Jesus healed a man who couldn’t see and couldn’t speak.

He condemns some men who could.

The former had a demon, an evil spirit, an agent of satan.

The latter accused Jesus of working for satan.

The former caused people to begin to ask serious, thoughtful questions about the identity of Jesus, about his role in the lineage of David.

The latter caused people to wonder.

(By the way, this contrast of the man who couldn’t speak and the men who shouldn’t is in Matthew 12. The short version? A man had a demon that kept him from seeing and speaking. Jesus healed him. The people were impressed. The Pharisees said that the devil made him do it.)

Jesus takes issue with the reaction of the group of men who reacted to the healing. They were religious leaders. They talked among themselves. They made a sarcastic, dismissive comment. But Jesus overheard their thoughts and did what any self-respecting rabbi would do in response to unsound reasoning.

He destroyed it.

He identified the logical inconsistencies in their claim. He made it impossible for them to cling to their statement without condemning their colleagues who had done the same thing Jesus had. He summarized demon-removal theory. He said that actions prove the nature of the actor, words prove the nature of the speaker. He made a very large deal out of their comment.

And then he summarizes his teaching this way:

“But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.”

Oh my. Every careless word? Every smart comment? Each of every three hundred words?

Oh. Then there is this difficulty. When Jesus starts teaching, he starts because he knew their thoughts.

Every careless.

We are called to be careful.