A Woman's Wisdom: How the Book of Proverbs Speaks to Everything (6 page)

the world . . .

Lying is very stressful. It actually can make you feel really worthless—a crutch you get in the habit of using when you really don’t need one. But because lies beget other lies, you start to think that who you really are does need all that cover-up, so you end up with very little faith in yourself. We need to get you out of this rut. There’s a golden rule that you need to embrace if you want to stop lying: There is nothing and no one that is better
than you.

—
Seventeen
magazine

the word . . .

Lying lips are an abomination to
the L
ORD
,

but those who act faithfully are his delight.

—Proverbs 12:22

Our words carry tremendous power, and perhaps that is why Proverbs contains so many sayings about how we use our tongues.

And

We find the same perspective in the New Testament. The apostle James wrote, “The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God” (James 3:6–9). So it is clear that we can greatly affect our well-being and that of others by what we do with our tongues.

That being said, the power of our words springs not from our actual tongue but from the heart that controls it. Jesus made clear that our words are a reflection of our hearts, which is why they will be judged so strictly: “The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt. 12:35–37).

helping words

As we’ve seen, the proverbs were originally recorded to instruct young men in God’s ways, but the truths we find in them aren’t just applicable to young men. They are fitting for everyone—male or female, young or old—because they are God’s truths. There is, however, a distinction in how to
apply them.

God designed women to complement men. That’s not
compliment
with an
i
but
complement
with an
e
. That one letter makes all the difference. To complement means to fill up, complete, or make perfect. That’s what God had in mind when he said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). Actually, it’s a two-way street; men and women were designed to complement each other. Men and women have been hardwired with distinctive gender traits that, when working together, serve the human race and display the glory
of God.

The word
helper
gets a bad rap. In the marriage context it can conjure up a mental picture of a worn-out wife trudging through the housework and seeking to help her man accomplish his personal goals while he has a stimulating day at the office. But that is not what God had in mind. A wife’s calling is to help her husband accomplish
God’s
goals. The two working together, each with particular strengths, grow and build up God’s family and spread God’s name throughout the world.

There is actually a lot of power in being a helper, because one of the primary ways we exercise it is by influence, and we influence by means of our words. All that to say, one of the primary ways we fulfill our role as helper is through our tongues. A godly helper uses her words to build up, to encourage, and to disseminate God’
s Word.

A woman who used her tongue for the good of others was Esther. In fact, she risked her life in doing so after her relative Mordecai said, “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Est. 4:13–14
NKJV
). The Jews of her day were up against a secretive deadly plot, but because Esther employed her tongue with great wisdom, the Jews were saved.

We can, however, corrupt the call to help, to influence for good, by our words. Consider Delilah in Judges 16. Delilah was a Philistine woman who was employed by her countrymen to trick the Israelite judge Samson. From what we are given to see of Samson in the Bible, it is apparent that he was susceptible to worldly women like Delilah. She put to use all of her feminine wiles—including her speech—to convince Samson to reveal the secret of his great strength so that the Philistines might come in and overpower him. On three separate occasions Delilah said, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could subdue you” (v. 6). Because Samson was infatuated with this woman, he believed she was merely playing some sort of lovers’ game, and he teased her with wrong answers time and again. Finally, though, when Delilah’s manipulative words failed to charm the secret from Samson, she nagged the truth from him, harassing him verbally until he gave in from sheer frustration.

Delilah epitomizes how a woman can misuse her tongue to destroy. God hasn’t given us the gift of speech to gratify our selfish desires. It is meant for building up, encouraging, and setting forth wisdom. When a woman uses her tongue to influence for good, God is glorified and the people in her life are blessed. Will we use our words to manipulate for selfish gain? Or will we use them for the good of others? We will face this choice every day in every conversation
we have.

words of folly

If we isolate all the proverbs that have to do with our words, we find that certain speech sins are addressed repeatedly, so of these we should take
careful note.

Lies

From Proverbs we learn a lot about the characteristics of a liar and the consequences of lying. One thing we learn is that lying is futile because it is always caught and punished:

Sometimes we lie because we feel cornered; it’s almost a knee-jerk response to avoid shame or embarrassment. Other times our lies might be more deliberate. Either way, Proverbs indicates that liars will be held accountable for their words.

