Proverbs 15:7
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The lips of the wise disperse knowledge: but the heart of the foolish doeth not so.
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A simple figure of speech is evident here. The two pink muscles decorating your mouth cannot hand out knowledge and neither can the fist-sized pump in your chest. These are metonyms for speech - your heart creates words and your lips articulate them. Wise men use speech to help others, but fools do not. To understand proverbs, you must learn to recognize simple figures like this, so the more difficult ones will be made easier.
How will you affect others today by your talking? Will you increase their knowledge? Or will you merely fill their ears with noise and not profit them at all? God gave you a heart and lips to praise Him and help others. And He gave you Scripture to fill your heart with knowledge, so you can have wonderful words to speak (22:17-21; II Tim 3:16-17).
Words carefully chosen and wisely spoken are beautiful, for which both God and men will hold you in high esteem and favor (12:14,18; 15:23; 16:13,24; 22:11; 24:26; 25:11). And wise men use such words to feed many (10:21). They are trees of life to those around them, but fools are traps of sin and death (11:30; 15:4). How many do you feed?
Fools talk a lot, but their words are just noise (Eccl 5:3; 7:6; 10:12-14). So our holy God condemned foolish talking and jesting as sins comparable to fornication and filthiness (Eph 5:3-10). Let every disciple of Christ reject all such speech! Judgment is coming!
What is knowledge? Knowledge is not trivial facts; it is not news about others; it is not casual conversation; it is not insignificant chatter; it is not worldly discourse. Knowledge is counsel that glorifies God and leads a person from sin and toward heaven and holiness.
Every believer can teach. Our apostle rebuked the Hebrew saints for their ignorance and continued need for teachers and simple instruction. It was time for them to be able to teach others, but they had squandered their learning and faculty of speech (Heb 5:12-14).
Our blessed Lord had the tongue of the learned and knew how to speak well (Is 50:4). And He used His faculty of speech to comfort, feed, warn, and rebuke many (Is 61:1-3).
Dear reader, ignorance abounds, and others need you. Will you disperse the knowledge of God today with your mouth? Or will you fill the air with noise and foolishness?
Wise men use their mouths to give knowledge, but the speech of fools helps no one. If you are wise, others will benefit by your words; if you are foolish, others will not profit.
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