Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Reading through the 31 chapters of Proverbs each month can give us an understanding of how to serve God.

Proverbs 11:9 and Psalm 15:1-3

Proverbs 11:9

⁹With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor,

but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

Psalm 15:1

¹O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

²He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart;
³who does not slander with his tongue
and does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;

Psalm 15:1 confronts every believer with the most important question in the Scriptures. This question is not left to human inquisition or debate. It is answered in a decided fashion.

We can paraphrase the question to apply to the present in this way, “O Lord, who can, with faithfulness go to Church worship, who can come there before the preaching of Your Word and grow in conformity to Christ with a good conscience?” Or, “Who can go regularly to a Gospel preaching church with a good conscience?”

Looking from this to Proverbs chapters 10-12 we find 28 direct references to speech. The frequency forces our attention to the importance Scripture, as God’s Word, places on this subject.

Back to Psalm 15, in answer to the searching question of Vs 1, begins with a very general statement - the person who is consistent in his conduct, and only this person, can sit under the Gospel with a good conscience. But God in His Word is never bashful about specifics and it is both interesting and for our purpose, in light of Proverbs chapters 10-12, that the specific instructions begin with the believer’s speech.

All instruction on conversation comes under the 9^th commandment. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. This command exercises absolute control over all speech. There are particular principles to recognize to help in applying the commandment to present experience.

1. The command is one of relationship. Whatever is destructive to our acquaintances in or by our speech is forbidden while our speech is always to encourage, inform honestly, and protect our neighbor.

2. Speech is under the direct supervision of God.

Proverbs 16:1

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

3. The facts of conversation are governed by the single principle of what is, “against our neighbor”. It is never obedience to the ninth commandment to be destructive of our neighbor for the benefit of the wicked. The examples of the mid-wives in Exodus and Rahab’s protection of the spies sent out by Moses make this clear. James 2:25 counts this as evidence of her justification.

The proper use of conversation is most vividly stated in Proverbs 11:30 - “He that wins souls is wise”.

His speech in this use makes him wise in God’s estimation, wise in his relationship with his neighbor, and wise in the fruit his speech produces.