Proverbs on Speech
Part 9: Tongue Violence

Baxter T. Exum (#1779)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
April 13, 2025

Good morning and welcome! If you are visiting with us today (either here in person or online or on the phone), we are glad to have you with us, and we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in that way.

We have come together this morning to thank God for sending his only Son to this earth to save us. The gospel is the good news that Jesus died on the cross in our place, he was buried, and he was raised up on the first day of the week. We obey this good news by believing it, by turning away from sin, by confessing Jesus as the Son of God, and by calling out to God for a good conscience in the act of baptism, an immersion in water for the forgiveness of our sins. At that point, we are born into God’s family, and we are raised up to live a new life from that point forward. And as our custom has been, we are sharing a few brief examples of what this actually looks like. We are starting today with another update from the Lord’s church out in Salt Lake City, Utah. They posted again this week, and they say that, “We have yet another soul to rejoice over that has been added to the Lord’s Church. Walter has confessed Jesus as the Son of God and has been been baptized for the remission of his sins. Thank you Wally for your good heart and thank God for the plan of salvation.” And then they say that, “Sometimes we think some great feat is needed to bring a soul to Christ but Wally's journey toward salvation began when a sister in Christ did nothing more than ask her co-worker if he would like to come to church.” They then quote Wayne Gretzky, who said that, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.” I mentioned hockey in last week’s lesson, and here we are quoting Wayne Gretzky, but it is good to hear some good news from Utah this morning.

This next one comes to us from the Green Oaks congregation down in Arlington, Texas. They say,  “Please welcome our new sister in Christ, Marla!” And then they quote Jesus from John 10:27-28, where he says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them….” This is one of the happiest people I’ve seen all week!

This one comes to us from the Madison Church of Christ down in Madison, Alabama. We’ve shared some news from this congregation before, and I mentioned that we get each other’s emails from time to time. But, they posted this week and they simply say, “We are thrilled to introduce Hannah, our new sister in Christ!” Good news from Alabama!

This one comes to us from the Vero Beach congregation down in Florida, along with this caption, “A refreshing dunk in the pool—with eternal significance. Today, we celebrated a life-changing moment. Welcome to the family, Wade Wilson! Your new journey in Christ begins.”

There are others, but I’m sharing this one from the Taylorsville Road congregation in Louisville, Kentucky, because it comes with a good explanation as well as an invitation. They posted a few weeks ago, and this is what they have to say,

Baptism is an amazingly simple and profound act of submission to the Lord in which His Spirit washes our sins away and regenerates us (Titus 3:3-5). In it, one's soul contacts the blood of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:3-5), one calls on the Lord (Acts 22:16), and an absolute and total forgiveness and change takes place.

Several months ago, we had the pleasure of witnessing a father baptize his own daughter in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19-20). It was a highly emotional and transformative experience. We are so thankful for her decision and for her parents' steadfast focus on raising her in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:1-4).

How blessed are we to have a Father Who loves us so much!!!!

If you have been thinking about being baptized, please reach out to us and we would love to talk to you about what it means, who is subject to baptism, and how it happens. Reach out anytime!

Their invitation is our invitation, which is actually the Lord’s invitation. We invite you to obey the gospel, and if we can help in any way, please let us know. You can send a message to info@fourlakeschurch.org, you can give me a call or send a text to 608-224-0274, or you can simply pull me aside after worship this morning, and we would love to help in any way possible.

This morning we are back to our study of SPEECH in the book of Proverbs, with our ninth lesson in this series within a series. We’ve looked at the GOOD use of words, we’ve looked at King Solomon’s advice to STOP TALKING, we’ve looked at the danger of HYPOCRISY, we’ve looked at the danger of GOSSIP, and last week we started looking at the first four of eight Proverbs concerning words that lead to CONFLICT. We’ve summarized this under the heading of TONGUE VIOLENCE. And that’s not a perfect description, but it’s the idea that sometimes the words that we speak have a way of leading to conflict of some kind – and it may be physical or it may be relational. Sometimes, we may say something that results in or adds to conflict. Last week, we looked at four of these, and today we look at four more. And as our custom has been, I’d like to simply look at these in canonical order, or in the order in which they appear in scripture, simply to make it a little bit easier to follow along. We will have these on the wall up here (or on your screen at home), but I would encourage you to look these up on your own. Your translation may have a different wording that may help you to understand it in a way I might have missed.

