Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Allow me to expand upon the issue of the use of the word image here. God’s first use needs to be examined in finer detail in order to render a more complete understanding of how the word image plays out in history and in scriptures.

The words used and translated into image are not used alone in context of the image itself but rather in context to its environment. The image will always be seen in context to its environment. Here in first use the image is one of dominion. Man’s relationship to its environment, as seen by its surroundings is one of dominance.

Adam begat Seth in his own image, and the issue of image is one of begetting, a copy of which Adam could not add anything to Seth for it was not in him to give. Adam was not born in this way. Adam had the breath of God breathed into him, which became a dead spirit because sin entered in.

Every use of image is such that the external is all there is to the image, it is empty or hollow within. The end use was not the intended use. God did not create man to be an empty shell. God’s intention was for man to be filled with His spirit which was lost to original sin. We became an exercise in vanity, emptiness as to results.

Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:

But Christ the only begotten Son of God was not empty, He was filled with the Spirit. In Him and in Him alone can we be restored to the image intended by God, to be born again in the Spirit, to be the begotten image of Christ, no longer empty.

Isaiah 50:4 The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

To speak a word in season is about the listener, not we who speak. So often we choose when to speak and often we are received with an argument. Those who are weary do not have the strength to fire back.

I too have felt strong in the Lord and ready to speak truth. The tongue of the learned is let loose when it has been trained to listen. If we will but listen we might hear who is weary, who is ready to hear the truth.

What they need to hear has to be based on what the Lord knows to say, and not from our own well-rehearsed library of comfortable quotes. We will not know the right words to use unless we listen both to the weary and to the Lord.

Listening might not be listed as one of the spiritual gifts, but maybe it should. Perhaps it is found in the gift of prophecy since that gift is to know the mind of the Lord.

1 Corinthians 14:5 I would that ye all spake with tongues but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying.

The two most abused of spiritual gifts are these two, tongues and prophecy. It is because they are loosed with the tongue. The book of James gives great warning, and rightly so, about the unbridled tongue. Yet the bridled tongue can speak and should because it is under the control of the spirit.

Psalm 39:1&7 I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me. And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.

The Lord’s hand is upon the bridle.