{"id":1443,"date":"2011-01-06T05:00:19","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1443"},"modified":"2011-09-21T00:14:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-21T06:14:00","slug":"tim-tebow-trash-talking-a-tame-tongue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=1443","title":{"rendered":"Tim Tebow, Trash Talking & a Tame Tongue"},"content":{"rendered":"

“People can tame all kind of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue.\u00a0 It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison.\u00a0 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God.\u00a0 Ans so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth.\u00a0 Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!” (James 3:7-10, NLT)<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In just three starts for the Denver Broncos in the final games of the 2010 NFL season, Tim Tebow, the rookie quarterback from the University of Florida, gave Broncos (and Gators) fans something to cheer about.\u00a0 And, even though the Broncos won only one game with Tebow under center, he\u00a0looks poised to\u00a0have a bright future in the Mile High City (provided\u00a0the Broncos don’t do something stupid like draft Andrew Luck).<\/p>\n

As a rookie, Tim Tebow\u00a0seems to have caught the attention of\u00a0the opposing defenses.\u00a0 In addition to\u00a0playing smash-mouth football against Tebow and the Broncos, some opposing players used their mouths to talk smack<\/a>\u00a0into the young ears of pro football’s best known Christian, in the hopes of throwing Tebow off his game.\u00a0 Apparently, this particular defensive scheme has backfired.<\/p>\n

When asked after the Houston game about his trash talking and the trash talking abilities of his opponents<\/a>, Tebow smiled and answered:<\/p>\n

\n

“No, I am not a very big trash talker. I might throw in a ‘God Bless,’ or a ‘Good game,’ or something like that.\u00a0 It’s mostly in a silly situation where I’m stuck under the pile and like eight guys are on top of me or something like that.\u00a0 Some guys might just blow it off, but honestly, most of them laugh.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, if there was ever a situation where you might be tempted to start calling somebody names (not the good kind), it would be from the bottom of a pile in the middle of the football field as 300 pound\u00a0linemen are whispering\u00a0sweet nothings <\/del>yelling insulting\u00a0expletives\u00a0into your ear.\u00a0 But, not Tim Tebow.\u00a0 By offering “blessings”\u00a0instead of “curses,” Tebow is not only following the admonition\u00a0of James 3<\/span>, but is employing the\u00a0Biblical principle found in Proverbs 25:21-22.\u00a0 When his opponents (on the field or behind the microphone) mock TT, his “God bless” response is the modern-day equivalent of heaping burning coals on their heads.\u00a0 Priceless.<\/p>\n

The opponents of Tim Tebow\u00a0— inside and outside of football — would love nothing more than for Tebow\u00a0to fall flat on his face (ain’t gonna happen).\u00a0 Such is the culture that we live in.\u00a0 However, Christians\u00a0should not be surprised\u00a0when they are ridiculed\u00a0, because Jesus told us that this would happen.\u00a0 But, just like Tebow, we should also not be surprised when God blesses us for standing up for our beliefs and values.\u00a0 After all,\u00a0we can be both ridiculed and blessed at the same time!<\/a><\/p>\n

Tim Tebow\u00a0understands that his conduct — actions AND words —\u00a0matter.\u00a0 What he says, both on the field and off the field, will be scrutinized perhaps\u00a0more any other pro football player currently active.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because he is a follower of Christ.<\/p>\n

Everyone (not just Christians)\u00a0would do well to heed James’ warning about our tongues.\u00a0 Whether we are literally using our tongues for speech or are transferring the spoken word to paper (or blogs), we must be careful what we say and how we say it.\u00a0 Just because we use more impersonal means of communication (like blogging) does not mean that we can “let loose” with our tongues.<\/p>\n

No matter how much education or training or experience we think we have,\u00a0our tongues cannot be tamed.\u00a0 If you are married, just ask your spouse and he or she will confirm this very fact.\u00a0 Our tongues, more often than we would like to admit,\u00a0spew forth a deadly poison.\u00a0 We think that we are better than\u00a0the\u00a0linebacker\u00a0shouting profanities at an opposing player, but the fact is that our tongues are just as prone to misfiring.\u00a0 And, when they do, it’s usually a doozy.\u00a0 I’ve too many personal (and painful) stories to confirm this very fact.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if Tim Tebow\u00a0will let his guard down and resort to trash talking on the football field.\u00a0 Even at the still very young age of 23, Tebow\u00a0has thus far shown maturity beyond his years.\u00a0 But, like anyone else, he will have his moments of weakness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the heat of battle, with the game on the line, Tebow\u00a0may just\u00a0be tempted to offer more than his standard “God bless” to one of his hard-charging opponents (and with the Raiders as division rivals, who could blame him).\u00a0 I’m sure you can think of some good lines that Tebow\u00a0could deliver.\u00a0 Personally, I like “I love you, man.”\u00a0 There’s noting quite liking taming your tongue while heaping burning coals on someone else’s head.\u00a0 It might even help him win some games.\u00a0 And, it’s Biblical to boot!\u00a0\u00a0Pretty good advice\u00a0for any of us to follow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“People can tame all kind of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue.\u00a0 It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison.\u00a0 Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God.\u00a0 Ans so blessing and cursing come pouring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,35,38],"tags":[89,3370,304,446,552,681,701,722,3392,928,980,985,998,1022],"class_list":["post-1443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-religion","category-sports","tag-andrew-luck","tag-christianity","tag-denver-broncos","tag-god-bless","tag-jesus-christ","tag-mouth","tag-national-football-league","tag-nfl","tag-religion","tag-speech","tag-the-tongue","tag-tim-tebow","tag-trash-talking","tag-university-of-florida"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-nh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1443"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2660,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions\/2660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}