Wise Tongue – Proverbs on blessing, cursing, and the flavor of words: a sermon summary

Proverbs 18:20-21  From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips.  Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

Creative language is a unique human faculty. Speech is part of how we bear the image of God who spoke the world into existence (Gen 1:3). To name and to praise, to converse and to instruct, to bless and to curse, is to be human.

We teach kids to repeat the old adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” But the Bible does not affirm this.

While Proverbs does acknowledge that a baseless curse will not stick.

26:2 Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight.

Yet the majority of the proverbs emphasize that words are both powerful and sticky.

25:18  A man who bears false witness against his neighbor is like a war club, or a sword, or a sharp arrow. 27:3 A stone is heavy, and sand is weighty, but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both.

25:15 With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone.

10:11  The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. 

Is your mouth a fountain of blessing and wisdom or a trap and a snare to others?

To assess why you speak the way you do, consider the kind of speech you are drawn to. What do you get excited to talk about? What draws you to certain conversations or media programs or blogs?

10:32 The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.

18:8 The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.

Gossip goes down sweet; we love it. We are bent to speculative slander and find easy pleasure in others’ pain. By contrast the righteous have a taste for healthy words. They know what satisfies and builds up.

16:24 Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

15:30 The light of the eyes rejoices the heart, and good news refreshes the bones.

10:23 Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool, but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding.

A diet of junk food cannot sustain a healthy body. We need real nutrients to live well. Likewise, words can nourish or destroy your soul. If you feed your heart on daily media streams of gossip, snarky humor, and political take-downs, you will spout forth the same kind of garbage. Garbage in = garbage out. The most nourishing words available are the words of scripture and gospel testimony.

13:13   Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded.

16:20  Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the LORD.

Do you find yourself delighted to discuss the word of God? Love for God’s word is tied to love for God himself – gained, not first by effort but by encounter – as God’s love is spoken over us by others. In our living witness God’s word becomes embodied testimony, more powerful than text. God’s best word is Christ – not a text, but a person – the Word made flesh! In Jesus, God’s blessing overrides his curse so that those who trust Christ become walking testimonials of his love and mercy.

2 Corinthians 3:2-3   You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.  ³ And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

At his crucifixion Jesus accepted the death curse which belongs to all humanity, a curse which does not flit away like a sparrow but sticks because the curse is warranted. All the false charges of humanity and even the true curse of God in judgment for human sin could not stick on Jesus, because he did not deserve it. He chose to bear it out of love for us. He chose to bear it, but he did not deserve it.

Mark 10:33-34  …”See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles.  ³⁴ And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”

In Jesus’ resurrection God’s death curse was swallowed up by his own Living Word. Jesus Christ became the final appeal which enables us to stand in the court of God’s mercy. By accepting the Word of Christ spoken over us and in us we are endowed with God’s power to speak life unto others as well.

People should recognize this strange boundary breaking love by how we speak to one another within the body of Christ’s church – and to others outside.

James 3:17-18  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.  ¹⁸ And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Only as we abide in the Word of Life himself are we empowered, by his Spirit, to speak as he does. Otherwise we slip into hypocrisy.

Matthew 12:33  “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 

Thankfully, Jesus has taken the initiative to speak God’s empowering love into our lives.

John 15:3  Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 

Christ’s Word of Love toward us is not something to be conjured or construed as our own achievement. It must be received as vital gift. And it must be obeyed.

James 1:21  Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.  

The gospel leads us from the word of life (creation) to the word of death (fall and curse) to the word of redemptive love beyond death (the cross of Christ) to the word of life renewed (resurrection and promised blessing).  Death and curse are not the final word with God. And when God speaks, whether curse or blessing, his word sticks.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…

Wise Choice – Proverbs on decision and planning: a sermon summary (see esp. Proverbs 16)

Proverbs aims to inspire submission to the will of God in order to cultivate better decision-making in our daily lives.

**16:9 The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.

The Bible is full of stories about people who thought they knew the right way, but ended up in the wrong.

Think of Pharaoh who led his army after the Hebrews only to drown in the Red Sea (Exodus 4-15), or Eve who was so convinced the forbidden fruit would make her wise (Gen 3:6), or Cain who thought life would be better if he just did away with his brother (Gen 4:3 ff.).

16:25 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

Think of the chief priests and the crowds who demanded the crucifixion of Jesus (Luke 23:21), or Paul who tried to eliminate the Christian church by force before he was himself converted and called by Christ to become an apostle (Acts 26:14).

21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart. 

