The Orchard and the Axe Text: Proverbs 15:4
Introduction: The War in Your Mouth
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, but it is not a book of disconnected moralisms or self-help tidbits for a slightly improved life. It is a book about wisdom and folly, which are two diametrically opposed religions. Every proverb, every pithy statement, is a skirmish in the great war between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. And one of the central battlefields in this war is a small, wet, muscular organ located just behind your teeth. I am talking about the tongue.
Our secular age has a peculiar relationship with words. On the one hand, it preaches a kind of verbal nihilism, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," which any child who has been bullied knows is a lie. On the other hand, it has developed a hypersensitive, therapeutic view of language, where "microaggressions" and "hate speech" are treated as high crimes, yet blasphemy against the Almighty is considered a basic human right. This is utter confusion. They have no coherent standard for what makes words good or evil because they have rejected the Lawgiver who defines both.
The Bible, in stark contrast, treats the tongue with the utmost seriousness. James tells us it is a fire, a world of iniquity, a restless evil, full of deadly poison (James 3:6-8). Jesus tells us that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and that by our words we will be justified, and by our words we will be condemned (Matt. 12:34, 37). Your words are not trifles. They are world-shaping. They are kingdom-building or kingdom-destroying. Every time you speak, you are either planting an orchard or you are swinging an axe.
This proverb from Solomon sets before us this fundamental choice. It is a choice between life and death, healing and breaking, order and chaos. And it all hinges on that little muscle in your mouth. Your words are never neutral. They are either cultivating a garden of life for those who hear them, or they are engaged in a perverse work of demolition on the human spirit.
The Text
A tongue that brings healing is a tree of life,
But perversion in it breaks the spirit.
(Proverbs 15:4 LSB)
A Tongue of Healing, A Tree of Life
Let's take the first half of this tight, antithetical parallelism:
"A tongue that brings healing is a tree of life..." (Proverbs 15:4a)
The Hebrew for "a tongue that brings healing" is literally a "healing of the tongue." This points to speech that is curative, restorative, and medicinal. Think of how a physician sets a broken bone or cleans a wound. This is what our words are meant to do. In a world broken and infected by sin, our speech is to be an agent of restoration. This is the opposite of speech that inflames, agitates, or infects. A healing tongue speaks truth, but it does so with grace. It encourages the fainthearted, corrects the erring with gentleness, comforts the grieving, and builds up the body. Paul nails it in Ephesians: "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear" (Eph. 4:29).
And what is the result of such a tongue? It is "a tree of life." This is not sentimental poetry. This is rich, covenantal theology. Where do we first encounter the tree of life? In the Garden of Eden, at the center of God's perfect world (Gen. 2:9). It was the sacramental sign of eternal fellowship with God. Access to it meant life, and being barred from it meant death. After the fall, Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden, and cherubim with a flaming sword guarded the way to the tree of life (Gen. 3:24).
The story of the Bible is the story of God bringing His people back to that tree. And where do we see it last? In the New Jerusalem, on either side of the river of the water of life, where its leaves are for the "healing of the nations" (Rev. 22:2). The tree of life represents full, flourishing, eternal communion with God in His perfected creation.
So when Solomon says a healing tongue is a tree of life, he is making a profound statement. He is saying that when a man's speech is governed by the wisdom of God, it becomes a little outpost of Eden in a fallen world. It is a foretaste of the New Jerusalem. A home where a husband and wife speak healing words to one another is a place of life, a garden. A church where the saints build one another up with their speech is an orchard. Your words can create a sacramental reality for others, a place where they are nourished, strengthened, and given a taste of eternal life.
A Perverse Tongue, A Broken Spirit
Now we come to the contrast, which is as stark as it gets.
