Proverbs 16:23 Commentary and Bible Study

Solomon puts this in an interesting way, describing our different parts as if they were separated from each other, when really we are one body and one soul, with one personality. And yet there is a learning process and the situation is more complicated than it seems. The proverb implies that he either has knowledge within him that is not yet spread through every part of his being, or that he has a wellspring within him that constantly pours fresh knowledge into his heart. Both are true of the Christian. Scripture gives us a picture of the state of the believer’s heart. It is like the land of Canaan which Israel entered with the promise that God would give them the land, and yet its inhabitants had to be driven out. When they first entered, the land lay unconquered before them. The Christian has a sinful heart which he must gradually subdue and put to death, through a lifetime of sanctification. The wisdom which God has put in the heart must come into contact with many other areas of our lives which are currently under the control of sin. But the believer also has the Spirit of God dwelling within him, so that Christ could say, ‘He that believeth on me … out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ The Spirit is ever adding to our knowledge as he gives us understanding of Scripture. Scripture instructs our hearts, and our hearts instruct every other part of us. To put it another way, the different departments of the heart – the part that controls the mouth, the part that controls the eyes (which may all be regarded as the heart itself) – must learn to obey the Lord. The heart teaches the mouth what to speak and what not to speak. Of course the tongue is part of the heart in the sense meant here, for it is a moral lesson that is being taught by the heart, and not simply the pronunciation of words. The outcome of the battle against indwelling sin is that the heart prevails, and it must succeed in teaching the mouth. For the true believer, there is no turning back from the path of holiness, until it reaches its goal in the transformation which the Lord works at death when we are delivered from the body of sin.