this is a case in point.

Want an American translation? “I was out driving the other day when I had a flat tire. I pulled off to the shoulder and opened the trunk. There was no spare. So, I opened the hood. Fortunately, a truck...