Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding.
I’ve definitely never spoken when I shouldn’t have, and I’ve definitely never lost my temper. Absurd assertions aside, all of us have talked when we shouldn’t, and all of us have let our hearts grow wroth when we’d be much better off keeping calm. Proverbs here takes a moment to remind us of the immense value of self-control in speech.
Now, keeping quiet won’t actually make you smarter in itself. However, whenever we speak, we must consider the benefits and costs of speaking. Do we speak to bring blessing? Often we speak not because it blesses others, not out of love for others, but out of love for ourselves. Of this sort is the ‘candid friend’ Chesterton castigates in Chapter 5 of Orthodoxy, saying, “What is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something back— his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help.”
We want to show off our knowledge and our greatness. Yet Scripture tells us that we show a lack of (worthwhile) knowledge when we speak; we may know quite a bit, but we do not know ourselves in relation to God, not as well as we should. This admonition should not be taken as a reason for complete silence, though. “Gracious words are like a honeycomb,” says Proverbs 16:24, and should we not bless others with such gracious words?
This proverbs then tells us to restrain our words, not to be silence. Critical to this restraint is the skill of recognizing when we must speak. When the rider restrains his horse, he does not merely stop the horse from turning in the wrong direction; he turns the horse in the right direction.
Wise speech is in part the fruit of self-restraint, but self-restraint itself is no easy virtue. In our natural state, we are veritable bucking broncos, vicious and malicious (James 3:1-8), so that even the greatest among us find our passions wont to run amuck (Rom. 7:7-11). We don’t have cool spirits.
What is a ‘cool spirit’? The man who has a ‘cool spirit’ is one who keeps control of his emotions. He may be angry, but he does not let that anger determine his thought; he may be sad, but he does not let that sadness warp his mind. This calm is a sign of his great understanding, for it is founded, if he is wise, on apprehension of God, on knowing that God in heaven watches him, that God is his strong refuge (Ps. 146:5). This calm is not the eradication of emotion. This wise man submits his emotion to God, to His law, and to relationship with Him.
Knowledge comes both from what self-restraint allows us to see. We learn more of His world because we listen, and we learn more because we turn ourselves to the pursuit of that right knowledge, of goodness, beauty, and truth. Understanding, meanwhile, is similarly reached by the ‘cool spirit’ which it births. If I keep my head and consider what is before me clearly, unobscured by my fears and passions even as I remember those fears and passions, then I can see clearly what is before me, can learn and analyze His world, and can re-apply that understanding further, whether in speech or in silence.
All this flows, in the end, from the fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:7). Because we regard Him with due reverence, we can set aside our desires and our whims in order to restrain ourselves. Because we regard Him as He is, we can rein in our emotions, as well as our tongues, and turn them to seeking greater understanding, to blessing others. Thus, in part, we find that love, peace, patience, kindness, and self-control which the Spirit works in us (Gal. 5:22-23).
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
