1062) One of my least favorite jobs around the house is cleaning out the refrigerator. I hate it because I’ll reach for containers on the backs of each shelf that have been there a while, and the food they hold will be moldy. Taking them out and disposing of the rotten food is disgusting to me and at the moment, I promise myself I will stay on top of the leftover food on the shelves so it won’t happen again. Unfortunately, this rarely happens.

Most people dislike rotted things and, because of this, the rotten object is avoided or discarded. This makes me wonder why some people, despite their disgust, hold on to rotten things.

Really? Yes, Ephesians 4:29 instructs us to not let unwholesome words come from our mouths and, the Greek word for unwholesome means, you guessed it: rotten. Can words be rotten? Absolutely. In fact, it’s easy to not listen for this in our everyday interactions, but Paul is specific that using our words in this manner makes them rotten and these words can pass the rot from one person to another.

Because using rotten words hurts others and ourselves, it might be wise to clean out the “refrigerator” within our mouths regularly.