Thursday, August 31, 2023

Hedge Up Your Tongue by Hedging Up Your Heart - Proverbs 20-21

Proverbs 21:23
Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue
keeps himself out of trouble.

In the above verse the word "keep" means to "hedge about."   Solomon is giving us some great insight into how we should handle ourselves, regarding speech, around others.   He has already established in numerous other proverbs that the tongue and the speech are a mirror of the heart:

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

Proverbs 10:20 (ESV)
20 The tongue of the righteous is choice silver;
the heart of the wicked is of little worth. 

Proverbs 17:20 (ESV)
20 A man of crooked heart does not discover good,
and one with a dishonest tongue falls into calamity. 

Solomon wants us to understand that conflict and trouble might be initiated in the heart but it is consummated in life through our speech.   What we think in our hearts can and will come out through the portal of the tongue and our speech.  James takes up this same theme in his letter to the churches in the first century:

James 3:1-5
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!

The tongue and our speech can be the spark for trouble.   That is what Solomon is saying in his proverb, above.   When we hedge about our tongue we avoid trouble and stirring up trouble.    Since the tongue is connected to the heart, the only way to hedge the tongue is to hedge the heart.   We guard our hearts by putting Christ the Lord of our hearts.  When He is the Lord of our hearts He becomes the guard of our mouths.   Christ is our hedge.   When Christ is the hedge He keeps us from trouble.

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