A Brief, Unironic Word on Silence

“In Maine, we have a saying…”

I was recently looking through some of my books and I came across Proverbs and Epigrams (publ. 1964). The book belonged to my great-Uncle Stanley, and I received it after he passed in 2001. It’s a hardcover book still having its dustjacket. It contains over 2500 proverbs and epigrams. It covers more than 500 topics. What I found of interest was not any of the printed sayings but something that Stanley wrote in the margin. On page 35, he noted in pencil, “In Maine, we have a saying, ‘You don’t say anything that doesn’t improve on silence.” The subject of silence was on his mind, and he even added the additional saying to his book.

The Bible also mentions silence quite frequently. In Proverbs, “Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.” (17:28) In Psalms, “Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent.” (4:4) And again, from the Psalms, “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.” (62:5) And in Habakkuk, “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.” (2:20) Silence is also the response of the saints who observe the Lamb opening the seventh seal, “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Rev. 8:1) About this passage Joseph Exell comments:

Now, the first sort of silence to which I would call your attention is the silence of worship, of awe, and reverence. “The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.” Such is the canon for worship laid down by Habakkuk; and it is a canon as much binding upon us as upon those to whom it was originally addressed. When we come up to the house of prayer, there to meet Christ upon the mercy-seat—there to hear His voice speaking to us in the read and spoken Word…we are bound to observe the silence of awe and reverence. (Joseph Exell, The Biblical Illustrator: Revelation, 396.)

We live in an extremely noisy and distracted world. Today, set aside some time for silence. Make it a consecrated silence, one where the focus is on the Lord and his word and not on the cares and concerns that seem always to press down upon us. Have a blessed week and we will see many of you on Sunday.

Love in Christ,

Pastor Dale Smith