The Currency of God's Kingdom Text: Proverbs 20:15
Introduction: A Crisis of Valuation
We live in an age that is drowning in information but starving for knowledge. Our culture is obsessed with valuation, with price tags, with the bottom line. We know the price of everything and the value of nothing. We have endless streams of data, gigabytes of trivia, and a stock market ticker that flashes across our screens, telling us what our culture deems precious. We are surrounded by gold and pearls, by the glittering trinkets of a materialist empire. And yet, we are spiritually destitute.
The modern man, particularly the secular man, believes he is a shrewd appraiser. He thinks he knows what is valuable. He chases after wealth, status, and pleasure, believing these are the solid goods of life. But he is like a man who meticulously collects bottle caps while his house is on fire. He has made a fundamental, catastrophic error in valuation. He has mistaken the packaging for the prize, the shadow for the substance.
The book of Proverbs is a book of divine economics. It is God's own ledger, teaching us what has true, eternal weight. It does not despise material blessings; far from it. The Bible teaches that wealth, rightly gained and rightly used, is a blessing from the Lord. But it relentlessly insists on a proper hierarchy of value. It forces us to calibrate our desires, to set our priorities according to God's standard, not the world's. Our text today is a perfect example of this. Solomon, a man who knew more about gold and precious stones than any ten hedge fund managers, lays two things before us for appraisal. On one side of the scale, he places all the glitter of the material world. On the other, he places something seemingly intangible, ephemeral, and weightless: spoken words. And his conclusion is a direct assault on the spirit of our age.
We must understand that this is not just quaint, folksy wisdom. This is a statement about the very nature of reality. It is a declaration that the universe is not primarily material, but linguistic. It is not fundamentally about atoms, but about information, about meaning, about truth. And because this is true, the man who can speak truth, the one who possesses the "lips of knowledge," is wealthier than any king who possesses only gold.
The Text
There is gold, and an abundance of pearls; But the lips of knowledge are a more precious vessel.
(Proverbs 20:15 LSB)
The World's Best Offer (Clause 1)
Solomon begins by acknowledging the allure of earthly riches.
"There is gold, and an abundance of pearls..." (Proverbs 20:15a)
He is not a sour ascetic, pretending that gold is not shiny or that pearls are not beautiful. He is a realist. He lays the treasures out on the table. He says, "Look. Here is gold." This is the standard of wealth, the foundation of economies. "And here," he says, "is an abundance of pearls," or rubies in some translations. These are not just common goods; they are rare, costly, and desirable. He is granting the premise of the materialist. Yes, these things exist. Yes, they have a certain kind of value. They are not evil in themselves.
This is important. The Bible does not teach that poverty is inherently virtuous and wealth is inherently sinful. That is a pagan, Gnostic idea. God is the one who fills the earth with gold and pearls. He gave Solomon his vast riches. The problem is not the existence of wealth, but the disordered love of it. The problem is when our hearts assign these created things an ultimate value that they were never meant to bear. Gold is a creature. Pearls are creatures. They are finite, they are corruptible, and they cannot speak. They have no wisdom to offer. They can buy you a bed, but not sleep. They can buy you a book, but not knowledge. They can buy you a cross, but not a Savior.
Solomon is setting a trap for the worldly mind. He presents the best the world has to offer. He says, "Let's grant your highest ambition. Imagine you have it all, the gold, the abundance of pearls. You have reached the pinnacle of material success." He lets that image settle in the mind, the weight of the gold, the luster of the pearls. He is establishing the terms of the comparison in the strongest possible way for the materialist. He is not comparing knowledge to a handful of gravel. He is comparing it to the very best that mammon can offer.
The Divine Appraisal (Clause 2)
Having presented the world's treasure, Solomon then brings in God's treasure for comparison.
"...But the lips of knowledge are a more precious vessel." (Proverbs 20:15b)
The "but" here is one of the most important words in the sentence. It signals a complete reversal of valuation. It is a pivot from the world's ledger to God's. The object of comparison is "the lips of knowledge." This is a striking phrase. He does not just say "knowledge" is more precious, though that is true. He specifies the instrument of its communication: the lips. He is talking about spoken, articulated, communicated truth. He is talking about a person who has acquired knowledge and is able to speak it wisely.
