Proverbs 18 and Others The Tongue
The Tongue
18:21
Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
PROVERBS 18:21
“STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES, but words will never harm me.” Not so. Words have power, far more than sticks and stones. Let’s never think, if we speak recklessly, “It’s only words. It’s not like I’m doing anything.” Words can penetrate to the heart. Derek Kidner writes, “What is done to you is of little account beside what is done in you … for good or ill.”1
The fact that we speak at all is an obvious sign that God made us. God uses words. Animals do not. You might be able to teach a dolphin to say a few words, but you can’t get a little child to shut up! Words mark us as human, in the image of God. Like God, we use words to create trust and form relationships and build community. But unlike God, we use words to destroy trust and break relationships and divide community. Like God, we use words for one heart to touch another heart at a deep level. But unlike God, we use words for one heart to break another heart at a deep level.
Our words matter—in conversations and emails and texts and blogs and phone calls and all the rest. Much of the strife in our families and offices and dorms and churches and nations is because of foolish words. But we often underestimate the importance of our words. Adultery, for example, is perceived in most Bible-believing churches as a serious sin. And it is. But I have never seen adultery send a whole church into meltdown. Gossip, by contrast, is often perceived as a little sin. But it destroys churches. Gossip can even be perceived as some kind of need: “I have to let all this out!” As Americans, we do have the right of free speech. In our political culture we have the right—if it’s a right, nobody can stop us—to blurt out whatever we feel. But when we become Christians, we enter a new culture where we surrender that right. We stop blurting out whatever we feel. We bring our words under the judgment of God’s Word. The Bible says, “A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back” (Proverbs 29:11). The Bible says of the power of the tongue, “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!” (James 3:5). Do you know how many people it takes to split a church? Not half the congregation. Just two. One to start spreading the fiery negativity, and another not to confront that behavior as the sin that it is.
The Bible gives us something better to talk about. The Bible simply changes the subject. Three times the risen Jesus greeted his disciples this way: “Peace be with you” (John 20:19, 21, 26). He set a new tone. If our tongues will come under the control of his peace, our churches will be safe places, sanctuaries for sinners. Then many people can meet Christ in our churches, and no one has the right to disturb that peace. It is sacred. It is blood-bought.
Chapters 1–9 of the book of Proverbs introduce the body of the book, chapters 10–31, where we read the actual proverbs themselves. But there is less literary arrangement in chapters 10–31. Chapters 1–9 consist of poems in praise of wisdom. But it often appears that the proverbs in chapters 10–31 “jump from one topic to another like scatterbrains in a living-room conversation.”2 Though there are subtle literary arrangements embedded in the body of the book, it is more helpful not to preach consecutively through these chapters. So at this point I will pull together various proverbs that cluster around topics.3 The first topic is the power of words.
One of my commentaries on the book of Proverbs lists around ninety proverbs counseling us about how to speak.4 In fact, the book of Proverbs has more to say about our words than anything else it addresses in our lives—more than money, sex, or family. One body of research reports that the average American speaks about 700 times per day.5 If that number sounds high to you, cut it in half to 350 times per day. If it still sounds high, cut it in half again to 175 times a day. Still, there are very few things we do 175 times a day. Our many words matter. The Bible says, “Glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20). Proverbs is saying, “That starts with your tongue.”
Our Words: Moral Status
There is gold and abundance of costly stones,
but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel. (Proverbs 20:15)
Our words are more than puffs of air coming up through our vocal cords. Our words have moral status in the sight of God. That “the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel” means that knowledgeable, informed, intelligent words are rare and valuable in God’s eyes. We know what it is like to be listening to someone and it is obvious they do not know what they are talking about. We also know what it is like to fall silent whenever a certain person speaks, because whatever that person has to say is wise and helpful and almost a work of art. God is saying that high quality of speech is precious to him.
Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD. (Proverbs 12:22)
Lying might not bother us that much. Husbands and wives lie to each other. Advertisers lie. Politicians lie. It is just the way things have to be done sometimes—or so we are told. But that is deeply untrue. Maybe you have seen the film Liar Liar with Jim Carrey. An attorney comes under a spell, making him tell the truth for twenty-four hours. It is hilarious and embarrassing and ultimately redemptive. Well, hilarious, embarrassing, and redemptive is not a bad life. Better than abomination! Lying is repulsive to God. It may not make our skin crawl, but it really bothers God.
Jesus said the devil is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Why is lying so evil? Because true, sincere, honest words bind us together in community. True words make love and trust and intimacy possible. But false words conceal us from one another, even as we might go on faking community, role-playing community outwardly while something else is really going on in our hearts. And who wants that hypocrisy? There is nothing divine in it.
But speaking lies is only half the problem. Listening to lies, gossip, flippant denigration—that is a moral issue too.
An evildoer listens to wicked lips,
and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue. (Proverbs 17:4)
God wants us to know that just standing there and listening, tolerating the evil, shares in the evil. Listening is itself lying: “A liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.” We lie to ourselves that we are not involved because we are only listening. But listeners are involved. Be careful what you listen to. A person can become a “garbage collector.” Someone in the group becomes the one to whom disgruntled people go, because that person will listen and sympathize and be a shoulder to cry on and a rallying point for complaints and a hero to those with hurt feelings. And that listener becomes a bigger problem in the group than the talkers.
But here is an alternative. If a person approaches you and starts criticizing someone else, you smile and interrupt and say, “Time out. I don’t want to be involved in this. But the person you’re talking about is right over there on the other side of the room. Let’s you and I go right now and you tell that person to his face what you’re telling me behind his back, okay?” If we will have the courage to obey God at that moment of temptation, our churches will be safe places where people never have to wonder what is really going on, and they can relax and enjoy themselves and grow in Christ. Our words have moral status at that level.
The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels;
they go down into the inner parts of the body. (Proverbs 18:8)
Let’s all admit it. We love gossip. We love negative information about other people. We love controversy. We find it delicious. It is a delicacy—to our corrupt hearts. We gulp these words down with relish. But the contagion goes down into us and makes a deep impression and leaves us even sicker than we were before. Truly, God is not mocked.
Open your mouth for the mute,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Proverbs 31:8, 9)
Do you speak up when others are put down? Or do you just stand there and listen in sinful silence as the blast of gossip and slander hits you in the face? God says, “Open your mouth.” With every unkind word that goes unconfronted, a reputation dies.
So much is at stake in our words. They matter not just to us but even more, far more, to God. We are always speaking before the face of God.
Our Words: Emotional Power
Death and life are in the power of the tongue. (Proverbs 18:21)
The tongue can kill—literally. I heard about a woman in Los Angeles who took her own life. All she wrote in her suicide note was this: “They said.” In his suicide note, Vince Foster of the Clinton White House wrote of Washington, “Here ruining people is considered sport.” “Death [is] … in the power of the tongue.” That is why Jesus said, “On the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36). Words do not even have to be intentional to be deadly; they can be careless:
There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing. (Proverbs 12:18)
In English we speak similarly about “cutting remarks.” It happens in an outburst of rash words, reckless words, unthinking words, just blurting out whatever we might be thinking without filtering it wisely. It is easy to do, but it is not easy for the other person to receive or to forget. We need to see in our rash words razor blades flying out of our mouths right into the body of the other person. Those wounds and scars remain long after the words have faded away. This is why there should never be shouting in a Christian home. If your teenager yells at you, here is what you say: “You don’t have to like me. But you do have to respect me.” And then you help your child to become respectful rather than rash. But if you do not teach your child to behave respectfully, then you are teaching your child to behave disrespectfully and to become a killer with his or her rash words. What you permit, you promote. And when your child, many years from now, splits a church by his or her sword-thrust words, God will hold you in part responsible.
