“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”
Proverbs 25:11
Apples. I love apples. My favorite apple is a nice cold crisp honeycrisp. They are the so delicious to me and absolutely the sweetest apple. I could eat an apple pie, cooked apples, baked apples, applesauce, apple crisp, apple turnover, etc. If there are additional ways to eat an apple, I want to know what it is. I love to drink apple cider, especially if it is from Yates Cider Mill in Rochester, MI. The have the best apple cider. It is delicious cold, warm, or as a slushy. Needless to say, I love apples.
What about when an apple is rotten? I don’t love it as much. Almost every night (at least right now because I tend to go in streaks) I love to cut up a honeycrisp apple (maybe two) and cut it into sections and then savor each section. If there is a bad spot, or a mushy part, or a brown spot I cut that part out. I don’t want a brown or mushy apple. If the apple doesn’t taste quite right, I will throw the whole thing away and get a new one. I know that sounds wasteful, but I want my apple to taste delicious not rotten. This happens very rarely.
So our verse for today from Proverbs equates a word from our mouth not just to an apple, but to an apple of gold in a setting of silver.
We can deduce that our words are very powerful.
Our words that are fitly spoken are powerful. The word “fitly” in the original Hebrew literally means “wheels.” Our words like a wheel that “runs well.” The word fitly spoken can also mean “well-placed” or “suitable.”
A well-placed or suitable word has great power and brings beauty to the hearer. Take for instance when you have eaten lunch right before a big presentation and you have a big blob of mustard or ketchup on your face, shirt, or dress. A word well placed and fitly spoken would let you know about this ill-placed glob of condiment on your person. No one would get upset with the deliverer of such news. They would forever be grateful that they did not go before a large audience with said condiment drawing attention away from the speech and onto what you ate for lunch.
A well-placed or suitable word of encouragement will also bring beauty to its hearer. That word of encouragement would be like an apple of gold. It would not be something that you discarded like a napkin used to wipe your face after lunch, but rather you would look at that word of encouragement just like you looked at that golden apple. It would be so valuable that you would display it in a setting of silver to remind you when you were feeling discouraged of the encouraging word shared with you from another person.
What about a well-placed or suitable word of constructive criticism? Would we feel so grateful if someone confronted us about something that disfigured our character like the condiment in the previous example? If someone said that they noticed that you didn’t always tell the truth, or you were easily angered, or you were self-serving in your efforts? Would that well-placed constructive criticism seem more like a rotten apple than an apple of gold?
Our words have great power, and the words we choose to speak come from the storehouse of our hearts.
Are the words you say and the way that you deliver them like a sweet golden apple in a setting of silver because it is fitly spoken? Or are the words you say like the rotten apple that is thrown away because the taste is so rotten?
Let’s purpose to have words that are fitly spoken so that they land in a setting of silver rather than the garbage can.
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