Why the lips? Because reality itself is linguistic. In the beginning, God spoke, and the worlds were framed. The entire created order is a divine utterance. Jesus Christ is the eternal Logos, the Word of God, through whom all things were made. Therefore, the man whose lips are governed by knowledge, whose words align with the grain of God's spoken reality, is a man who is in tune with the fundamental nature of the universe. He is participating in the very logic of creation.
This man is a "precious vessel." The word vessel here can mean a jewel, an ornament, or an instrument. The point is that this person, this talking, thinking, knowing person, is the real treasure. A pile of gold is just a pile of inert, silent metal. But a man who can give wise counsel, who can teach the truth, who can speak a word of encouragement in season, who can articulate the gospel, who can warn a fool of his folly, that man is a vessel of incalculable worth. His words can save a soul from death. Gold cannot do that. His words can restore a marriage. Pearls cannot do that. His words can build a civilization. An abundance of rubies cannot do that.
Think of it this way. All the gold in the world cannot solve a single human problem at its root. It can only mask the symptoms. But one true word from God, spoken through the lips of a knowledgeable man or woman, can change a human heart, and in changing that heart, change a destiny, a family, a nation, a world. The lips of knowledge are a creative force, because they traffic in the same currency that God used to create the world: words.
Living in a World of Words
So what does this mean for us? It means we must fundamentally reorder our ambitions. Our central pursuit in life should not be the accumulation of precious metals, but the acquisition of divine knowledge, so that our lips might become precious vessels.
First, this means we must be people of the Book. The knowledge that matters is not the trivia that wins game shows. It is the knowledge of God and His ways, as revealed in Scripture. We must read it, study it, memorize it, meditate on it, until it soaks into the very marrow of our being. We cannot have lips of knowledge if our minds are empty of the source of all true knowledge.
Second, we must learn to govern our tongues. James tells us that the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The same lips that can be a precious vessel can also be a sewer pipe. The potential for immense good is matched by the potential for immense evil. Therefore, part of acquiring knowledge is acquiring the self-control to know when to speak, what to speak, and when to be silent. Ungoverned lips are not a precious vessel; they are a shipwreck.
Third, we must value wise people over rich people. Our culture lionizes the wealthy, no matter how foolish they are. We put them on the covers of magazines and hang on their every word about politics, culture, and morality, as if a large bank account magically imparts wisdom. This is idolatry. We should instead seek out the company of the godly wise. We should find the men and women in our church whose lips are vessels of knowledge and sit at their feet. We should honor the pastor who faithfully preaches the Word, the old woman who knows her Bible backwards and forwards, the businessman who gives wise and ethical counsel. These are the truly rich people in our midst.
The Ultimate Word
Ultimately, this proverb, like all of Proverbs, points us to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the perfect embodiment of the "lips of knowledge." He is the Wisdom of God incarnate. The crowds marveled, saying, "No one ever spoke like this man!" (John 7:46). His words were not just information; they were power. He spoke, and demons fled. He spoke, and storms were stilled. He spoke, and the dead were raised. He spoke, and sins were forgiven.
And what is the gospel but the ultimate expression of the lips of knowledge? It is the good news, the true word, that God has reconciled the world to Himself in Christ. It is a message. It is communicated through words, spoken by the lips of His people. When we share the gospel, our lips become the most precious vessels on earth, for they are carrying the treasure of eternal life.
Christ is the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field for which a man would sell all that he has. He is infinitely more valuable than all the gold and pearls this world can offer. And we come to possess this treasure not through financial transaction, but by hearing and believing the Word of truth, the gospel of our salvation. God, by His grace, has made the most precious thing in the universe available through the foolishness of preaching, through the simple, spoken words of His people.
Therefore, let us not be fools who chase after the glittering dust of this world. Let us pursue the knowledge of God in Christ. Let us beg Him to tame our tongues and fill our mouths with His truth. Let us strive to become men and women whose lips are precious vessels, so that we might be truly rich, and make many rich, for all eternity.