“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (v. 23). Solomon places the focal point where we often refuse to look for long: the heart. In the Scriptures, the heart isn’t reduced to emotion; it’s the inner throne room where thought, desire, memory, and will convene, as well as where faith either takes root or withers. From that hidden place, life pours outward in streams: habit, reactions, choices, confessions, resentments, comforts, cravings, etc. This is why Wisdom speaks of vigilance. The heart is porous and impressionable. It’s capable of becoming a sanctuary for the Word or a lodging place for what corrodes the soul. What you welcome there will eventually become what you speak, what you pursue, and what you become.
Our Lord speaks with surgical clarity: “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:18-19). He doesn’t permit us the comfortable fiction that our outward sins are merely accidents of circumstance. He locates the poison at the springhead. If the stream tastes bitter, the remedy can’t be limited to polishing the cup. The well itself must be cleansed. That cleansing is ultimately the work of Christ, who gives a new heart by His Word and Spirit, and who daily calls the old heart to repentance.
“Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put perverse lips far from you” (v. 24). Perverse speech is seldom an isolated problem; it’s usually a symptom. Words reveal what has been incubating within. A guarded heart produces measured speech—speech that doesn’t need to manipulate, embellish, or weaponize. Solomon’s command isn’t merely about avoiding vulgarity, as this verse is often reduced to. Rather, it’s about refusing the crookedness that turns language into camouflage.
St. James goes further: “The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell” (James 3:6). That is strong medicine, yet it patches lived experience: A single sentence can rupture a marriage, fracture a congregation, or scar a child for years. Wisdom therefore calls us to treat words as sacred instruments. The mouth is not a toy. It requires right stewardship. When the heart is held under the fear of the Lord, the tongue learns reverence.
“Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you” (v. 25). Wisdom doesn’t merely govern what you say, however. It also trains what you seek. The eyes are not neutral windows; they are gates into the soul. They admit images and impressions that quietly solicit your allegiance. Solomon’s counsel is remarkably practical: Fix your gaze. A scattered gaze often produces a scattered life—restless, impulsive, and perpetually tugged by whatever glitters. A steady gaze forms steadier steps. The Christian’s truest straight-ahead focus is not a vague optimism, but a Person: “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). When Jesus is the reference point, temptations lose some of their glamour, and suffering loses some of its power to disorient.
“Ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left; remove your foot from evil” (vv. 26-27). A wise life doesn’t drift; it discerns. It pauses, weighs, prays, and then walks. To “ponder” is to examine the road beneath you with sobriety, acknowledging where your weaknesses habitually pull you, noticing the patterns that lead to spiritual dullness, and choosing, with intention, the way of faithfulness. This is repentance with its sleeves rolled up—the daily turning away from evil and the daily turning toward God’s gifts. And here’s the comfort stitched into the command: You’re not asked to manufacture holiness from raw willpower. Christ walks ahead of you, and Christ walks with you. He straightens what sin has bent, steadies what fear has shaken, and continues what His mercy has begun. The way is narrow, yes, but it’s not lonely. The One who calls you to guard your heart is the same One who keeps it.
The Lutheran Column 