“Evildoers are trapped by their sinful talk, and so the innocent escape trouble.” Nobody can lie so flawlessly that they won’t eventually be caught in their own lies. When we succeed in lying, two things happen: (1) we get emboldened to tell other, further stretching and deeper lies, out of which we will eventually be caught, and (2) the lie gets questioned and causes us to tell other lies to cover our lie, and so on, and so on, until they are eventually caught. Whenever you lie, you set a trap for yourself.
But it refers to other kinds of talk as well: gossip and slander, to name two. I think that our lives are so full of gossip, and we’re so used to it, that not only does it not phase us, but we don’t even recognize it as gossip. Gossip is not only talking behind someone else’s back, sharing things that aren’t your business to share, but it’s also telling a story just to make someone else look bad. We do it ALL THE TIME. Where will it stop if not with Christians? Somebody has to have the integrity to bite his or her tongue and not pass the story on, no matter how great a conversation it makes.