The most powerful part of a person’s anatomy is that little, movable, muscular structure attached to the floor of the mouth. All of us at one time or another have been victimized by tongue power. In Shakespeare’s play Othello, Iago stands in awe of the tongue’s power when he says, "who steals my purse steals trash ... but he who filches from me my good name ... makes me poor indeed."

God commands that we say nothing about a neighbor which would even tarnish his name. He wishes that we defend our neighbor, speak well of him and put the best construction on everything. Unfortunately, we destroy him in three subtle ways.

First by gossiping. How often have we savored a choice piece of gossip and then shared it with someone else? "Have you heard about Jill? I saw her having lunch with her boss." Finger-pointing and fault-finding are favorite pastimes of the gossiper. The dubious art of gossip murders good character.

Our second subtlety is the sin of insidious inference. While not directly accusing, inference suggests that that which appears to be pristine on the surface may not be after all. A statement like, "Can’t imagine why Beth is so popular with the guys ... It’s certainly not her personality," is an example of this kind of destructive language.

Finally we can do violence to our neighbor by the unsaid word. Christians cannot isolate themselves from a situation in which a neighbor’s name is being maligned no more than they can be an uninvolved spectator of a rape. They must act in both cases. One can rape a name just as well as a body.

Tongue power - an awesome power! All would do well to pray the prayer of the psalmist, "Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord, keep watch over the door of my lips!"