Let’s Talk: Taming the Tongue . . . and the Thumb

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Jackie Hill Perry: Hey everybody. Welcome to the final episode of this season of, Let’s Talk. Jasmine and Melissa and I have really enjoyed talking about applying biblical wisdom to everyday life and we hope that you liked it too. The great thing about a podcast is that the episodes don’t disappear. They don’t go away like Jesus did in the tomb. So if there are any that you might have missed, you can go back and find them at tgc.org/podcast. Again, I’m Jackie Hill Perry. I’m here with Melissa Kruger and Melissa Kruger. And today we’re going talk about taming the tongue and the thumb. Did y’all like how it run?

Melissa Kruger: I think it’s cool. It’s cool.

Jackie Hill Perry: In the book of James, he talks a lot about the tongue. He uses a lot of metaphors to describe it. He says that the tongue is a fire, that the tongue is full of deadly poison, that it’s a restless evil. Why do you think the tongue is described in those terms in the scriptures?

Melissa Kruger: It can do a lot of destruction. You think of a fire, it’s a small little thing and yet it can burn down a whole city. When you think of the forest fires in California thing, I think it’s a rudder. He also talks about, it’s like the rudder of a ship. It can take you places you didn’t mean to get. One of the Proverbs says that our tongues can be like a sword thrust, but that the tongue of the wise can bring healing. So there’s this contrast, but it can do a lot of damage.

Jasmine Holmes: And I think, from personal experience, all of us probably have times where someone said something to us that stuck for a long time, maybe to this day.

Jackie Hill Perry: I’ve always found it interesting that how when Isaiah saw God, in Isaiah 6, how his mouth was the thing that was cleansed. And I always wondered that because he’s a prophet? Like it was the mouth representative of his evil, of his wicked. I don’t know, I just think the tongue really does display who we really are. We’re talking about the tongue but also the thumb. I think it’s a possibility that people have forgotten that what they tweet and what they say, are one and the same. I think we think that just because we typed it, it’s not as impactful. Are there ways in which what you seen tweeted or posted on Instagram or on Facebook. How have they changed you negatively or positively? Because the tongue is also really really really helpful too?

Melissa Kruger: I mean, definitely both. I have not been tweeting or blogging or Instagraming that much. In large part because-

Jackie Hill Perry: You’re a social media mock.

Jasmine Holmes: I am, because it’s just like so much of just not wanting to… Oh, number one, not wanting to contribute to the noise. I just see a lot of noise and a lot of people who are talking just because that’s what we do, we talk. But then number two, I’m just afraid if they kickback. I just don’t think that people are going to give the benefit of the doubt. If I say something that could be taken the wrong way, or if I say something that is ambiguous. We live in an age where there’s no ambiguity. You’re either for or against-

Melissa Kruger: And we don’t really give each other the benefit of the doubt, like you were saying, and I think that’s one of the hardest things. And I think there’s something that’s even more dangerous about the thumb. Because at least when I speak, I’m speaking to you, I can see your face.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s true.

Melissa Kruger: I can see how it affected you. I can see you question now,” What did you mean by that”? And so then I can follow up and say, “I like red shirts.” And you look at me funny. I can say, “But I like blue shirts too.” Or whatever might be. I mean, I can follow up on… It’s a real conversation where sometimes in the Twitter world… Probably in Twitter in particular, It’s like people go out. It feels like looking for. “Oh, so you’re saying this?” When they weren’t saying that. But there’s just no benefit of the doubt. It doesn’t feel like an honest question.

Melissa Kruger: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And people have internet courage, for sure. Because there’re things people say online that I know they wouldn’t say to my face. Or people who have met in person and they’re like,”Wow, what a nice person,” like nothing really offensive about that person. Nothing really. And they get online. You’re like, “who is who?” Like “Who are you?”

Melissa Kruger: It could be that our fear of men sometimes is the thing that has as tamper our conversation and our language in front of people. But I think what Twitter and all these other places have done is show us how much we actually don’t fear God. Because if I fear God, then I would… It doesn’t matter if I’m on Twitter or in person, I’m going to treat you with respect and dignity because God cares about it. Even when you follow James, it talks about how blessing and cursing are coming out of the same place and how that should not be the case among Christians. So we need a heart transplant.

Jasmine Holmes: We do.

Jackie Hill Perry: You’re preaching.

