I heard from some teens and parents that the message Saturday hit close to home. I’m not at all surprised to learn that the topics of speaking and listening are quite common between teens and parents. If you would like to study the topic more, you can’t do better than Paul Tripp’s War of Words. I love how Dr. Tripp teaches us that our words reflect our worship:

“This is the bottom line of biblical communication, the first and highest goal of all of our talk: that our words would reflect an attitude of worship that recognizes our utter dependecy on God for salvation.” (p. 76)

Dr. Tripp provides a gospel-centered understanding of words:

• God has a wonderful plan for our words that is far better than anything we could come up with on our own.
• Sin has radically altered our agenda for our words, resulting in much hurt, confusion, and chaos.
• In Christ Jesus we find the grace that provides all that we need to seak as God has planned.
• The Bible plainly and simply teaches us how to get from where we are to where God wants us to be. (pp. 132-133)

“Winning the war of words means speaking redemptively, and speaking redemptively is rooted in a restoration perspective on relationship. The purpose of human relationships is not human happiness. It is the work of reconciling people to God and restoring them to the image of his Son.” (p. 216)

Categories: Drivers Ed, five15 blog