© 2021 Don Pinson | [Download]
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What difference do words make anyway?  So what if one says ‘isn’t’ and someone else says ‘ain’t’?  As one comedian said, “Saying ‘ain’t’ is sure better than saying ‘aresn’t’!”  While people’s expressions can be humorous, the reality is:  Words are important.  The Bible says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” (Proverbs 18:21).

Words are important!  Words communicate ideas.  Ideas in our thoughts produce actions in our bodies.  Those actions will produce life or death for us and others, particularly the next generation.

The ‘watering down’ of our language is doing great harm to our American way of life.  Knowing fewer definitions to words keeps us from understanding the language of our Founding Fathers.  Their writings were powerful because they could communicate such profound truth with so few words.  Many of the words they used we now have no clue what they mean.  This means we likely will never learn the precious principles of education, government, and economy, which they knew.  Running its full course, that lack of understanding means we’ll give away the liberty they sacrificed so much to secure for us.

Let me illustrate what I mean with the word virtue.  Few people now know what virtue means.  Listen to the importance our Founders attached to that word:

John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence stated:

“A Republic must either preserve its virtue, or lose its liberty.”

John Adams, signer of both the Declaration and the Constitution said,

“Private and public virtue are the only foundation of a republic.”

Benjamin Rush, another Founder, and the Father of America’s original public schools, wrote that the only foundation of education must be in Biblical religion.  Then he stated:

“Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”

If our liberty is based on virtue, then wouldn’t you think knowing what the word virtue means would be very important?  Indeed it is.  Yet many, perhaps most, don’t know what it means.  What does the word virtue mean?  Noah Webster’s original 1828 American Dictionary defines it for us, and since that dictionary was written in our Founders’ day, it was the meaning they ascribed to that word.  Webster says virtue means “moral goodness”.  Fine:  But what does moral mean?  He defines moral as:  “…actions that are good or evil…and has reference to the law of God as the standard by which their character is to be determined.”  So virtue, meaning moral goodness would mean ‘actions which the Bible would call good’.

Thus, all that can preserve our liberty is ‘actions which the Bible would classify as good’.  In other words, living by the Bible is all that will preserve the liberty of America.  The individual governing his own passions under the leadership and by the power of the Holy Spirit of God is the key to preserving the liberty of our children to get to hear the truth.

So we must return to teaching Biblical truths in the education of our children both at home and in the school.  Words are important!

Consider these words from God through Moses, “…therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy [descendants] may live…” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children!  And you won’t like what that brings to you.  I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.