Proverbs is a very wise book: I went in search of wisdom and found everything worldly is vanity. A passing of the wind and a vexation of the spirit in the words of King Solomon. The only absolute truth is the word of God:
Just as the mouth has a bitter part, bitter words will come out of a person (Job 7:11); sweet words will (flattery) Proverbs 5:3; salty words (Colossians 4:6) the one Jesus recommends we have, sour word spoken (Jeremiah 31: 29) out of jealousy scriptures reveal.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 For everything there is a season, and a time for every [a]purpose under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. So, I will add mine: A TIME TO SPEAK AND WHEN NOT TO.
JOB 4: 2 says ….but who can withhold himself from speaking? Job 4: 17 says the reason why? that is because mortal man cannot be purer than God? that a man cannot be purer than his maker. For a person, I had learned a long time that a person’s quietness didn’t mean he or she wasn’t a fool, they were just raised or train that way, and it doesn’t mean those who talk are foolish I can just as easily detect where your weak points are as long as you talk (and if you don’t talk you are prone to depression faster). So, I find wisdom as pain. The president of America talks does that mean he is a fool, no! It just means we can see his fault from his lips easily James 3: 8 goes on to say it is impossible to tame the tongue “But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.” why? Like Jesus says in Matthew 12: 34 the mouth speaks only what the heart is full of. Proverbs 10:11 backs up where the mouth gets these things from “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4: 23. It’s the heart that allows the flow to the mouth.
Does this mean we should stop cautioning our tongue? No, because as far we know each heart knows its own bitterness. As long as the heart has bitterness, the mouth will speak if it’s not guarded making it nearly impossible to tame the tongue.
So, I say “Let my conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” – Colossians 4: 6
It fits your whole reflection about the tongue.
- Bitter words — sharp, resentful, cutting.
- Sweet words — kind… or sometimes flattery.
- Salty words — seasoned with grace (Colossians 4:6).
- Sour words — jealousy, complaint.
Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips. – Psalm 141:3.
Some have said LIFE AND DEATH ARE IN THE POWER OF THE TONGUE – Proverbs 18: 21, but then time and chance happen to everyone right Ecclesiastes 9: 11 “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” So, if you like confess all the positive verse, if the appropriate time and chance comes and you don’t recognize it, its vanity even if you do, eventually you will understand it’s still vanity. Moreover, I have seen and witnessed that his grace flows in our weakest areas not in our strengths, so the undeserved will still get more grace? why because God wants them to see his love. So, that where the righteous come into labor for the sinners. You say it’s not fair but then that what Jesus got the righteous for the sinner Barabbas.
I would close today’s write-up with one of my favorite verses: Psalm 45: 1 “For the director of music. To the tune of “Lilies.” Of the Sons of Korah. A maskil. A wedding song. My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.”