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Proverbs 18:4 · World English Bible

Proverbs 18:4 Meaning The Words of a Man’s Mouth Are

The words of a man’s mouth are like deep waters. The fountain of wisdom is like a flowing brook.

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What does Proverbs 18:4 mean?

What a mind speaks rises from a depth it seldom examines, and those deep waters carry whichever teacher the mind has chosen. When fear is the source, the words run dark and troubled, stirring the very conflict they describe.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 18:4 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

What a mind speaks rises from a depth it seldom examines, and those deep waters carry whichever teacher the mind has chosen. When fear is the source, the words run dark and troubled, stirring the very conflict they describe. When love is the source, the same depth becomes a clear and flowing stream, and speech turns gentle, giving without taking.

The difference is never in the words themselves but in what feeds them from beneath. A mind drawing from the wellspring of truth speaks as a brook moves, freely and without effort, because it has nothing to defend and everything to share.

Deep waters: the hidden source beneath speech, the depth of mind that carries whichever teacher, fear or love, has been chosen Flowing brook: the mind fed by truth, giving its words freely and without strain, clear because it defends nothing

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 18:4 today

  1. Before you send the message, read it once and ask honestly what it is coming from. Fear and fondness can use the exact same sentence.
  2. Today, say one true kind thing to someone without softening it into a joke. Let it come out clean.
  3. When you are tired and short and you can feel the sharpness loading up, name it to yourself first, I am tired, not they are wrong. Then speak.

What is actually feeding the words you have been saying lately?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 8

The highest good is like water. It benefits everything and competes with nothing, settling into the low places others avoid.

Buddhism

Watch what your words rise from before you watch the words. Speech born of ill will cannot be made kind by a careful tone.

Taoism · Zhuangzi

Words are like wind and waves, easily set in motion and hard to still. What begins as a small saying ends as a great loss.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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