How often, when there has been a potentially explosive situation in the home, between friends, or in the church, it has been subdued by a tender, “soft answer,” and how often have painful, “grievous words,” better left unspoken, been used to “stir up anger,” to the hurt of all concerned. “A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.” “There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health,” and “by long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone.” Such a “soft tongue,” or if need be, a silent tongue, is a testimony to our Lord, “who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.” Let us not be of those “who have said, With our tongues will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?” Let us always remember that, given room, “the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. ... And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.” How it behooves the Christian to “let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye might know how ye ought to answer every man.”
A soft and tender answer
Can calm the wrath of man,
But grievous words, and painful
Can anger start and fan.
Prov. 15:18; 12:18; 25:15; 1 Peter 2:23; Psa. 12:4; James 3:5-6; Col. 4:6.