Proverbs 17:22 Commentary and Bible Study

In both parts of the proverb the heart is said to have an effect on the body, an effect which we would not immediately expect. The influence between body and soul is two way, but the more profound influence is that of the heart on the body. This is the direction that the influence must take place in the believer. His heart is to be in charge. It is inevitable that sickness and tiredness will affect the mind, but the believer must rise above this: ‘the outward man perishes, yet the inward man is renewed day by day’ (2 Corinthians 4:16). A joyful or cheerful heart does good to the whole man. Not only so, but it even has the power to heal what is sick. Someone who is cheerful will make a better recovery even from physical ailments. A glad heart will make bodily weakness tolerable and even unimportant. A man takes far more notice of what is going on in his heart than in his body. The body is the clothing, the soul is the one clothed; the body is the earthen vessel, the soul is the conscious person. Because of the order in which the Lord works – renewing the soul first and then the body later at the resurrection – the believer lives in hope concerning his body and waits for it to catch up with the regeneration of the soul. The change that God has worked in his heart and the gift of the Spirit who now dwells within him is a pledge from the Lord that he will also raise the body to glory from the grave. The application is first to the individual. It is his own body that is brought to healing by a joyful heart, for no one but the man himself knows directly the joyfulness of his heart. Enthusiasm and optimism and hope are like medicine to a sick man, while guilt and sorrow and a sense of failure have the power to sap all energy and vigour. The same is true of the broken spirit, which is a parallel phrase: it dries up his own bones of his own body. But there is also an influence of the individual on his companions and the cheerful soul spreads cheer to all around and lifts up the spirits of others who know him. We could say that the body of Christ is healed by the cheerful spirit of one of its members, or conversely it is dried up by the gloom and despondency of one of its members. Those with the greatest influence on the fellowship are those in leadership and these have a special responsibility to do good to the body of Christ.