In Ephesians 4:31, Apostle Paul gave a clear instruction to believers, urging them to remove certain negative attitudes and behaviours from their lives. “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.” My attention is particularly drawn to one of the items – evil speaking. This vice is closely associated with another: evil surmising. We are not likely to overcome evil speaking until we have overcome evil surmising. By the way, to surmise is to conclude with little or no evidence. If the conclusion reached is evil, that is evil surmising. I call this one of the little foxes that is capable of destroying the family or church vine.

We are not likely to overcome evil speaking until we have overcome evil surmising. By the way, to surmise is to conclude with little or no evidence.

I recently had an experience that clearly illustrates this point. We’ve been in discussions with a minister of the gospel to be one of our guest speakers for this year’s national convention. An elder from his church was assigned to liaise with me to work out the modalities. He called me once, and when I didn’t answer, he concluded that I was unwilling to take his calls. When he called, I wasn’t disposed to take calls. I later returned the call but it went straight into his voicemail. Evil surmising is a subtle but serious error — one that even those considered spiritually mature can occasionally fall into. Eli fell into the error. As he watched Hannah’s mouth move without any discernible words, he concluded that the woman was drunk. Refrain from jumping into conclusions and making light of people’s situations. The safeguard is to be kind to everyone and uphold them in prayer.