The Diagnostic Tongue Text: Proverbs 10:32
Introduction: The War of the Dictionaries
Every worldview is a contest of definitions. The central conflict of our age, and indeed of every age, is a war over words and their meanings. Who gets to define reality? Who is the author of the dictionary we all must use? Our secular, relativistic culture insists that every man is his own lexicographer, that truth is a wax nose to be shaped by personal desire, and that words are nothing more than tools for acquiring power. But this is a rebellion against the fundamental structure of the cosmos. The universe was spoken into existence by a God who defines, and His definitions are not suggestions. They are reality itself.
The book of Proverbs is a book of definitions. It is God's inspired lexicon for wise living. It does not offer a series of disconnected platitudes for self-improvement. Rather, it lays out the sharp, unyielding antithesis between two ways of life: the way of wisdom and the way of folly, the path of the righteous and the path of the wicked. And nowhere is this distinction more apparent, more immediate, than in the use of the tongue. Jesus Himself tells us that the mouth is the heart's overflow valve. "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34). Your speech is a diagnostic tool. It reveals the true state of your soul. You cannot have a heart right with God and a mouth that is perverse, any more than you can have a clean spring producing polluted water.
The proverb before us today is a razor sharp distillation of this principle. It is a perfect example of the antithetical parallelism that is so common in this book. One line is set against the other, and in the stark contrast, we are forced to see the truth. The righteous and the wicked are not on a spectrum; they are on opposite sides of a great chasm. And the bridge, or the lack thereof, is revealed in what comes out of their mouths. We are in a battle for the very meaning of "good," "acceptable," and "true." This verse teaches us that the righteous are those who submit to God's dictionary, while the wicked are those who are trying, with all their might, to write their own.
The Text
The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable,
But the mouth of the wicked what is perverse.
(Proverbs 10:32 LSB)
The Righteous and Their Gracious Intuition (v. 32a)
We begin with the first clause:
"The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable..." (Proverbs 10:32a)
The "righteous" here are not sinlessly perfect individuals. In the Old Testament context, the righteous man is the one who is rightly oriented to God's covenant. He trusts in the Lord, walks in His ways, and has his life aligned with God's revealed will. His righteousness is fundamentally a gift, received by faith, which then works its way out into every corner of his life, including his speech.
Notice the verb: his lips "know." This is not merely an intellectual assent. The Hebrew word, yada, implies a deep, experiential, and relational knowledge. It's an intuitive grasp. The righteous man's speech is not governed by a constant, panicked consultation of a rulebook. Through his relationship with God, through meditating on God's law, his heart is so tuned to the frequency of heaven that his lips instinctively know what is "acceptable."
And what does "acceptable" mean? Acceptable to whom? The world has its own standards of acceptability. What is acceptable in the board room is not what is acceptable in the locker room, which is not what is acceptable on Twitter. But the standard here is singular and absolute: what is acceptable to God. The righteous man's speech is pleasing, favorable, and delightful in God's sight. It is speech that builds up, that imparts grace, that speaks truth in love (Eph. 4:29). It is timely, like "apples of gold in a setting of silver" (Prov. 25:11). This is because the righteous heart treasures what God treasures. He loves what God loves. And so, his lips produce what God finds acceptable.
This is a fruit of the Spirit. A man who is filled with the Spirit of God will have lips that know what is fitting. He has a sanctified sense of timing, tone, and content. He knows when to be silent and when to speak, when to rebuke and when to encourage. This is not a natural ability; it is a supernatural gift that flows from a heart made right with God.
The Wicked and Their Native Perversity (v. 32b)
The second clause provides the stark, unblinking contrast.
"...But the mouth of the wicked what is perverse." (Proverbs 10:32b LSB)
The structure here is a chiasm of sorts. We move from the "lips" of the righteous to the "mouth" of the wicked, a coarser, more animalistic term. The righteous "know," but the wicked simply are. Their mouth is characterized by, and is a firehose for, perversity. The parallelism is striking: the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked is perversity in action. It doesn't just speak perverse things; its very nature is to be an instrument of perversion.
What is "perverse?" The Hebrew word means twisted, crooked, or distorted. It is the opposite of that which is straight and right. The wicked man takes reality, which God has made straight, and he twists it. He calls evil good and good evil. He puts darkness for light and light for darkness (Isaiah 5:20). His speech is designed to manipulate, to deceive, to tear down, to mock, and to corrupt. It is the native language of rebellion.
This perversity is not an occasional slip-up. It is the consistent output of a heart that is at war with God. The wicked man is fundamentally misaligned with reality. Because his heart is twisted against his Creator, everything that comes out of his mouth will be twisted as well. Slander, gossip, flattery, blasphemy, filthiness, lies, and deceit are not isolated verbal sins; they are the predictable and necessary fruit of a perverse heart. The wicked man does not need to be taught how to speak this way. It is his mother tongue. He is fluent in the language of the serpent who first asked, "Did God really say?" That is the primordial perverse question, the twisting of God's straight word.
The Two Dictionaries and the Gospel
So we are presented with two kinds of people, with two kinds of hearts, producing two kinds of speech. One operates from God's dictionary, the other from a dictionary of his own making. One speaks what is acceptable to God, the other what is perverse. There is no middle ground. You are either in one camp or the other.
And this should drive us to a point of crisis. If we are honest, we must admit that our own mouths have, on far too many occasions, spoken from the wicked man's dictionary. We have all twisted the truth for our own gain. We have all spoken words that tear down rather than build up. We have all used our tongues to slander, to complain, to flatter, and to lie. By the standard of this proverb, our own mouths condemn us. Our speech reveals that our hearts are not naturally righteous. They are, by nature, perverse.
This is precisely why the gospel is such good news. The gospel is the announcement that God has provided a righteousness that is not our own. And He has provided a new heart. The central promise of the new covenant is this: "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26).
But it is even more specific than that. The problem of our perverse speech required a perfect Speaker to atone for it. Jesus Christ is the only man whose lips always and only knew what was acceptable. He is the incarnation of the righteous man of Proverbs. "No deceit was found in his mouth" (1 Peter 2:22). His words were life. He spoke with grace and truth. And on the cross, He who spoke no perversity became perversity for us. He bore the judgment our perverse mouths deserved. He took the curse of our crooked words so that we might receive the blessing of His perfect righteousness.
When we are united to Christ by faith, we are not only forgiven for our perverse speech, but we are given a new nature. The Holy Spirit begins the work of sanctification, and a central part of that work is the taming of the tongue. He begins to teach our lips, experientially, what is acceptable. He re-tunes our hearts to the frequency of heaven. We are given a new dictionary, the Word of God, and the Spirit to help us understand and apply it. Our speech becomes, increasingly, a reflection not of our old, twisted nature, but of the beautiful, straight, and true nature of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, Christian, guard your mouth. Recognize that every word you speak is a testimony to the condition of your heart and the identity of your king. When you speak what is acceptable, you are demonstrating the reality of the new creation within you. When you slip back into the perverse dialect of the world, repent quickly. Flee to Christ, who is your righteousness, and ask the Spirit to set a guard over your mouth, that your words might always be acceptable in His sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.