Proverbs 17:27 ESV “Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.”

King Solomon, the wisest of all humans ever lived with God’s grace on the earth talks about restraining our spoken and written words. There are four important words or phrases here: “restrains, knowledge, cool spirit and understanding.” All these four expressions bear the mark of god fearing attitude and outlook.

Eugene H. Peterson in The Message translation states like this: “The one who knows much says little; an understanding person remains calm” (Proverbs 17:27 MSG). Solomon’s words may seem common and secular; however, we can learn a great truth about it considering the fear of the Lord. The same author says, “… Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:9-10). If we are not righteous or godly saved by the atonement of Christ, we will end up saying a lot in words that are worldy and ungodly. And those words will lack God’s insight. As a result, these empty words reveal our nature that we are not god fearing. What else can you expect from the ungodly except …“the works of the flesh: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, …“(Galatians 5:19-21 ESV).

It is His mere grace that we live under the Lord’s guidance and we are so privileged to have His written words in the form of the Bible. Let’s spend our days in meditating upon the Scriptures.


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