Melissa Kruger: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Jackie Hill Perry: We fear… Say that again

Melissa Kruger: I don’t know what I said.

Jasmine Holmes: You said… Well, I won’t butcher it. But you said that because of our fear of men, we often tamper our words when we’re with people. But if we fear God, our words be tempered with people as well as online.

Jackie Hill Perry: Absolutely. I like that what you said.

Melissa Kruger: Thank you.

Jackie Hill Perry: That was good.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah, because it’s the meditation of my heart that’s going to lead to the overflow of my mouth. So if I’m thinking on God, and I’m in the world, and I’m trying to love my brother, rather than just… sometimes it just feels like I’m here to give the best argument. And when in some ways, and it’s not often. It doesn’t often seem rooted in love. But I do see people doing it well. What are some signs of people who are living in the online world? Well, because I do think it’s actually important.

Melissa Kruger: There are times I read things that really do remind me. “Oh, that’s right. This is true.” That’s really encouraging to hear that she struggles with the same thing, too. I mean, so how do we enter into that space in a good way? We know there’s a lot of bad ways. We see it every single day. It makes me perhaps wrongly, just want to retreat and say I’m only going to have real conversations with real people in front of me because that’s the only way it can be done in a healthy manner. But we live in an online world and a lot of people are talking, so how can we enter into that space in a gracious way?

Jasmine Holmes: It sounds really simple. But just thinking before we type, and thinking before we react, and the Bible says that we’re to be quick to hear, and slow to speech. And I think that we’ve got that backwards, we’re really quick to speak and react. Everything needs a reaction. And there’s even when something bad happens in the world, and if you don’t say something, if you don’t tweet something about that bad thing that has happened, well, then you don’t care about it. And if you’re not Johnny on the spot involved in every conversation that’s going on, well, it must just be because you’re not interested in it. And it leads to this entire world where we are suppose to be giving hot takes. We’re suppose to be speaking as much and as quickly as humanly possible, or we’re not relevant anymore. And so I always admire people who take their time and give a measured response. Maybe it’s not the first one that you’re going to see, but yeah, I find that those are the most impactful for me. Yeah.

Jackie Hill Perry: And it would be hard for me to imagine there’re people who are slow to speak in real life would be quick to speak on Twitter. Because I think it has to come out of a character. And so I think if you’re practicing it with real people, then you practice it with real people online. But another important aspect of James, because I think James just speaks a lot to it is wisdom. The wisdom that comes from above is gentle, and peaceable. Is that the word?

Jackie Hill Perry: And so maybe what has to happen is one, we see our social media accounts as something that we’re supposed to steward onto God. And with that, we ask God for the wisdom to be able to navigate in a way that would glorify Him. Maybe we don’t use or see social media with that same kind of intention, but I think we should, because it’s important. What we say is important because God is… He created the tongue. So we should use the tongue to glorify Him and dignify the people he’s made in His image. I think if you don’t have anything good to say at all, just tweet scriptures. Honestly, and get up off that thing. That helps.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah, that can be helpful. There are times when I’ve just been scrolling and the most encouraging thing that I saw was a verse.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. Which is actually rare.

Jasmine Holmes: Yeah. I guess or just encouraging thought, God is good. Okay, that’s really simple. But yes, He is.

Jackie Hill Perry: Were you the one that told me that one time, I don’t know that you had a tweet, and you send it to a friend before you send it out, and the friend was like, “No.” Can you tell us about that?

Jasmine Holmes: I do that all the time with my husband, or my friends. I will respond to something viscerally. And then I will send it to Philip or I’ll send it to a friend of mine and say, “Can I say this? And nine times out of 10 they’re like, “No.” I’m always so glad. And I can’t In fact, remember one time where I tweeted without sending it to somebody first. Phillip was out of town, and he texted me because I got into a huge debate with somebody. And I was like, “You believe him?” And Phillip was like, “Actually, you’re wrong. You’re not being kind.” And the initial tweet was probably really ill advised. And I was like, “Okay.” So I got on my… I just apologize. I was like, “Hey, I took it down, not because I was trying to hide it, but because it wasn’t the right thing to say, and I’m really sorry.”

