The Righteous in the City

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, this morning we look at the corporate dimension of righteousness, and especially the corporate effects of righteous speech. We see over and over in Proverbs the effect that our mouths have on our neighbors. Why does Scripture make a big deal out of this? Because this is one of the most important facets of daily life for all of us. What makes or breaks your work environment? Outside of things like loud machinery or genuine physical danger, what makes a work environment toxic is how your co-workers talk and act there. How you get along with your spouse depends in large degree in how good you both are at talking to each other! How you live in society depends, in major ways, on your ability to speak to other people. And so wisdom, who is not shy about confronting the things that actually make a difference in our daily lives, addresses how we speak to one another. Every proverb in this section deals with how we talk to each other. What we see here is the blessing that comes to a whole society when righteous people are present and speaking up within it.