The Bible Study Podcast, episode 477. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of Proverbs with chapter 15.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen, almost halfway through Proverbs now. Chapter 15 has one of my favorite proverbs. We're going to talk a lot about talking today. And it starts like this. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. You can often get yourself out of a bad situation just by talking nice, just by being a nice

person and using kind words, and you can also make things a lot worse with your words.

And if you don't believe that, you haven't lived long enough yet.

Continuing on, the tongue of the wise adorns knowledge,

but the mouth of the fool gushes folly.

I like gush's folly.

We need to be careful what we say lest we are gushing folly.

You'll notice that gushing has that connotation,

that there's just a spew, there's just a fire hose of

stupid coming out of her mouth here. The mouth of the fool is just not governed. It's just not

being careful what you think about and not passing what you say through the brain first on the

way out.

But I also like the tongue of the wise adorns knowledge.

It adds on to.

It makes it better.

The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.

Nothing for you to do here.

Just be aware.

God is watching.

The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.

We have the ability to either build up or tear down people, to crush spirits or to be a tree of life, to provide that sort of help.

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