Jasmine Holmes: And that’s a hard thing to do online, because I think that we are very much… Our culture or online culture is training us to dig our heels into the sand. And well, if you really were thinking that you wouldn’t have taken it that way. Or of course, I didn’t mean and it just allows us to be really disingenuous, and so the fact that I had to go on and say “Hey, I tweeted this out anger, and I didn’t really give you an opportunity to say what you were actually trying to say. And I’m sorry.”

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: That’s such an example though. to me, that’s actually a really good use. Because you publicly said it maybe in a way you wish you couldn’t. You didn’t say it. And then you publicly repented of it. Just saying I should have said it that way or whatever. And I think that’s a witness, to say this “Okay, I hurt you, and I probably should have said it differently.” I think that can be… It can show a lot of humility.

Jasmine Holmes: Well, it was cautionary too, because I think about that every time I want to tweet off something just real spicy unless you want to get up and apologize. Real spicy. Okay, well, then maybe let’s not. So it helps a lot.

Melissa Kruger: Well, so how does this look in your homes? Do you ever get into trouble with your time in your homes? I mean, I never do everything.

Jackie Hill Perry: All the time.

Melissa Kruger: I always sing in my home.

Jackie Hill Perry: So I can be very quick to speak because this isn’t praise, but I’m quick to think. I can think very fast. So things can come out or not… I’m quick to think and quick to listen. And so I’ve heard you and I’ve dissected half of it before you finish so I already have a response. And so I think what my children and my husband and even other people in my home, it can be hard. Even two days ago, Preston had called me, I think I called him. He didn’t call me. And he said something that just got on my nerves for no reason. I was just tired. And I just got real sharp and spicy. And I felt convicted about it. So I came home and I was like, “Hey, I’m sorry about saying what I said.” He was like, “What do you mean?” Which means he’s used to my messages. He was like, “What did you say?” I was like, “What I said wasn’t wrong, it was how I said it. It was not necessary to say.”

Jackie Hill Perry: And I’m grateful for this Spirit and how he convicts us of things that could be manipulated to seem like I was justified in saying what I said, when I knew that my heart was a heart of impatience, which isn’t kindness. But yeah, I’m pretty bad. I’m getting better. I’m getting better. Sanctification is a thing, but I’m not the best.

Jasmine Holmes: Something my mom said to me when I first got married was… Because I can be a really bad argue or I can just say things just to be me. And she was like, “You can’t just continually say things, just tear somebody down, and think that you’re just going to be able to take it back and it’s not going to impact them, and it’s not going to impact a relationship. One day, you’re going to say something, and it’s going to land way deeper. And it’s going to take a very long time to get to that wound.” And it’s like… That always stuck with me because especially being married, it’s like I can’t go nowhere. So sometimes you just say things because you can apologize later, and he’ll forgive you and it’ll be fine, but her words really stuck with me like, “Yeah he might forgive you but those wounds might take longer to heal.” Then you can even imagine just from something quick, then you just throw out.

Melissa Kruger: Because it’s usually rooted in some truth, even when we wish we could recall it, it’s normally something that we spewed out there was real, we just didn’t package it very well. I think for me the hardest is with my kids. I can be the type who just bottles it for a while, so I’ll be really… I’m not saying anything “And that socks still there, and that socks still there, and that socks still there,” and then “Why is this sock still there?” They’re like, “Well gosh, the socks been there for days and …

Jackie Hill Perry: She’s a tornado now?

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. And then they’re little eyes just looking at you and like “Where do the monster come from?” And the reality is, I wasn’t being patient. I was not taking the time to even tell them. “Hey, to be a part of this house, you need to be responsible.” And in a calm way, say,”You need to clean up that for yourself.” I mean, I had just bypass it and didn’t want to deal with it, And then it will overflow in this way. But the thing I’ve learned that I have to do, is even if my child was doing something they weren’t supposed to do, but if I react wrongly with my words, I still have to apologize for my words. My words are mine. No one causes my words to come out badly but me. And so easy way back. “You made me mad so I had to say it that way.” Because of you, You’re the only person who makes me this way or whatever.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. One thing you said made me think of how having pre-requisite conversations can help us be more careful with our words later on. So, like at the first time you saw the sock, let’s talk about this, can we pick it up? You know what I’m saying? And I’ve seen that in my own relationships where I’ll just try to just get over it, but I’ll just grow bitter and so my language becomes bitter when I just could have dealt with it a week ago, and just had the awkward weird difficult conversation that I didn’t want to have but now I end up saying it against you because I was mad.

