Proverbs 13:3 Commentary and Bible Study

He who guards his mouth, guards his heart also. What is the mouth, and what are the lips but the gateway that leads directly from the heart. A man is responsible for what he allows to go out of his mouth and the wise man will exercise self-restraint, but when he does so, he is not only keeping his lips but his heart as well. Words are spiritual entities and what a person allows their mouths to speak, they sanction in their hearts. Every word spoken strengthens what is in the heart, and what is restrained at the lips is held back in the heart. We could therefore say that the mouth is also the gateway to the heart, for the mouth gives us a way of getting hold of the heart; the guard on the mouth that Solomon speaks of is a guard on what comes out of it, not on what goes into it. The wise know their own hearts and what a potential source of harm they are. They know how much evil exists in their hearts and that it would be madness to give free expression to the heart and let it say whatever it wanted. The same is true of every other aspect of our behaviour. The believer knows that he still possesses a sinful nature and that the only safe procedure is to mortify its impulse to express itself. Therefore whoever does not exercise restraint but opens wide his lips will face the judgment of God in the form of destruction, and whoever guards his mouth and monitors every word that comes from it is keeping not only his mouth but his eternal soul.