The paths of life run differently than we expect, and God’s ways are higher than our own.

1)      We’re not in control.

16:1 The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. 

Proverbs 16:1 calls us to look for the interplay of the will of God in human conversation, especially in our own words. The Lord is at work in the bridge between meditation and articulation.

This proverb contrasts human will with God’s will, while at the same time it asserts that God’s own will is worked out in our words.

As Allen Ross observes:

“The proverb then is actually giving the reader a glimpse of how God confounds even the wise.”  (Allen P. Ross, Proverbs, 1002)

While this is mysterious to consider, yet it’s quite practical.

If you’re turned down for a job – you need not wrestle any further about whether to take that position. The answer, at least for now, is clearly “no”.

We will make our plans, but God rules the outcomes. We can take comfort in his sovereignty. Maybe that consistent “No” is protecting you from something which you cannot imagine. Perhaps your own inability to find the right words is a confirmation that your time to speak has not yet come.

But there is something foreboding in this proverb as well.

You might answer “yes” to a wicked path. Sometimes God’s judgment is manifest in allowing us to have exactly what we want.

16:4  The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. 

God is sovereign; we are not. Watch out for the answers of others and watch the words of your own mouth, but trust that God will work his will through us one way or another – whether we speak with him or against him.

19:21 Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand. (also see Acts 4:24-30)

If we would align our plans and our words with God, then we must study God’s own words and plans. 

16:20 Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the LORD.

2)      We shouldn’t trust ourselves.

 16:2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit. 

With Proverbs 16:2 the foreboding is increased. There is a clear warning in this proverb. What you consider pure and right may or may not be what God counts pure. Either way, you will tend to think of yourself as in the right (cf. 21:2 above).

The pattern is consistent throughout humanity – we really want to be right. We like to think of ourselves as right all the time. We’re not inclined to be teachable or to change our minds.

Proverbs warns us that we are not so right or pure as we suppose.

Key insight: you are not the most reliable narrator of your own story.

You need to know what other people think. You need to know what God thinks. And God is not you. We need perspective in order to get a better idea of what is right and wrong.

20:24  A man’s steps are from the LORD; how then can man understand his way?

One thing is sure – if you insist on always making your own way and relying upon your own judgment, then you are proud. And pride is not pure.

16:5 Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished.  16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Ellen Davis concludes that,

 “Self- suspicion is the only effective antidote to arrogance. In matters of speech, it expresses itself as the willingness to explore the feelings that lie behind a remark that “didn’t come out right,” to discover our own malice and confess it as a sin. Healthy self-suspicion derives from the recognition that our knowledge of ourselves is always woefully incomplete…” (Ellen Davis, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, 102)

There is tremendous stubbornness in the human spirit. We don’t like to second guess ourselves because we don’t want to admit we’re not in control. We hide insecurity by assuming a posture of self-assurance.

21:29-31  A wicked man puts on a bold face, but the upright gives thought to his ways.

Sometimes we know there is danger; we have been clearly warned – but we keep going.

27:12  The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.

We celebrate this stubbornness as a culture whenever we say with admiration: “He is his own man.” Or  “She has made her own way.”

Consider these chilling lines from the song “My Way” written by Paul Anka and popularized by Frank Sinatra:

“For what is a man, what has he got?  If not himself, then he has naught  To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels  The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!”

(see full lyrics here: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/franksinatra/myway.html)

The good news is you don’t have to walk that lonely path. You don’t have to live a brash and proud life, you don’t have to choose the path of folly. By the grace of God, you can choose the way of wisdom.

3)      We still have to decide.

 16:3 Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established

Despite all these warnings about the folly of human plans, yet the Bible is still in favor of making plans. Despite the fact we’re not in control and we shouldn’t trust ourselves, yet we still have to decide. God is sovereign, but he is not a puppeteer.

As Paul Koptak observes:

“Human choices are not made less important by considering the sovereignty of God; rather, their true importance is shown.”  (Paul Kaptak, Proverbs, 426)

It seems to me Proverbs calls us to make our plans with vigor – but to submit our plans and commit our ways to God. We should plan and pray before we act, but we should act decidedly – while humbly allowing for redirection from the Lord.

Proverbs endorses careful planning. Don’t take the various warnings about human folly as an excuse to piously relieve yourself of the responsibility to plan or to decide.

11:14 Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

We Americans live in a time and place that presents us with seemingly endless choices – and encourages us to keep our options open.