Jasmine Holmes: Yep. And not to make this wisdom with my mother, but she… that’s another thing. She’s always… in first Corinthians 13, it talks about how love overlooks, and she was like, “That doesn’t mean that you over… if you’re going to overlook it, you have to overlook it. You can’t save it up for later.” So if it’s not something that you can just completely overlook and never mention again, say something. That’s always been a hard one for me because I’ll tell myself “Oh, I’m doing the loving thing by not saying something right now.” But then the 10th time it happens, then instead of just saying, “Hey, right now you’re doing this and I don’t like it? I’m like, “Hey, you’re doing this, and I’ve been saving up bitterness against you for the past 10 times you did it?” So like-

Melissa Kruger: And they have no idea.

Jasmine Holmes: No clue. It’s not fair. So it’s like, “Am I really going to overlook this? And is it really over-

Melissa Kruger: And gone.

Jasmine Holmes: Then great. That’s super loving. Good job. But so many times that’s not what I’m doing. I’m just saying that I am just to save it up for later.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. So another I think route that the tongue could take is one of slander and gossip. If you’re not the one gossiping, maybe you’re the one in a room full of gossip and slander, sometimes it can be couched in “I’m praying for this person.” We’ll spiritualize I’ll say, what do you do when you’re in the situation? You might think you’re taming your tongue because you’re not using it-

Jasmine Holmes: You’re not participating-

Jackie Hill Perry: How do you? Yeah.

Jasmine Holmes: That goes back to what you said about fear of man versus fear of God. Because fear of man, it’s just going to have me like, “Well, I just won’t say anything and I’m just going to stay out of it.” Fear of God will give you what you need to do to say, “Hey, I’m not comfortable with this conversation.” Like, “I found you just saying she’s not here.” So I just don’t think we should talk about this, or I don’t feel right when she’s not here to defend herself. And it can be hard because you never want to be that person in the room. It’s just like,” Well,” I mean, there’s such a stigma to being that person that’s going to ruin everybody else’s fun. Yes, because righteousness is seen as self righteousness. Because there is a way that you could be self righteous. But I would never[crosstalk 00:20:08] Gossip and how dare you[inaudible 00:20:10] just out of, I can’t believe you. It’s different being like, “Oh, I’m just not[she’s not here. Let’s just change the subject and just move on.

Melissa Kruger: And when you do that, and I watch you, if I was in that conversation, and I saw you say, “Let’s not do that.” I can say one thing. I’ve seen people do that, and I forever trust them afterwards. One of my friends said that gossip can create a false sense of intimacy. Because the three of us are sitting here and we’re saying, “Oh, that person is so bad.” So for a moment, we feel this united front. But then what happens if I walk out, because I know we were just doing that. I now have lost trust. I’m thinking, “Are they talking about me?” But whereas when you see someone do what you did, and I think that’s how the tongue of the wise brings healing, I’m like, “Oh, that’s a real friend. She would have my back, And she would-”

Jackie Hill Perry: Because the tongue can destroy and protect. I think part of protecting is building up and just may… That might be a proverb somewhere where it’s just you want to protect the reputation of people, which I think slander seeks to tear down. Because there are times where I might know something true about somebody that’s not even super scandalous. But if I mentioned it, it might change the perception of that person in somebody else. And I don’t want to be the cause of someone not hoping the best in another person just because me sharing something small but something important.

Jasmine Holmes: And just to clarify, I don’t always do that. I don’t need to. There are times when pettiness wins out, but that’s what I should do.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. I think another place so we talked about gossip and slander. Unfortunately with the tongue there are so many different words that describe, and one that I think we see a lot even in our Christian culture is boasting. And it’s really hard and a lot of the world’s run because we rightly want to share, “Okay, I wrote this book, or this album out.” I mean, there’s this right place for sharing what is true and what we hope will lead people back to Jesus. I mean, hopefully, but then there’s also this problem with boasting so especially in the Christian world, how do we distinguish between the two of those?

