My ancestors were farmers until the day that they died with the exception of my father who was a foreman in a factory. I visited both my grandfather’s farms many times. I knew where my great-grandfather’s and his father’s farms were located. The farmer’s lives my ancestors lived consisted of hard work with their hands. Every spring they planted seeds and every fall, God willing they harvested a crop. The work of a farmer’s hands rewarded them as God enabled them.
Solomon’s parable equals the reward of hard-working hands to the fruit of one’s lips. “From the fruit of his lips, a man is filled with good things.” A person who speaks with wisdom will reap a harvest from those words. Wisdom is not the same as intelligence and knowledge, though both can enhance my wisdom. Wise words are laced with the knowledge and love of God and others.
Working in a field every year is needed, so continually speaking wise words of love is needed. “The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just.” (Psalm 37:30)
Paul wrote of his evangelistic work, “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-7)
