Proverbs 16:21-24

Truth gets further when it travels pleasantly. "Sweetness of the lips increaseth learning" — the same lesson lands or bounces depending on the grace of its delivery, and many a sound man has less influence than he should for simple want of courtesy. Augustine confessed it happened to him: he went to hear Ambrose for the beauty of his speaking, and while the eloquence held his ear open, the truth walked in. Gentleness is not weakness in a teacher; it is horsepower.

A wellspring — water rising from inside the property, not trucked in. The man of understanding carries his refreshment within: cut him off from the conference, the crowd, the good week, and something still flows. But be exact about the plumbing: the spring is in him, not of him — it is fed wholly from the sky, and a rainless sky makes a barren land. The Lord Jesus took this verse's picture and went deeper with it: "the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14). And there is a solemn line for the man who keeps postponing that drink: now there is water but no thirst; one day there will be thirst, but no water.

Note the direction of instruction: the heart teaches the mouth — never the reverse. Words with no heart behind them are recitation; divinity is not said by rote. Man's religion begins with the head; God's begins with the heart — and when the heart has actually been somewhere, the lips carry the accent of the country.

Sweet and healthy — the rare combination; most sweet things cost you something later. Pleasant words — kind, fitly chosen, true — feed the soul and medicine a man's deepest structure. You have felt this in your body: one gracious sentence at the right hour loosening a week's worth of tension. Be the man who deals in that honey. One warning on the label: flattery counterfeits this verse — many a poison is sweet to the taste, but instead of health to the bones it is loaded with death. Pleasantness must carry truth, or it is just sugar on a hook.