The Wisdom Of Silence

THE WISDOM OF SILENCE

Oh, that you would be silent, and it would be your wisdom! (Job 13:5)

“A fool utters all his mind: but a wise man keeps it in till afterwards.”—Proverbs 29:11

The tongue is a deadliest weapon. It’s quick, sharp like a sword. It’s a fire and it is full of poison. Death and life are in the power of the tongue which means even though it can do a lot damage, it can also give life and one of the ways it gives life is by keeping quiet.

To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven . . . a time to keep silence and a time to speak.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,7); everything is beautiful in its season, silence and speech inclusive. It is a great part of prudence to know when to be silent and when to speak. When it is time to speak, silence is our folly; and when it is time to keep silence, speaking is our folly. Silence is a precious gift. In that space between our words is where we find ourselves. When the mind is quiet, when there are no thoughts and no words to be said, we can hear our own heart talking to us. We can hear our own soul and our own intuition.

We talk most times thinking that silence is something to be ashamed about, something to be avoided. But, it’s not. There’s nothing wrong with silence. Silence further encompasses not just the quieting of external noise produced by others, but also the noise produced by oneself; it requires the cessation of all talking, or speaking only when absolutely necessary. In silence, the only words one attends to are those that are created inwardly, and the only words one produces take the form of personal writing. “Too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut.” (Proverbs 10:19)

Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools speak because they have to say something.” (Plato)

There are seven special seasons of speaking and seven seasons of silence.

THE SEVEN SEASONS OF SPEAKING

1. Speaking to give glory to God, and do good to our brethren,

2. When we have an opportunity to vindicate the honor and truth of God,

3. When we may vindicate a brother that is wronged,

4. When our words may instruct or direct those that are ignorant,

5. When we may comfort or support those that are weak,

6. When we may resolve and settle those that are in doubt,

7. When we may daily reprove and convince those that do evil.

At such times as these, we have occasion to speak, and then it is our sin or our weakness, nothing at all of wisdom, to be silent.

THE SEVEN SPECIAL SEASONS OF SILENCE

1. It is never in season to speak, till we have a call. It is impertinent to be busy with our tongue in other men’s matter, unless those men or the providence of God, or our present duty bespeaks us.

2. It is a season to be silent, when we are not rightly informed in or about the state of a particular thing or question to which we must speak. The person who makes a determination upon it must be a master of the question, and until he has the compass of it in himself, he can never draw it to a good conclusion.

3. When we know the state of a question, yet we must not speak without a suitable preparation, either actual or habitual. Be not rash to utter a thing before God or man. “Be swift to hear, and slow to speak” (James 1:19), yet we must not hear till we are prepared.

4. It is a season to be silent, when what we speak is like to be a snare unto ourselves. Amos 5:10,12,13 - Don’t speak against evil times, or the worst evils of most times, lest we bring ourselves into an evil snare. Speak when you are sure of something. We must speak, at our peril, when there is greatest peril in some situations. We may be silent from reproving men; (a) When there is no probability that the evil which we bring ourselves into shall be balanced with a proportionate good to others; (b) When those sins have been sufficiently witnessed against already so that men will not commit those sins again for lack of openness, but directly against it. In these situations, we have no obligation to run upon our own danger (Matthew 7:6).

5. It is a season for silence when the passions and corruptions of others are upon us. It would have been better for Meek Moses to have held his peace, than to have spoken when the people provoked him to anger, rather he spoke unadvisedly with his lips (Psalm 106:33). Passion is an ill- counsellor, and a bad speaker; a man is not fit to reprove or speak angrily, when he is angry. Storms at the tongue are never so reasonable as when there is a calm upon the hear. A wise man will advise an angry man to say all the letters of Alphabet, before he ventures to put any two of them together or speak a word.