But “life [is] … in the power of the tongue” too. “The tongue of the wise brings healing,” the sage teaches us. Why? Because the tongue of the wise cares more about soothing an injury than winning an argument. Here are three simple but powerful words that bring healing: “I am sorry.” Just those three little words: “I am sorry.” In his prophetic book The Mark of the Christian, Francis Schaeffer taught us Christians how to love one another in healing ways:
What does this love mean? How can it be made visible? First, it means a very simple thing. It means that when … I have failed to love my Christian brother, I go to him and say, “I’m sorry.” … It may sound simplistic to start with saying we are sorry and asking forgiveness, but it is not. This is the way of renewed fellowship, whether it is between a husband and wife, a parent and child, within a Christian community, or between groups. When we have shown a lack of love toward the other, we are called by God to go and say, “I’m sorry.… I really am sorry.” If I am not willing to say, “I’m sorry,” when I have wronged somebody else—especially when I have not loved him—I have not even started to think about the meaning of a Christian oneness which the world can see. The world has a right to question whether I am a Christian. And more than that … if I am not willing to do this very simple thing, the world has a right to question whether Jesus was sent from God and whether Christianity is true.6
Time does not heal all wounds. Ignoring injuries does not make them go away. But wise words can and do bring healing. Going back and saying the humble, honest, beautiful things that need to be said is step one toward powerful healing.
But even when people do not have the tongue of the wise and do not say the things that would make such a positive difference, Jesus still does. Ultimately, the cruel things people say to us do not even matter. Ultimately, all that matters is the gospel things he says to us: “You are my beloved, in whom I am well-pleased.” The Holy Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God (Romans 8:16). And in a moment of crisis, when you might be too confused and hurt even to feel your place in his love, you are still his child. You will feel his love eventually, because the Holy Spirit has the lips of the wise, and he will bring healing as no one else can. That is the hopeful, cheering reality we want to spread to one another and to everyone who will listen to the gospel:
Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down,
but a good word makes him glad. (Proverbs 12:25)
We were not meant to stand alone! In our isolation we become depressed and fearful. Sometimes we are in two minds. We trust God, but we don’t really trust God. So we need a good word from outside ourselves, a stabilizing word of hope from another Christian. The sage reminds us here that we can be speaking good words into each other’s hearts. The message we speak, because it is the truth, might not be that the problem is going away; but the message can always be, “God is with you.” I love the way Jonathan encouraged his despondent friend David and “strengthened his hand in God” (1 Samuel 23:16). It is good to be with one another in hard times. But what matters most is that God is always with us, for the sake of Christ. As that good and gladdening word spreads around among us, we are emboldened to do for Christ what we would never attempt alone. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:
The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him.… The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.7
One of the ways Jani and I pray while driving to church every Sunday morning is, “Lord, don’t let one word come out of our mouths that isn’t of you. Let every word we speak be of you.” We want every word to be a blessing. Will you join us in praying that way as you drive to church? Good words make people glad in Christ. And when a whole church does that together, it starts feeling like revival.
The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life. (Proverbs 10:11)
The lips of the righteous feed many. (Proverbs 10:21)
There is enough in Christ not only for us but also to refresh others. And it is our words that open his fountain and spread his table for many others. How do we get restocked ourselves? By going deeper with Christ. He is able, there in that place of deep communion with himself, to make our mouths into still waters and our lips into green pastures for others around us. The Bible says that our words, when we use them for Christ, “give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29). It isn’t just the pastor who does that. God has called all of his people to this powerful privilege. In fact, when Proverbs 10:21 says “the lips of the righteous feed many,” the word “feed” means “shepherd,” the way a shepherd tends and guides and protects and feeds his flock of sheep. It means we all take responsibility to breathe life into everyone around us by our words of encouragement. That is how Jesus our Shepherd speaks through us.
But words alone can only do so much. That takes us to our next point.