Jasmine Holmes: It’s so hard. Often I am just paralyzed and posting anything because I’m like, “I just think that this person is cool, and I enjoy spending time with them.” But is it okay to tell people that I want this person or I did write this book and it does need to sell so I didn’t tell you about it, but it is hard to tow that line between, “Hey, I’m doing this, and I think it’s cool but I’m doing this.” But what I’m doing, what I’m able to be involved in, that’s really me. And that’s really a blessing. I’m not the really neat second coming blessing. And I think one of the hugest things in that is that we can’t judge other people and why they’re sharing, simply based of the fact that they are sharing. It will be totally unfair for me to look at Jackie’s Instagram and see her post her Jews study and go ” Oh, that Jackie, she just thinks she’s so amazing.”

Jackie Hill Perry: Look at her, bragging about doing a Bible study.

Jasmine Holmes: But it’s like no, she wrote it. So she’s trying to let people know that it’s available, but I could very easily turn that into… And when you do that, it says more about you than it does about the person that you’re trying to judge for boasting. So, boasting for me is more of a heart check for myself than something that I’m looking at somebody else going, “Oh, yeah, I know why they posted that picture.”

Jackie Hill Perry: Because if really is a hard thing because someone could try to follow in Paul’s footsteps or say it and say, “Well, I’m only boasting my weaknesses.” But even that can be a means of pride. You want to come off as humble. You want to come off as low in the base when really your heart is not boasting so that God will be glorified, but so people would pity you. That’s not pity, but perhaps pity. That’s a whole another conversation. So I think that’s why out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. A humble heart, even when saying certain things will try to remain humble. There’s a lot of stuff… There’s time sometimes where I know I don’t mean it in pride. But I know it might even be assumed to be that, so I refrain. And so, I think there’s just some wisdom but also I remember thinking one time I was like “Why can’t nobody feel they’ve been prior when they say “Hey, I cook some bomb spaghetti last night.”” Nobody gets reviewed for being proud of their spaghetti, so why should I feel I need to hide the accomplishments that I have because you might think that is a certain thing? Yeah, I think it’s a balance.

Jasmine Homes: Yeah, there’s definitely a balance. That’s true, because, I mean, I’d be posting my spaghetti

Jasmine Holmes: I mean, there’s all kinds of stuff. And I just really think and the best advice that anybody ever gave me because with moms it’s a big thing with this whole mommy subculture of my kids are sleeping on their organic mattress and my… And I heard somebody-

Jasmine Holmes: Yes, I had someone I posted a birth picture. I love birth. I love everything about birth. I love everybody’s birth. I want to hear everything about y’all between podcasts. I’m like, “What? “So this happened?”

Melissa Kruger: So how many hours?

Jasmine Holmes: How many hours? “Oh my goodness, what position were you in?” So I posted and they’re like, “I just hate when people are always bragging about their good birth stories.” It’s just I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m happy. I’m sorry. It was good. So we have to be careful not to be that other person.

Melissa Kruger: Yes, because I think we do know the heart of boasting is trying to put selfness. Which is really different than trying to say, “Hey, this is a cute picture my child.” Sharing self is different than turning every conversation back to me. I mean, and you can do that in conversation. You can do that online. You can do that in any realm. If you’re self centered, it’s going to come out in your time

Jasmine Holmes: And there’s balance. There’s a given take of maybe sometimes I am talking about my plants because they’re popping, or maybe sometimes I’m talking about a weakness that I have that I want prayer for. Or maybe sometimes I’m talking about my kids. And so I think that there’s also a balance of you can’t just be sitting in wait for the one time that somebody says something like, “Oh, you know, my new Bible study came out” and be like, “I knew it. I knew that you were going to be, but I was waiting.”

Jasmine Holmes: And I think that brings up another topic, which is as listeners when we’re hearing people speak and watching people speak online, there can be this sense of setting snares for other people and waiting for them to quote unquote, mess up, so that we can exalt in how they messed up. Which again, back to 1 Corinthians 13, which I go back to a lot and I think that people often because it’s such… I don’t want to say overused, because it’s the Bible, but it’s used so often in like, “Maybe like a wedding verse or maybe it’s on a wall in somebody’s house.” I think they we get tired of 1 Corinthians 13. But there’s so much about love in speech of, Love does not rejoice in wrong suffered. It’s not sitting there waiting for wrongdoing. It finds no pleasure in that. And I think we do need to be on the flip side as listeners not finding pleasure and when people don’t speak well or say something that’s not godly.