    1. But let’s start with Proverbs 18:6, one of the clearest of these, where King Solomon says that, “A fool’s lips bring strife, and his mouth calls for blows.”

Various translations have King Solomon saying that a fool’s mouth “invites,” “calls for,” or “provokes” a beating. Some people, then, ask for a beat down through the words that they speak! And I think most of us understand what Solomon is saying here. He has observed this through many years of experience, and so have we. There are times when people are so offensive and so annoying and so provocative and so obnoxious with the words that they speak that they are practically begging for a beating. Some people get beat up or bullied and they have done nothing wrong. There are others, though, who practically ask for it.

We’ve seen this. Everything has to be an argument. Everything is a debate. They irritate. They frustrate. And as a result, these people may bounce from place to place, from one church to another, from one job to another. They’re always getting fired, or dismissed, or invited to leave, or even worse.

And while we’re on this proverb, I would make just a brief observation about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech (in our nation) is often confused with the freedom to say anything at all with no consequences. Our constitution, however, merely limits the government from restricting our speech. That does not mean, however, that I can force somebody to listen. I don’t know if that’s the best way of saying that. But there are times when what we say may get us punched in the face, and that’s what King Solomon is warning about here. We can say things that may earn us a beating. And I don’t think Solomon is encouraging violence here, but he is recognizing a reality. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person may lead to conflict, even a physical conflict. Fools have no discretion. Sometimes, they cause fights with their words, and those words lead to injuries that are self-inflicted. They meddle. They poke. They prod. They insult. They argue. They object. They bring up the past. They whisper. They are rude and obnoxious. Instead of walking away, they press it even further. And when they get assaulted as a result, Solomon observes that a fool’s lips bringing strife, have practically asked for it.

So what? What does this mean for us? Solomon is encouraging us here, not to beat people for the things that they say, but I think he’s encouraging us to look to ourselves. If my life is a life of conflict, if I’m always getting into it with people, if trouble seems to follow me from job to job, if the people in my own family are always avoiding me, I may need to ask: Am I the problem here? Are my lips bringing strife, and is my mouth calling for blows? If so, then let’s have the humility to reevaluate and make a change.

    2. We continue with Proverbs 25:23, where King Solomon says that, “The north wind brings forth rain, and a backbiting tongue, an angry countenance.”

The NIV says, “Like a north wind that brings unexpected rain is a sly tongue—which provokes a horrified look.” Some translations refer to a “secret tongue” or a “gossiping tongue.” The Message (a paraphrase) has King Solomon saying that, “A north wind brings stormy weather, and a gossipy tongue stormy looks.” Concerning the tongue, the Hebrew word apparently does refer to a tongue that is “hidden” or “concealed.” And that’s why we have the translations referring to either “gossip” or “backbiting.” It’s the idea of saying something quietly, or maybe in private. We have somebody whispering here.

And I’ve included this proverb in this grouping of sayings related to conflict, because of what comes in the second half. This behind-the-scenes whispering or gossip leads to “an angry look.” And the connection between gossip and an angry look is just as certain as the north wind bringing rain: There’s wind and then rain; so also, there’s gossip and then conflict. One leads to the other. And in my mind, it should be obvious, but sometimes it may take us off guard. I’m imagining a scenario where we say something about somebody, and then we learn that the person we just talked to is this other person’s friend. To me, that seems to be what might be going on here. We whisper, but we whisper to the wrong person, and it ends up leading to conflict. The solution, then, is to stop whispering, to stop backbiting, to stop saying things that shouldn’t be said.

As I was preparing today’s lesson, I ran across a quote from John Calvin who said, “I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.” Is that not awesome! It’s a gruesome picture, isn’t it? But if anything, being loose with our words is even worse! If we gossip, then, we need to just go ahead and anticipate horrified and angry looks in response. Don’t be surprised, Solomon says, if people get mad when you start sharing things that should not be shared. Yet again, words have a way of leading to conflict.

    3. Let’s continue with Proverbs 26:20, where King Solomon says, “For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, contention quiets down.”