We also discover that there is a link between hatred and lying:

As we can see, hatred and lying go together. Lying expresses contempt for the one being lied to. It is a move away from relationship. Recall a time when someone lied to you, and think about why it hurt when you found out. Chances are it wasn’t just whatever the liar had tried to cover up but also the fact that the liar created a barrier in your relationship. The act of lying is a maneuvering tactic for creating relational distance, whether or not the liar is conscious of
doing so.

Another thing we learn from Proverbs about lying is how much God
hates it:

Abomination
is a pretty strong word. In Scripture it is attached to behaviors for which God has a particular disgust and loathing. For that reason, wise women also hate lying:

To hate something is to reject it, to utterly repudiate it, and to cringe when it confronts us. Wise women take honest speech seriously and do not consider half-truths, white lies, or anger-generated vows as legitimate exceptions. If we catch ourselves telling a lie, we stop and tell the truth. Those who are careful to speak only truth are trusted and their words are weighty, whereas those who are careless with the truth aren’t taken seriously.

Ellie learned this firsthand with her daughter Kate, who had been pushing the boundaries of her curfew for several weeks. Ellie warned Kate that if she broke curfew again, she would be grounded. It did happen again, that very week, but Ellie didn’t follow through with the punishment. As a result, Kate has lost respect for her mother and gives even less weight to Ellie’s rules.

If we want to be taken seriously, and if we really want to love those around us, we won’t be careless with the truth. When a friend asks if we think she needs to lose weight, we will tell her the truth rather than just what will make her feel good at the moment. If a coworker tells us she is planning to use a sick day for fun at the beach, we don’t back up her dishonesty with our own untruth and say, “Hey, that’s okay. You need a break.” Being scrupulous with the truth can be hard sometimes, but the payoff is
worth it.

What about things like Santa Claus and keeping surprise parties a secret? It is possible to participate in the delights of such occasions without lying. I think, for example, of the husband of a friend of mine who recently threw his wife a surprise birthday party. He worked behind the scenes to gather her friends for the occasion and managed to keep the party planning so completely off her radar that he never once felt cornered into having
to lie.

When it comes to Christmas, some Christian parents include Santa in their family tradition and others do not. Among those who do, I’ve known many who incorporate Santa without actually leading their children to believe that the gifts under the tree were left there by a jolly old man who came down the chimney. However Santa is handled in your home, it provides an opportunity to teach children about wise words as they are exposed to those whose Christmas tradition differs from theirs.

Surprise parties, Santa Claus, and sensitivity to others’ feelings are just some of the areas in which bringing joy to another without compromising truth can take some creativity, but since God is the originator of joy and truth, he will surely help us to convey both in these situations, if we ask
him to.

Wise women take to heart all Proverbs has to say about the inevitable destruction of lying, the reality of which is played out before us all the time. The demise of the political career of John Edwards is a recent illustration. When the media exposed his extramarital affair with a staffer, he initially denied the reports, but as evidence of his infidelity grew, he had no choice but to admit the truth that he not only had been unfaithful to his wife but also had fathered a child through the affair. His lies harmed numerous people—dedicated political supporters, both his illegitimate child and legitimate children, and his wife, who had been diagnosed with cancer at the time of the scandal. His wife, Elizabeth, stuck by her husband until the depth of his attempted cover-up became known. Elizabeth Edwards died some time ago, and although John was in the family home at the time of her death, the media reported that she had cut John from her estate just days before. Those he harmed will be scarred certainly, but in time it is to be hoped that what he did and tried to cover up won’t prove detrimental to their lives. Not so with John himself. In the eyes of the public, at least, he will be remembered not as a great politician but as
a liar.

False Witness

Another speech folly found in Proverbs is false witness, of which lying is a subset.

We also find it in the ninth commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Ex. 20:16). When we encounter this commandment, a courtroom scene pops into our minds. We picture a court officer placing a Bible before a witness and asking, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—so help you God?” But not bearing false witness includes more than being truthful in court. What exactly is false witness? The term is broader than simple lying, as the Westminster Larger Catechism
points out: