The Word fitly spoken

The book of Proverbs provides many instructions for living a God-honoring life. The Proverbs are attributed to Solomon and other sage teachers; they provide “counsel from the wise” (Jeremiah 18:18) that God used in the Old Testament to speak to His people, and they still speak to all believers today.

One verse from Proverbs that comes from Solomon—rather enigmatic yet pregnant with significance—is found in chapter 25, verse 11. It reads, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

What can such a verse mean? How can words be like apples of gold in pictures of silver? At Christmas, this verse affords an opportunity for God’s people to deliver a gift to others—a gift pointing to the hope for the entire world.

In his great work Politics, the philosopher Aristotle argues that man stands distinguished from the beasts of the earth due to his faculties of speech and reason. Thus, man is a “political animal,” uniquely suited to deliberating with others over major issues pertaining to justice and the governance of daily life.

Aristotle identified a truth about humanity grounded in God’s design of human beings as made in His own image. In the Bible, God speaks, beginning in Genesis chapter 1 with God bringing the world into existence by His Word. For man to speak is thus to fulfill the very design God intended for man, modeling His own attributes.

Perhaps the most widely known adaptation of Proverbs 25:11 comes from Abraham Lincoln in a short fragment he penned in 1861. Writing on the idea of liberty to all in the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln made the following connection between the Declaration and the Constitution.

The expression of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate. …. The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word, “fitly spoken” which has proved an “apple of gold” to us. The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple, but to adorn, and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple—not the apple for the picture.

Lincoln’s adaption of the verse did not involve delivering a good or apt word to someone. However, it does stress the importance and centrality of the apple of gold—in his case, the Declaration—providing the principles of the Union, protected and preserved by the structure of the Constitution, the frame of silver. Lincoln’s use of biblical language also reflects a more commonplace use of Scripture in the writings and public pronouncements from earlier periods of American history, especially—as Robert Alter has pointed out—deriving from the King James translation.

The opportunity before most Christians this Christmas will likely not be to extrapolate the intricate connection between the Declaration and the Constitution, but it can be to give the gift of a “word fitly spoken” to someone. Christians should pray that our speech towards others would be “full of grace” and “seasoned with salt,” providing a good, opportune word in these troubled times—a word anchored in Christ-like love, life-giving, and serving as an apple of gold for others.

Yet, it should be remembered that to give such a gift serves not only to exercise a unique, God-given faculty of speech to follow a biblical proverb. Most of all, such action should be grounded in the reality that God first gave His Son as a gift to the world—the hope for life everlasting. Man’s gift should point to the most perfect gift the world has ever known.

Jesus’s birth embodied, as John 1:14 tells, the very Word made flesh—Immanuel, God with us. Christ was the greatest Word ever fitly spoken—the incarnate Word come to save sinners. He is the Word who can remedy transient life circumstances and bring salvation to our souls.

This Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Christ and recall his many wondrous names: the Lion of Judah, the Prince of Peace, the Son of Man, and the great I Am, amongst others. Yet, we cannot forget that He became the Word made flesh, the Word fitly spoken for all men at all times. May that truth spring from our words to others and serve as an apple of gold in all our hearts this Christmas season.