But as Barry Cooper puts it:

“The god of open options is…a liar. He promises you that by keeping your options open, you can have everything and everyone. But in the end you get nothing and no one.” (Barry Cooper, “Imprisoned by Choice”, Christianity Today, Jan/Feb 2013, p. 54)

Part of our problem in decision paralysis is that even when we see the right path clearly we still want to know all the reasons why that way is best and we want to know all outcomes ahead of time.

 27:1 Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.

There’s nothing wrong with decision trees and forecasting. These are helpful tools. But the freedom of faith comes in accepting that you don’t have to understand in order to choose well and you don’t have to know outcomes in order to walk in the Fear of the Lord. Often it’s only once we step forward in faith that we may begin to see more clearly.

As Thomas Merton once observed:

“Faith brings together the known and the unknown so that they overlap: or rather, so that we are aware of their overlapping. …when we accept only what we can consciously rationalize, our life is actually reduced to the most pitiful limitations…” (Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 135-36, italics his)

For the person of genuine faith, discerning the will of God should not be especially difficult – at least not most of the time. Walking the righteous path may prove difficult, but the way forward is straight and narrow. Finding the way involves turning to God and to his Word; you don’t have to make it up as you go along.

3:5-6  Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. ⁶ In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

If we study God’s law, we will find it plainly forbids a plethora of bad options. If we stop playing God we may find joy in faith and the simple peace that comes with acknowledging our limitations.

There are more good things to be done in the world than bad, more than one way to please God. But we should choose something to put our hand to that aligns with God’s favor.

17:24 The discerning sets his face toward wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.

As Christians we must remember that we find our salvation, not in every story, but in a particular story. The best news for us is that God is not keeping his options open. God has chosen to act and God has chosen to love. In the man Jesus Christ, God chose to suffer for your forgiveness, to die for your redemption. Christ himself traded his own life for yours.

Barry Cooper observes:

“Nothing narrows your options more than allowing your hands and feet to be nailed to a wooden cross.” (Ibid., p. 55)

Where humanity has lost the will to love, God remains committed. And by Christ’s atonement God enables us, by faith, to choose the good again and to choose to love again without fear. Jesus once said to his disciples:

John 15:16a You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide…

God chooses first, but still we must choose decidedly for God.

Luke 9:62  Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” 

(**Verse citations are from Proverbs unless otherwise indicated. All Bible quotations are from the ESV.)

Wise Poor – Proverbs on poverty and injustice: a sermon summary

 

Some sayings in Proverbs were written especially for the ruling class. They insist kings stand accountable to God and must exercise their power in stewardship for the wellbeing of others.

**29:13-14  The poor man and the oppressor meet together; the LORD gives light to the eyes of both. ¹⁴ If a king faithfully judges the poor, his throne will be established forever.

Derek Kidner comments:

“The test of a man in power, and his hidden strength, is the extent to which he keeps faith with those who can put least pressure on him.” (Derek Kidner, Proverbs, 175, commenting on 29:14)

Thomas Jefferson famously opened the American Declaration of Independence by appealing to unalienable human rights:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their  Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” (In Congress, July 4, 1776.)

While scripture does not endorse a right of political revolution per se, yet Jefferson does align with the Bible in asserting universal human dignity grounded in our common origin as creatures of God.

14:31 Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him. 22:2 The rich and the poor meet together; the LORD is the maker of them all. 28:5  Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it completely.

And yet most current appeals to human rights do not ground their substance in the glory of God.

It was Jefferson’s appeal to the court of Heaven which carried the force of his argument against King George. George III could scarcely defend the injustices carried out in his colonies as divinely ordered – esp. as a Christian king.

Ellen Davis observes:

“It is because biblical faith affirms that we have political rights precisely as the creatures of God that totalitarian governments must always suppress it. They can only be effective and secure as long as they perpetuate the myth that no one and nothing is more than a creature of the state, its tool and hopeful beneficiary.”  (Ellen Davis, Proverbs…, 96, italics hers)

This is why it is next to impossible to find a Bible in a place like North Korea.

But, sadly, even among those with convictions about universal human dignity we find that by force of custom or desire for profit our personal convictions are easily set aside in practical matters.

Thomas Jefferson himself described the wicked irony of his own custom of slave holding:

“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. …And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other.”  (Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, chapter 18)

Despite these convictions, Jefferson never released his slaves – not even at his death (as Washington did). Often we see injustice clearly, but we don’t know what to do about it and so we look the other way. We leave it to the next generation to redress the balance. (I say this not to villainize Jefferson, but because his story dramatizes the kind of intense ironies and inconsistencies which permeate the human condition. Jefferson did more than most to put slaves on a trajectory toward emancipation by writing about freedom and equality as he did. Yet he failed to align his actions with his words.)