Our Words: Practical Limitations
In all toil there is profit,
but mere talk tends only to poverty. (Proverbs 14:23)
“Mere talk” can be boastful or defeatist or just plain lazy. In a way, it is good always to be dreamers. Dreaming can be the first step toward a better future. But dreaming without working is no future, because words cannot substitute for deeds.
Here is another limitation. Words alone cannot change reality—and our excuses do not impress God:
If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? (Proverbs 24:12)
God holds us responsible to be our brother’s keeper. Who is suffering among the people you know, someone you can help, and what are you doing about it? Or are you just talking about it, or even looking the other way? When deeds are required, words are empty, and God is not fooled.
Here is another limitation. Your words cannot protect you, and they can expose you. In fact, they might give your enemies ammunition against you.
Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life;
he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin. (Proverbs 13:3)
Jesus was the only person in all of history who never spoke an unguarded, self-indulgent word. He never opened his lips in a wrong way, not once, ever. He never spoke when silence was better, and every word he did speak was perfect. Even his enemies said, “No one ever spoke like this man!” (John 7:46).
In a way, Jesus disproved Proverbs 13:3. His guarded mouth didn’t preserve his life. His words were infallibly wise, and we felt outclassed, we felt threatened, we felt shamed, so we killed him—and he took it. Why? What happened at the cross? On the cross Jesus loved us so much that his sacrifice deleted the damning record before God of every foolish word you and I have ever spoken. He took the divine condemnation for our lies, insults, gossip, put-downs, bragging, false promises, and griping, as well as our guilty silence when we should have spoken up. He took it all onto himself and hit the delete button. Look at him on his cross, dying for what you and I have said and left unsaid. See him there, trust him, and you are finally free of it all forever.
As we consider these proverbs about our use of the tongue, every one of us is responding right now in either of two ways. Perhaps we are saying, “Thank you. Now I know what to do. And I can do this. These proverbs are so practical. They give me the wisdom I need. So here I go!” Or perhaps our response is, “Oh no, now I see how stupid I’ve been. I’ve alienated my wife. I’ve injured my kids. I’ve lost friends. I’ve been a fool, and I am so defeated. What’s the point of even trying?” In other words, every one of us is either on the front end of foolish, disobedient words, and we do not see it coming, or we are on the back end of foolish, disobedient words, and we are suffering for it. But here is the gospel for all of us who are trusting in Christ: “You are accepted. You are not excluded. You are still in my conversation, because at the cross Jesus said, ‘My God, my God, why are you not speaking to me?’ God stopped communicating acceptance to his Son, so that he would never stop communicating acceptance to us. Will you believe that?”
If you are willing to be forgiven that way, you will also be humble enough to let Jesus be your speechwriter from now on. The Bible calls him the Word (John 1:1, 14), everything that needs to be said, the only thing that needs to be said.
The final point in this study is how his wisdom gets inside us.
God’s Words: Our Life and Future
You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you. (1 Peter 1:23–25)
I was born mortal by the natural process, and it is only a matter of time until I die. I have also been reborn immortal by sheer miracle, and it will never end. How did that happen for me? How does it happen for anyone? Through the gospel, “the living and abiding word of God.” And to this day, whenever I hear the good news of God’s grace, I come alive all over again. That is how God renews all of us—through the gospel message of his love for sinners like me and you. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to put new life in our hearts and new words in our mouths. What happened when the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost? The risen Jesus filled the hearts of his people, and they could not stop praising him. It hasn’t stopped since. It never will. Our words wither and fall. I think of the Top Ten hit songs from my senior year in high school. I love that music. It makes me happy. But does anyone else anymore? Who is going to care about our lyrics forty years from today? But God’s Word remains; it will keep on giving new life, and it always will.
Just keep listening to the gospel, and God will keep renewing you all the way to Heaven. It will go deeper and deeper into you. And your words will spread new life to many other people too, with eternal impact.