Solomon, then, starts by pulling us in by illustrating with fire. All of us are at least somewhat familiar with fire. Most of you know that we heat our home with fire. This goes back to my childhood, where I got to light the fires in our Franklin stove. We installed a highly efficient freestanding woodstove in our home in Janesville, and we did the same thing here in Madison. The way I see it, I would much rather pay a local farmer for a load of wood as opposed to sending that money to huge gas company. That’s just me. We love heating with fire. But even if you don’t heat your home by lighting wood on fire, all of us know something about fire. Maybe we have a fire when we go camping. Maybe we grill with fire of some kind. Well, most of us know either from experience or from our science class back in middle school that fire is a chemical reaction that requires fuel, oxygen, and heat (a source of ignition), and without one or more of these, fire doesn’t happen. We know this. Solomon knows this. And so he uses fire to illustrate the truth that just as fire without fuel will go out, so also “where there is no whisperer, contention quiets down.” Some translations may refer to a “gossip” or a “talebearer.” The original goes back to a word that refers to “murmuring,” and the same word is used in Psalm 106:25, where the author refers to the Israelites in the wilderness and says that they did not believe in the Lord or his word, but they “...grumbled in their tents” and did not listen to the voice of the Lord. That grumbling (or whispering) is what kept an entire generation out of the Promised Land. We know, then, that murmuring and whispering have a way of leading to conflict. And the murmuring or tale-bearing may be true or it may be false. Either way, our words have a way of leading to conflict. Our words can be destructive, just as fire can be destructive.

And this illustration, by the way, is picked up by James in James 3:5-6, where he says, “See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.” The tongue, then, is compared to fire, and King Solomon says that when the murmuring stops, often the conflict or the contention will stop. To stop a fire, remove the fuel. So also with our words. Solomon’s message, then, is: Don’t be whispering!

    4. This brings us to the very next verse, which is almost identical, but in Proverbs 26:21 (our last one for today), King Solomon says that, “Like charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife.”

Again, this is very similar to verse 20, but slightly different as King Solomon compares a contentious man to charcoal and wood being added to hot embers or a fire. Both are fuel. So, instead of the fuel being removed and contention dying down, this time we have fuel being added to a fire. So also is a contentious man who shows up to a conflict. If there’s any spark of contention, this guy makes it worse; this guy fans the flames; this guy stirs it up; this guy helps the conflict burn hotter and longer. And again, we know people like this. We know people who walk in and make everything worse; they make everything tense; they turn a small conflict into a large conflict. We see this, but can we see it in ourselves? That’s the challenge.

Conclusion:

So, as we come near the end of today’s study of words leading to conflict, let’s ask ourselves whether we bring peace or tension to the world around us. Do we bring calm to our homes, or do we bring conflict? Do we bring stability and reason to the workplace, or do we bring hostility and chaos? Do we solve problems, or do we create problems? Do we cooperate, forgive, and submit, or do we just argue all the time?

According to Paul in Galatians 5, the works of the flesh include “hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, and factions.” Most of these things are expressed through the words that we speak. On the other hand, the fruit of the Spirit is “...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” And again, much of this is also expressed through the words that we speak. We know from James that it’s almost impossible to tame the tongue, but with God, all things are possible. King Solomon would encourage us to think carefully about the words that we speak: If our words lead to conflict, we have the power to have a change of heart, resulting in a change in what we say. That choice is up to us, and when we choose to honor God with our words, he will empower us to make it happen.

This brings us to the end of these eight proverbs in this series within a series. Today, we’ve learned that the words we speak (and even the tone of our words) may have a way of fueling conflict, like adding wood to a fire. Solomon warns us, though, so that we can make a change. Next week, let’s come back together to wrap up this series of lessons by looking at a variety pack of everything else King Solomon has to say about the words that we speak. For now, let’s close today’s study in prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We praise you this morning for being the God of all creation. You made us, and you know our strengths and weaknesses. You know that we often struggle with speaking words that add fuel to the fires of conflict in this world, and so we ask for your forgiveness. We also ask for wisdom to speak as we should, and we ask for strength to only speak those words that are appropriate for every occasion. Help us to be more like your Son.

We ask all of this in Jesus’ name. AMEN

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