What Kind of Cutting Does God's Word Do?
There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. -Proverbs 12:18
I remember a scene from Monty Python’s Holy Grail, where Sir Lancelot comes into a village and wildly swings his sword. He kills everyone in sight. That sounds more graphic and violent than it really is—it’s a bit comical in the execution of the thing. We get the idea that he has no concern for who meets the end of his sword—he has one mission and doesn’t care who stands in his way to accomplish it.
That is the picture in Proverbs 12:18 in regards to “rash words”. Rash words are those which have no thought and no consideration of the importance of the words. It’s using your words like Lancelot—coming in hot and wounding and killing anyone within earshot of these words. The proverb says that these rash words are like sword thrusts.
This sword thrusting is contrasted with the tongue of the wise that brings healing. These words are likely thoughtful, grounded in truth, and meant to build up. Such words are brimming with truth and seasoned with grace. Sword words are harmful. Wise words are good.
But there is another place in Scripture that speaks about words and swords. In Hebrews 4:12-13 we read this:
12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
What kind of “word” is the Word? Is it stabby like a sword or healing like those of the wise man. I think some take a passage like this, where Scripture is likened to a sword, and immediately think that it’s meant to be offensive. We use the sword against Satan—to cast down his arguments. That’s a fair understanding given Ephesians 6. But we also can think that the sword of God’s word is meant to cut open our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Look a little closer at what God’s Word does in Hebrews 4. It pierces us. It cuts through all of the smoke and mirrors we put out to protect ourselves and it slices right to the core of our being. It’s more like a machete cutting through thick brush—leaving exposed that which was formerly hidden.
But why?
If we keep it connected to its context—it has to do with entering rest. Thus, I would argue that this is the same type of healing spoken of in Proverbs 12:18. God’s Word is primarily meant to be healing. Yes, that function of cutting through the weeds can be painful. But at the end of the day the cutting is meant for our healing. It’s a bit like the story of Eustace in CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
A little boy named Eustace makes a silly compromise and turns himself into a dragon. But one day realized he doesn’t like being a dragon. It can be summed up this way:
But Eustace discovered that he was utterly unable to heal himself or prepare himself to be healed. When he tried to remove the dragon skin by himself, all he was able to do was get down underneath his dragon skin — to the next layer of dragon skin. And you know while you are reading this passage, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that as long as Eustace was doing his own scraping, it would be dragon skins all the way down.[1]
And now from Lewis directly:
“Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke – ‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. “The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.” ... “Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off ... And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again..."[2]
At times if we’re being faithful to God’s Word, we will speak words that appear to be painful and cutting. But if we are laboring in the Spirit, these words are meant, and will ultimately be, healing. Rash words aren’t this. And we can rashly use the Word of God. We are doing this whenever we use it to cut and wound instead of to heal.
Are your words healing or hurtful?
[1] https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/undragoned-c-s-lewis-on-the-gift-of-salvation
[2] C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: The Chronicles of Narnia (New York: Harper, 1952), 473-474.