"...But perversion in it breaks the spirit." (Proverbs 15:4b)
The word for "perversion" here means crookedness, a twisting, a distortion. This is not simply about using foul language, though it certainly includes that. Perversion is twisting reality. It is taking what is straight and making it crooked. Lying is perversion. Slander is perversion. Flattery is perversion, twisting the truth for personal gain. Gossip is perversion, distorting someone's reputation behind their back. Sarcasm that has a bitter, cutting edge is a form of perversion. All speech that is out of alignment with the straight-grained reality of God's truth is perverse.
And what does this crooked speech do? It "breaks the spirit." The spirit here is the very core of a person, their will, their inner strength, their resolve. A perverse tongue is an axe aimed at the soul. It crushes hope. It demolishes confidence. It sows discord and suspicion. A child who is constantly told he is worthless by a parent will have his spirit broken. A wife who is subjected to the constant, cutting "jokes" of her husband will have her spirit broken. A pastor who is the target of a whispering campaign in his church will have his spirit broken.
This is spiritual violence. This is soul-murder. And notice the parallel. If healing words create a garden of life, perverse words create a wasteland of death. They are the verbal equivalent of salting the earth. They don't just cause temporary pain; they create long-term desolation. They break the very thing that enables a person to stand, to endure, to hope. This is why God hates a "lying tongue" and one who "sows discord among brothers" (Prov. 6:16-19). He hates it because it is the work of a wrecker. It is the work of Satan, the accuser of the brethren, whose native language is the lie (John 8:44).
The Root of the Matter
So we are presented with two kinds of tongues, producing two kinds of worlds. One is a tree of life, the other is a spirit-breaker. And you have one of these tongues in your mouth right now. The question is, how do we cultivate the first and kill the second? The book of Proverbs is not about behavior modification. You cannot simply decide to start speaking healing words through sheer willpower, any more than a crabapple tree can decide to start producing Honeycrisps.
The problem is not ultimately the tongue, but the heart. Jesus is clear: "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil" (Matthew 12:34-35). If your heart is a cesspool of bitterness, envy, pride, and unbelief, then your mouth will be the exhaust pipe for that pollution. If you want to change your words, you must have a new heart.
This is what the gospel does. It gives us a heart transplant. God takes out the heart of stone, the perverse and crooked heart, and gives us a heart of flesh, a heart that beats in time with His (Ezek. 36:26). The Spirit of God comes to dwell within us, and one of His primary jobs is to retrain our tongues. The fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, are all qualities that radically reshape our speech.
The Word Made Flesh
Ultimately, there has only been one man whose tongue was a perfect tree of life. That man is the Lord Jesus Christ. No perversion was ever found in His mouth. He is the one of whom it was said, "Gracious words were proceeding from His mouth" (Luke 4:22). He spoke healing words to the sick, forgiving words to the sinner, and comforting words to the grieving. His words were so powerful that they cast out demons, calmed storms, and raised the dead. He is the incarnation of the healing word.
But on the cross, this man, whose speech was perfect life, endured the ultimate spirit-breaking. He cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He whose spirit was perfectly attuned to the Father's was broken under the weight of our perverse and crooked speech. He took the axe for us. He absorbed into Himself all the death that our words have dealt, all the lies, the slander, the gossip, the bitterness.
Why? So that He could give us His life. So that He could graft us into Himself, the true Tree of Life. When we are united to Christ by faith, His life begins to flow into us. His Spirit begins the lifelong project of taming our tongues. We will still stumble. As James says, "we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man" (James 3:2). But the direction of our lives has changed. We are no longer content to swing the axe. We now have a new desire, a new power, to cultivate the garden.
So, look to your own speech. What world are you creating with your words? Are you a planter or a chopper? Do people leave your presence healed and nourished, or do they limp away with their spirits bruised and broken? Confess the perversion of your tongue. Repent of the damage it has done. And then look to Christ, the one whose words are life itself. Ask Him to fill your heart with His goodness, so that your mouth might become what it was always created to be: a fountain of grace, a wellspring of encouragement, a tree of life for a dying world.