The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out. (Prov 20:5)

Anger is something that we all experience; it is part of our human nature. Proverbs offer us wisdom on how we can handle it wisely.

Goodness of Anger. There are positive aspects of this emotion. In Eph 4:26, the experience of anger is assumed; it is how we deal with it that can lead us to sin. In Exo 34:6-7, God revealed Himself to Moses as a God who is ‘slow to anger’, implying that God Himself does get angry. Therefore, the Christian ideal is not no anger, but it is slow to anger and constructively dealing with it.

Better to live on a corner of the roof

than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

(Prov 21:9)

Some Proverbs are so visual and comical that it helps with remembering it. This is certainly one of them and Proverbs speaks about the spouse on the roof on 4 separate occasions (19:13, 21:9, 25:24, 27:15-16). The Hebrew word for quarrelsome carries with it the range of meaning including perpetual annoyance, contentious, and argumentative. How did this couple end up in which one person cannot stand to be in the same room as the other? How did the marriage get to this point in what might be described as a stressed, strained, or a difficult marriage?

One of the most common things that we do is speak words (apparently, women speak on average 5000 words a day and men 2000). This past Sunday, we reflect on the wisdom of using our words from Proverbs.

Firstly, Proverbs teach us that our words are deeply connected to our hearts.

Above all else, guard your heart,

for everything you do flows from it. (Prov 4:23)

Jesus taught literally the same thing,

For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. (Matt 12:34, NRSV)

Therefore, we need to guard our hearts and avoid all perverse talk (Prov 4:24).