The Replacement Principle

Change. It is difficult. It takes work. But it is worth it. Andie Mitchell couldn't agree more. According to the following article, https://www.yahoo.com/health/weight-loss-win-andie-lost-135-pounds-and-gained-116654126457.html, losing 135 pounds was not an easy process. In fact, Mitchell stated that her “weight-loss journey...lasted 13 humbling months.” The weight did not simply disappear from her body. Rather, Mitchell had to discipline herself to make choices that would bring about the change she desired. Describing these choices, Mitchell states: “I started eating better: more fruits, more vegetables. I added salads to my life, swapped my usual snacks for a serving of nuts, and removed soda entirely. I committed to going to the gym five times a week and either doing group fitness classes, using the elliptical, or power walking. I joined Weight Watchers for a few months at one point...six months into my journey, I did the unthinkable: I started jogging...” In the end, Mitchell was rewarded by what she described as “the most exhilarating thing – thinness.”

In the Christian life, sometimes we find ourselves overcome by sin just as Mitchell was overcome by her obesity. One of the areas in which we tend to struggle the most is the area of sins of the tongue. In Respectable Sins, Bridges devotes a chapter to these and specifically discusses the sins of gossip and slander. In both the physical realm and the spiritual realm, change can only be accomplished through application of the replacement principle, or as Bridges calls it, the “put on/put off” principle found in Ephesians 4:22-24 (Bridges 160). These verses instruct us to “lay off the old self” and “put on the new self.” Just as Mitchell chose to put off bad habits of eating unhealthy foods and replace them with habits of eating healthy food and exercising, we must put off habits of gossiping, slandering, etc. and replace them with good habits of thinking and speaking that which is kind, true, and beneficial. As Ephesians 4:29 says “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear” (New American Standard Bible). The process will be difficult, and it may be humbling. In the end, however, it will be worth it and benefit both our relationship with God and our relationships with others.