Covenants and contracts have been a part of human history since its beginning. From God’s covenant with the creation and man in particular to two men agreeing with a handshake on the sale of property, words have created bonds between God and man and men with men. Those words are only as good as the character of those speaking them. If one or both parties lack integrity, then the relationship is vapor. Integrity in character revealed through speech is the mortar that binds us together.
As Solomon instructs his king-in-waiting son, one concern is the character of his speech. Because a king’s words are powerful, holding in them the power of death and life (Pr 18.21), the son must be careful in speech. At the root of all of his speech must be integrity. “Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool” (Pr 19.1) “Walking in integrity” is contrasted here with being “perverse in speech.” Just as God reveals who he is through his Word (Jn 1.1-2, 14, 18), so we also reveal our character through the way we speak. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Mt 12.34), and the heart is command central for our total being; the heart is where our deepest affections and allegiances lie, where we reason, and where we decide what to do. Our heart is revealed in our speech along with our actions. Our hearts must be integrous. When they are, the integrity will be evident in our speech.
Integrity is more than “not lying.” Integrity is being pure through and through. A synonym for integrity might even be “holy.” To have integrity of character means that there are no deficiencies that would make you crack under pressure. Wood and metal can have integrity. The lack of integrity is exposed by putting them under pressure. If there is an impurity in the metal or rottenness in the wood, they will buckle and break. Purity of this sort, therefore, is strength, a trustworthy strength; you can walk into a house made of metal and wood without worry because of the integrity of the products from which it is made and how they are put together.
The Person of Wisdom is integrous. All of Wisdom’s words are “righteous, there is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge” (Pr 8.8-9). There are no tricks, no bait-and-switches with Wisdom. Wisdom’s words are solid through and through and, therefore, can always be trusted. Those who share Wisdom’s character love Wisdom’s speech, and those who love Wisdom’s speech share Wisdom’s character. If we share Wisdom’s character, our words will have the same integrity as Wisdom’s; our words will be strong, unalloyed, and, therefore, trustworthy.
In Proverbs 8, Wisdom is a master craftsman building the world. Worlds are created by words. God created everything through the word of mouth (Gen 1; Ps 33.6). Through his word, God created and sustains reality. God’s word is integrous. It cannot be broken. It may be defied and railed against, but it cannot be overpowered. God’s reality is reality.
As his image, we create worlds as well, everything from the atmosphere in a room to societies through constitutions and laws. Our words truly create, but they never can overpower God’s word. We create within the boundaries of God’s reality. We take the reality he has given us and transform it into genuinely new things, but they always work according to the way God made and sustains them. For this reason, for our words to have integrity, they must always be in harmony with God’s words. If they are not, they are lies.
A man of integrity, to quote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, lives not by lies. He can’t be bought. He can’t be pressured enough to crack. He will not buckle under pressure to change his story to “fit the narrative’ so that he can have it a little easier on himself. He refuses to capitulate to popular distortions of reality that popular culture, government officials, or ecclesiastical celebrities pressure us to accept and positively affirm. Duress does not break a man of integrity. His character is strong because he is committed to the truth. He is committed to an unwieldy reality.
How do you become a man of integrity? Love God’s Word. Learn God’s Word. Live God’s Word. Be unashamedly committed to the truth no matter how embarrassing it may be to others. When scientists tell you how foolish you are for believing in a literal six-day creation, when culture gender-benders criticize your archaic views on human sexuality, when conservative politicians tell you how close-minded you are for not being a big-tent conservative that affirms homosexual marriage, and when Christian denominations try to convince you to be more “gracious” in adopting alternative lifestyles, stand firmly with the truth of Scripture. All of these other words lack integrity and will, therefore, come to nothing along with those who speak them. You and all that you build, however, trusting him who is Integrity, will endure.