Melissa Kruger: And in fact, love rejoices with the truth. So if my sisters are doing gospel work, writing Bible studies, and putting out books that are going to encourage people in the faith, rather than sit in judgment of them, I feel like I should actually be cheering them on and saying, “Hey, I’m so excited.” I mean, it’s hard to write a book. It’s hard to do some of the things that people are called to do. It’s hard to parent. It’s hard to make the spaghetti, I can cheer you on for just spaghetti. But rather than go in looking to judge even with our words, our words can be judgmental too. I can look in and say, “How can I spur my sister on toward love and good deeds?” And that’s a whole different way of just looking at one another. And again, it starts in the heart and then it overflows with the thumb or the tongue or however we do it. But it’s going to overflow in being for one another, because the reality is, we’re on the same team.

Jasmine Holmes: That’s one of the most important things that can be said in this episode, I think is that brothers and sisters in Christ are on the same team. And as many schisms and tribes, however we want to divide ourselves, we have to remember that. Because it’s so easy to forget when we’re speaking loose words or writing loose things online.

Jackie Hill Perry: Do each of you have any, I guess something practical that people could do to begin to reign in their tongue? How do we grow in that?

Melissa Kruger: You know it helps me… I do Journal. I’ve journaled since I was like 15-years-old. And there’s something about writing it all out… And I write out my prayers. That’s what I’m doing. So it starts dear Lord, then I write it all out. And sometimes the things you want to say, even to my husband or to my kids, it gets absorbed in some sense, because I said it to the Lord. And there’s something about getting it out with him. And then especially when there’s someone who’s really hurt me, because that’s someone I’m most likely to talk poorly about, even with my husband, and I don’t think it’s okay to gossip with my husband. We often think “I’m allowed to say anything I want to.” But if I do that to him, he just get a different view of that person in our church. I mean, it’s dangerous in any relationship.

Melissa Kruger: And so when I go to the Lord and I write it out, sometimes it just relieves some of that. And I remember who I am, the grace I need. Because most of it is based in judgment. When I want to gossip about someone, I’m basically looking down on them for whatever it might be. And so I think… And so it’s a form of prayer. But for me, when I write it, it makes me slow down.

Jackie Hill Perry: That’s true. That’s really good.

Jasmine Holmes: Mine is. If I see something online that I don’t like this, somebody said, If I am not willing to hop in their inbox and rebuke them privately, if I don’t have the courage to do that, the mounting to have the courage to critique them. That’s for me. Now, I know the public things, people can say things back publicly. I do think that’s okay. But for me personally, that’s how I guard myself from having a public persona that’s rooted in constantly being combative. And so I may say something online, but if I’m not willing to go to that person privately, then I just don’t say it.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. Yeah, both to my answer. So I’ll just give a small caveat. I think with prayer, I think specifically for me, praying for wisdom that God would allow me to be a woman that uses wisdom with her words. And I think another one is praying for love, I think out of love, when you really really care about people, you just become more careful. Whether it’s even one on one. I’ve had times where I’m talking to somebody, and I’m not even listening to them. I’m just like, “Okay, that’s crazy. My tongue isn’t damaging anything, but it’s also not truthful, because I’m not really listening to you. And so just being challenged and I guess, wanting God to help me be a woman that cares about the people that I speak to, that does a lot. So you guys use your words great. That’s why we’re doing a podcast with your words on it.

Melissa Kruger: Thank you.

Jackie Hill Perry: See how I just built you up right there. You saw that?

Jasmine Holmes: To build up, to show love. Sometimes that means saying hard things. I just want to stress that doesn’t mean that you never rebuke somebody doesn’t mean that you never say things that are not hard to hear. Doesn’t mean that you never… I don’t want that to be misconstrued that we’re saying like, “Oh, if you’re not always a bucket full of sunshine and rainbows, then you can’t speak.” But speaking to people like they’re members of our own body. If I had to pull a splitter out of my hand, I would not get a pair of pliers.

Jasmine Holmes: Right. And I wouldn’t be so… It would be like conducting surgery because it’s my hands and I feel that I don’t want that to hurt. And I think that’s how we need to be talking to other people.

Jackie Hill Perry: Yeah. Hebrews 3:13 it says, exhort one another every day, as long as it’s called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And that’s important that I am an exhorting woman. Exhortation doesn’t mean that I just talked about all the great things about you, but wholeheartedly, I lift you up, I build you up. If that means correcting that means correcting, if that means acknowledging a part of you that’s grown that you don’t even notice, I’m helping you not be discouraged. Yeah, I think if we just thought about what would I need to make it? That helps you know what other people might need?

