◄ Proverbs 12:8 ►
A man is praised according to his wisdom, but a twisted mind is despised.
Sermons
Appreciation Better than PraiseAlliance NewsProverbs 12:8
The Downward and the Upward PathsW. Clarkson Proverbs 12:1, 15
Strength and FruitfulnessW. Clarkson Proverbs 12:3, 12
Blessings and Miseries of Domestic LifeE. Johnson Proverbs 12:4-11














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Right (just) Thoughts
Proverbs 12:5
W. Clarkson
The thoughts of the righteous are right, or are "just" (Revised Version). There is something more than a truism in these words. We may see first -

I. THE PLACE OF THOUGHT IN MAN. This is one of the greatest importance, for it is the deepest of all; it is at the very foundation.

1. Conduct rests on character. It is often said that conduct is the greater part of life; it is certainly that part which is most conspicuous, and therefore most influential. But it is superficial; it rests on character; it depends on the principles which are within the soul. It is these which determine a man's position in the kingdom of God.

2. Character is determined by our prevalent and established feeling; by what we have learned to love, by what we have come to hate. As a man thinketh in his heart, as he feels in his soul, so is he; it is our final and fixed attachments and repulsions that decide our character.

3. Feeling springs from thought. As we think, we feel. By the thoughts admitted to our minds and entertained there are determined our loves and our hatreds. Life, therefore, is ultimately built on thought. What are we thinking? - this is the vital question. Now, the thoughts of the righteous, the upright, the good, the true man, are right, or just.

II. THE JUST THOUGHTS OF THE GOOD. A good man's thoughts are such as are:

1. Just to himself. He owes it to himself to thick only those thoughts which are pure and true. If he harbours those which are impure and untrue, he is doing himself deadly injury, he is inflicting on his spirit, on himself, a fatal wound. This he has no right to do; he is bound, in justice to himself, to guard the gate of his mind against these - to admit only those which are true and pure.

2. Just to his neighbours. He owes it to them to think thoughts that are honest and charitable. We wrong our brethren, in truth and fact if not in appearance, when we think of them that which is not fair toward them. Every really righteous man will therefore banish thoughts which are not thoroughly honest, and also those which are uncharitable; for to be uncharitable is to be essentially and most materially unjust.

3. Just to God. We owe to our Divine Creator and Redeemer all thoughts which are

(1) reverent, leading us to piety and devotion;

(2) grateful, leading us to thankful praise;

(3) submissive, leading us to the one decisive, all-inclusive act of self-surrender, and to daily and hourly obedience to his holy will;

(4) trustful, leading us to a calm assurance that all is well with us, and that the darkness or the twilight will pass into the perfect day. - C.

Biblical Illustrator
A man shall be commended according to his wisdom.
Proverbs 12:8
Appreciation better than praise
Alliance News.
There are persons in this world — and the pity is that there are not more of them — who care less for praise than for appreciation. They have an ideal after which they are striving, but of which they consciously fall short, as every one who has a lofty ideal is sure to do. When that ideal is recognised by another, and they are praised or commended for something — let that something be important or not — in its direction, they are grateful, not for the praise, but for appreciation. An element of sympathy enters into that recognition, and they feel that they have something in common with the observer who admires what they admire, and praises what they think is most worthy of praise.

(Alliance News.)

People
Solomon
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Becometh, Commended, Despised, Distorted, Heart, Insight, Intelligence, Measure, Mind, Minds, Perverse, Perverted, Praised, Sense, Understanding, Warped, Wisdom, Wrong-minded
Outline
1. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Proverbs 12:8

     5262   commendation
     5481   proverb

Library
The Many-Sided Contrast of Wisdom and Folly
'Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish. 2. A good man obtaineth favour of the Lord: but a man of wicked devices will he condemn. 3. A man shall not be established by wickedness; but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. 4. A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. 5. The thoughts of the righteous are right: but the counsels of the wicked are deceit. 6. The words of the wicked are to lie …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

April the Twenty-Second Speech as a Symptom of Health
"The tongue of the wise is health." --PROVERBS xii. 13-22. Our doctors often test our physical condition by the state of our tongue. With another and deeper significance the tongue is also the register of our condition. Our words are a perfect index of our moral and spiritual health. If our words are unclean and untrue, our souls are assuredly sickly and diseased. A perverse tongue is never allied with a sanctified heart. And, therefore, everyone may apply a clinical test to his own life: "What …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

To Pastors and Teachers
To Pastors and Teachers If all who laboured for the conversion of others were to introduce them immediately into Prayer and the Interior Life, and make it their main design to gain and win over the heart, numberless as well as permanent conversions would certainly ensue. On the contrary, few and transient fruits must attend that labour which is confined to outward matters; such as burdening the disciple with a thousand precepts for external exercises, instead of leaving the soul to Christ by the …
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

Of Having Confidence in God when Evil Words are Cast at Us
"My Son, stand fast and believe in Me. For what are words but words? They fly through the air, but they bruise no stone. If thou are guilty, think how thou wouldst gladly amend thyself; if thou knowest nothing against thyself, consider that thou wilt gladly bear this for God's sake. It is little enough that thou sometimes hast to bear hard words, for thou art not yet able to bear hard blows. And wherefore do such trivial matters go to thine heart, except that thou art yet carnal, and regardest …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

The Ninth Commandment
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' Exod 20: 16. THE tongue which at first was made to be an organ of God's praise, is now become an instrument of unrighteousness. This commandment binds the tongue to its good behaviour. God has set two natural fences to keep in the tongue, the teeth and lips; and this commandment is a third fence set about it, that it should not break forth into evil. It has a prohibitory and a mandatory part: the first is set down in plain words, the other …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

The Authority and Utility of the Scriptures
2 Tim. iii. 16.--"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." We told you that there was nothing more necessary to know than what our end is, and what the way is that leads to that end. We see the most part of men walking at random,--running an uncertain race,--because they do not propose unto themselves a certain scope to aim at, and whither to direct their whole course. According to men's particular …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness, and all These Things Shall be Added unto You. "
Matth. vi. 33.--"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." The perfection even of the most upright creature, speaks always some imperfection in comparison of God, who is most perfect. The heavens, the sun and moon, in respect of lower things here, how glorious do they appear, and without spot! But behold, they are not clean in God's sight! How far are the angels above us who dwell in clay! They appear to be a pure mass of light and …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Proverbs
Many specimens of the so-called Wisdom Literature are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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