21:13   Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered. 28:27 Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse. 

We are skilled at selective attention. We may or may not know the death tolls in current areas of political conflict like Syria, Egypt, and the Central African Republic. But most of us will be sure to hear the outcome of the first UGA football game this weekend (at least those of us here in Athens). I am all for sporting diversions, but we can easily fill our lives with pleasant distractions to the neglect of greater matters.

To find justice, we must seek it.  It’s not fun to look upon things that are unpleasant, and in this way it seems the poor often get in the way of the rich.

17:5 Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.

Why would anyone be glad at calamity? Because calamity sweeps some of the wretched poor out of the way so that we can get on with our lives and business – we suppose they are probably better off dead – and our collective conscience is relieved.

Poverty is not simply about not having money.  An orphan with money still has no parents; a widow with money still has no husband. The wealthy fool still lacks wisdom. And the unbelieving sinner in a hearty economy still lives in bondage to his own flesh and alienation from God. The dead with money…are still dead (they don’t really have the money anymore either).

As Flannery O’Conner once put it in the voice of her character Francis Tarwater:

“’The dead are poor. …You can’t be any poorer than dead. He’ll have to take what he gets.’” (The Violent Bear it Away, chapter 1 – originally a short story entitled, You Can’t Be Any Poorer Than Dead.)

Part of poverty is lacking a voice. The poor are easily ignored. Few in America are destitute, but many are poor. The poor are those from whom we turn our faces.

22:22-23  Do not rob the poor, because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate, ²³ for the LORD will plead their cause and rob of life those who rob them.

Why would you rob the poor? Because it’s easier than exploiting the rich! The poor are not well defended; they have few advocates. Hence King Lemuel’s mother exhorts him to speak up:

31:8-9 Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. ⁹ Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. 

The best advocate for the poor is one who lives among them and identifies with their plight – even if he is truly wealthy. That’s what Jesus did for all of us. Christ completely identified with human poverty – even the poverty of death, the poverty of abandonment, the poverty of betrayal, the poverty of our sin and folly he made his own.

Luke 6:20   “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

And in his lowest place, stripped of all but love, he spoke for us:

Luke 23:34  And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.

The Holy One was counted as nothing by the ruling classes of his day.

Another reason the poor have few faithful advocates is that there are pressures from power interests not to speak against the status quo. Bribes and threats and violence are effective and ancient tools for silencing dissent.

13:23  The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice. 17:23 The wicked accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the ways of justice. 18:23 The poor use entreaties, but the rich answer roughly.

There are massive efforts in the world today which aim to bring an end to poverty and oppression. And any serious effort to alleviate injustice is to be commended – even when it fails. But we must recognize that many such efforts are doomed for disappointment in that they do not seek to redress the spiritual poverty of the human heart. Our problems are more than economic. Material wealth does not heal pride or covetousness – in fact, it tends to fuel it. The rich are often most distant from God.

16:8  Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. 29:26  Many seek the face of a ruler, but it is from the LORD that a man gets justice.

The good news today is that we cannot save the world from oppression and injustice – not in our own strength – but that God can; God has done so, and God is doing so. God has the resources to accomplish his goals and he wants us to be part of it. Jesus died so that we might live – he chose to.

2 Corinthians 8:9  For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

In Christ, God came not only to die, but to live – to overcome our sins with sacrificial forgiveness, to swallow up death with the victory of resurrection life. And you can’t be any richer than that!

John 10:10 …I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Do you know yourself to be poor enough to need the charity of God? Are you wealthy in terms of material capital, but poor in terms of spiritual capital? Or are you materially poor and tired of being pushed to the margins of society? Are you willing to accept the bounty of God today? Are you willing to become an instrument in sharing the wealth of God? If so, hear the words of the prophet Isaiah – words which Jesus claimed were about himself (cf. Luke 4:16-21):

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8, 11 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; ² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; ³ to grant to those who mourn in Zion- to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. ⁴ They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

We cannot redress injustice by our own strength – we are too poor. But by faith in Christ we can participate in God’s own justice and mercy – God’s own strength to fulfill his promises. Indeed, by faith in Jesus we become members of the royal household of God – with all the responsibilities thereto appertaining. The proverbs written to kings are therefore also written to us. And this is not a call to drudgery but to great joy!

Isaiah 61:8, 11 For I the LORD love justice; I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense…   ¹¹ For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

(**Verse citations are from Proverbs unless otherwise indicated. All Bible quotations are from the ESV.)