“The reward of the righteous is life; the wages of the wicked is punishment. The one who follows instruction is on the path to life, but the one who rejects correction goes astray. The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool. When there are many words, sin is unavoidable, but the one who controls his lips is prudent. The tongue of the righteous is pure silver; the heart of the wicked is of little value. The lips of the righteous feedmany, but fools die for lack of sense.” (Proverbs‬ ‭10‬:‭16‬-‭21‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

Jesus’ half-brother, James, said that the tongue is the single most difficult thing in the world to control. We have managed to take all sorts of beasts and even to harden ourselves against various natural disasters to a certain extent. But full control of our tongues continues to elude us. This is not, however, for a lack of trying or a lack of counsel on the matter. The proverbs in particular continue numerous and sometimes repeated bits of wisdom for taming our tongues as well as warnings on the consequences of failing to do so. We see several of those in these next few proverbs. Let’s take a look.

We start out here with a pair of proverbs about taking the correct path through life. “The reward of the righteous is life; the wages of the wicked is punishment. The one who follows instruction is on the path to life, but the one who rejects correction goes astray.”

These two proverbs point us in the same direction but in different ways. Let’s start with that first part of each. The reward of the righteous is life, and those who follow instruction are on the path to life. Both phrases end with the path to life. Since they end in the same place, that means their starting points are echoes of each other. The righteous are those who follow instruction. The instruction they follow is God’s instruction. If you want to be righteous, the secret is to simply do what God says.

Meanwhile, for those who would refuse this path, they are setting themselves up for a journey that won’t end well. The wages of the wicked is punishment; punishment for sins committed. Those who reject correction go astray. They won’t turn from the path that is leading them away from God and His goodness. Putting things together here, the one who rejects correction is the one who is wicked. And that one will wander astray, finding himself facing punishment for his stubborn unfaithfulness.

The reason for this should be obvious. We don’t wander in the direction of righteousness accidentally and on our own. Because of sin, we naturally gravitate toward more sin which will bring punishment. If we pridefully refuse to accept correction from those who love us when they call us to leave the path of sin, then we will succeed in going astray. We will earn well the punishment coming our way. It is always better to accept correction and stay on the path to righteousness and life.

The next four proverbs here all bring the attention to our words and speech that we were talking about out of the gate. Let’s look at each in turn. “The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever spread slander is a fool.” This is one of those doublets where Solomon uses a comparison rather than contrasting two different things.

Have you ever really not liked someone who you had to be around regularly? You had two choices in that situation. You could learn to like them, or you could learn to be a really good liar. Learning to be a really good liar may avoid confrontation, but it won’t take away the problem. It won’t resolve your dislike. Instead, it will just grow and you will have to keep telling bigger and bigger lies to keep the peace because if you open those floodgates by now, the torrent isn’t going to stop until everything about that relationship is utterly devastated. And there will probably be a lot of collateral damage as well as floods don’t tend to be very precise in their impact. If you have an issue with someone, it is always better to go and be honest with them and work out the issue peacefully and quickly. Otherwise you bear the burden of dislike and you become a liar. You lose twice that way.

And to spread slander about another person just makes you a fool. You are pouring poison into not only your relationship with the one about whom you are spreading the slander, but also the relationships of all the other people you talk to about them. Only a fool tries to ruin other people’s relationships. In that situation you will have given yourself so totally over to your hatred that your own heart is going to be wrecked. In the end, the truth will come out and the other person will be vindicated, but your reputation as a person of truth and righteousness will be ruined.

“When there are many words, sin is unavoidable, but the one who controls his lips is prudent.” I think there’s a whole sermon in that first part, but it probably doesn’t need to be very long. Because of the general lack of control we have over our tongues, the more words we speak, the more likely it is that we say something foolish or worse. There is a cultural and political commentator who is often in the news these days. He is well known for saying outrageous and offensive things. He rose to cultural prominence by recording himself playing video games for hours a day and offering commentary on whatever came to mind as he did. In other words, all he does is talk all day, every day. No wonder he has become such a cultural flashpoint. There is no prudence in his profession.

Instead, it is the one who controls his lips that is prudent. Let your words be relatively few, and consider those carefully before letting them out. Now, this is easier for some than others. I happen to be an internal processor. I rarely talk through things. I work them all out in my head. This can be frustrating for the people around me because I’m not so good at verbalizing what I am thinking, but I don’t tend to get myself in trouble because of what I say. If you are a verbal processor, people won’t have to wonder nearly as much what you are thinking, but you’ll have to take a great deal more care that your processing times are done either by yourself or with someone who knows you well enough to not take offense when foolish things come out.

“The tongue of the righteous is pure silver; the heart of the wicked is of little value.” The point here is fairly straightforward. Those who have cultivated a habit of righteousness will typically have things to say that add value to the situation they are in. There will be great worth to their words. It will be to the advantage of the people around them to listen to what they have to say.

On the other hand, the heart of the wicked is worthless. This contrast is sharper than it seems at first glance. The heart is generally considered of more value than the tongue. I don’t mean that in economic terms. When you set out to gain someone’s affection, you aren’t aiming for their tongue. You are aiming for their heart. The heart is the center of the will and emotions. The tongue is just how those things are expressed. The heart is the real prize in any relationship. With that in mind, read that second half again. The heart of the wicked, the part of them that should be the most valuable, is actually of little value. No one wants it…or them. But for the righteous, even the part of them that isn’t typically considered so valuable is pure silver. When you pursue a path of righteousness, every part of you becomes more valuable to those around you.

This value can be parried into blessing for them. “The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense.” Someone whose words are constantly wise feeds the spirits of those around them. People hungry to have clear direction will flock to the righteous in order to be satisfied with a good rhetorical meal. But this applies more literally as well. Those who are righteous work to help meet the physical needs of those around them, and one of the ways they do that is with their words.

Those who are foolish, though, can’t get their needs met very well. They are constantly making poor choices that hurt them and the people around them. I remember sitting in a meeting with a local ministry leader and a woman who was seeking financial help. She was a serial help seeker. She specialized in calling churches to get this or that bill paid. She always had a sob story and had learned to be very successful in pulling the heartstrings of Christians who were primed to be sympathetic. This ministry leader offered her two choices: take a small amount of help right then with no strings attached, or receive a larger amount of help with some strings.

The strings weren’t terribly burdensome. One was to stop calling churches for help. And because he was so connected with the local churches, he was going to hear about it if she did. She also had to take a financial literacy class so she could learn to better manage her finances so she didn’t need as much help from others. There were a couple of other things that spoke to expensive and bad habits she had. Basically, the strings amounted to encouraging her to make better financial choices combined with offering to actively help her make those choices more consistently.

She took the bigger help, never showed up for the classes, and had called another church for help with another bill within two weeks. She may be a child of God whom He loves dearly, but she is also a fool who is keeping herself and her husband and her grandkids trapped in a cycle of poverty because of her foolish unwillingness to do the hard work of making better choices. Because of that ministry leader’s wisdom and gracious, righteous words, he is able to feed many others through the ministry he runs. Meanwhile, this woman is on a path to die early for a lack of sense. Who do you want to be more like? Your words and willingness to walk a path of righteousness will determine which path you wind up taking.