Jasmine Holmes: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Melissa Kruger: Absolutely. That’s good. It’s just other centered in our words. Thinking what does she need versus what do I want to say here?

Jackie Hill Perry: All right. Our favorite thing is to talk about people talking. And this podcast is called Let’s Talk. And if you’ve been listening, you know that we end it talking about our favorite things. Today the question is, What’s your favorite meal?

Melissa Kruger: Mine’s easy. I love pizza.

Jackie Hill Perry: What kind of pizza?

Melissa Kruger: I can have any kind. I could eat pizza every single day. I can have frozen pizza one day. I could have fancy pizza, the next day tie chicken pizza

Jackie Hill Perry: Do you eat the pineapple pizza?

Melissa Kruger: I don’t do pineapple.

Jackie Hill Perry: I never understood that. I guess I don’t get the sweet and the salty thing.

Melissa Kruger: Yeah. The pineapple.

Jasmine Holmes: I wouldn’t choose it. I don’t mind it, but I wouldn’t like order it. If it was there, I’d be like, “Okay.” Yeah.

Melissa Kruger: I was always a cheap date for my husband, because I genuinely was like, “Yeah, for my birthday we can just go for pizza.” And I’m completely happy.

Jackie Hill Perry: I’m with that.

Jasmine Holmes: I actually… So, my favorite meal changes from time to time, but the best meal that I have had in recent memory was I went to this place in Jackson called Power Market. It was Braised Beef Short Rib

Jackie Hill Perry: Anything braise is good.

Jasmine Holmes: Yes. And it was with gnocchi And the whole thing just melt… Which is the most amazing thing that I have ever eaten. And I’m still waiting for something to top that. You still like such an adult. I sound like an eight-year-old kid.

Jackie Hill Perry: Pizza is a really good situation. You got cheese, you got bread, you got tomato sauce, you got some protein. It’s just-

Jackie Hill Perry: I have expectations that we will have a pizza delivery service in New Jerusalem.

Melissa Kruger: Amen.

Jackie Hill Perry: That ain’t in the Bible, but I’m just believing God. Oh, I trust him.

Melissa Kruger: Absolutely.

Jackie Hill Perry: Can you imagine heavenly Pizza?

Jackie Hill Perry: The pigs don’t have GMOs or anything, they’ve been raised by Angels.

Melissa Kurger: They won’t go to your hips, that’s I’m thinking about.

Melissa Kruger: Unlike your glorified hips. They don’t lie.

Melissa Kurger: You don’t have to go for a run

Jackie Hill Perry: No, you don’t, unless you want to.

Melissa Kurger: And if you one you’ll be out of breath.

Jackie Hill Perry: Anyway my favorite meal. I have a lot of favorites because if you know me you know I’m a foodie but I think the one that I like the most is a real authentic carbonara. Because carbonara is not an Alfredo it should not be coming out of a can, it should be made with egg yolk and pepper, Parmesan. Maybe peas always pancetta.

Melissa Kruger: Do you have a recipe?

Jackie Hill Perry: No. Because, I think real carbonara actually takes some skill.

Jasmine Holmes: Do you just like Italian food in general?

Jackie Hill Perry: I like starch. So-

Jasmine Holmes: If you come over my house I’m going to make you and penne a la vodka. I make an amazing vodka cream sauce.

Jackie Hill Perry: From scratch or out of a jar?

Jasmine Holmes: Ma’am.

Jackie Hill Perry: Wow.

Melissa Kruger: I think that was an insult.

Jackie Hill Perry: People think it’s from scratch because they bought the noodles themselves.

Jasmine Holmes: No ma’am. I make my pasta sauce from scratch.

Jackie Hill Perry: Okay, excuse me. I spoke wrongly

Jackie Hill Perry: Thanks for hanging out with us for this season of Let’s Talk. If you find yourself needing something to listen to, while we are gone minding God business and loving our families in Jesus, we hope you’ll subscribe to other shows from the Gospel Coalition Podcast Network which you can also find at tdc.org/podcasts. The Gospel Coalition connects Christians to resources that apply the truth and beauty of the gospel to all of life.