How can we know the state of a person's heart?
Text: Proverbs 10:32
Hosts:
Tim DeFor
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2026 CrossTalk Global
Brian: In Pennsylvania, 1979, a nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island experienced a minor technical glitch. A pressure relief valve opened but failed to fully close. And this resulted in the loss of coolant around the reactor core. Technicians didn't notice because their instrumentation was confusing and the control panel only showed the signal to close, not the actual position of the valve. But this gets worse. As coolant unknowingly leaked, the emergency cooling pumps activated, but the operators turned them off manually because they thought the system was overfilling the reactor. They trusted the misleading control panel indicators In a similar way, human beings are very complex and confusing. We have a hard time understanding ourselves, let alone others. But what if I told you that God gave us a very clear indicator light to discern the state of our soul and the condition of other people's hearts? Listen in as we discover the indicator light God has given us all in the book of Proverbs. Today, while Dr. Kent is away teaching with Crosstalk, join Vicki Hitzkes, Nathan Norman, and guest host Tim Dufour as they discover Solomon's insight in Proverbs 10:32. Welcome to Crosstalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life. Into All Our Lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Vicki Hitzkes, Nathan Norman, and Tim Dufour continue our journey through Proverbs. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs 10:32 as we join their discussion.
Nathan: Hi, Tim and Vicki.
Tim: Hello.
Vicki: Hi, Nathan.
Nathan: Welcome back.
Tim: Great to see you, Nathan.
Nathan: Welcome. It's good to see you. Good to see you. Yeah, we can— listeners, we can see each other, but you can't see us. One day that might change, but for now, we can see each other, but you can only hear us. But, uh, okay, I'm gonna ask this question, but I don't want you to answer it like, you know, a good Christian, just, just a general person in general. How do people evaluate the character of other people, right? So how do we— how do people, human beings in general, evaluate the character of other people?
Tim: Yeah, if you haven't interacted with somebody yet, it could be reputation, but once you start interacting with somebody, I think you start to get a sense Are they somebody that you can trust? Do they do what they say? That's one way. Can you trust them to keep secrets, keep things private? You can observe how they treat other people around them, and it can reflect. Is it how do they treat people that are in authority over them? But also, how do they treat just somebody else who may be lower in society?
Nathan: Yeah.
Tim: According to others.
Vicki: Yeah, those are good. We're coming on an election season as we record this. Aren't we always? Yeah, aren't we always?
Tim: Always.
Vicki: And I think about what my values are, and I hear of the values of candidates, the ones they say they have, and then what their opponents say they have.
Nathan: Oh, yeah.
Vicki: And I think, those are mine or those are not mine. And then when I meet somebody new, I, you know, what they do, and I think, oh, I like that. Or I think, ooh, I don't like that. And then I judge their character by that.
Nathan: Yeah. Yes. And I think you guys are both really gracious. I think we're often really more superficial, right? We will judge the character of somebody by their clothing, —right?
Tim: Oh, for sure.
Nathan: By their external appearance. And, uh, oh gosh, what are some other horrible ways we will judge people? Oh my goodness, I knew a guy— and actually, this isn't horrible— I knew a guy who, he, he had apartments that he rented out, and he said basically the first thing he would do is he would greet them on at the driveway and he would look in their car. And if their car was like a disaster zone, he knew that they were not going to take care of the apartment. And if it was generally clean, he knew that they were going to "Take care of the apartment well." And that was his one major deciding factor in whether he would rent to me.
Vicki: Well, it's probably all he had, but I'll tell you what, my car and my desktop, I could never rent a place anywhere ever. But my house is spotless. You come in and I mean, it's spotless. You could eat off my toilet seats or my floors. Oh, gosh. But my car, uh-uh. I know, I know.
Nathan: I'm going to turn down that invitation. Thank you. No, that's true. Yeah, so my friend would have misjudged you.
Vicki: He would have misjudged. I'm serious about that. He would have misjudged me. Yeah. Yeah. And I say my house is clean. My house is clean. But you open my closets, you got to get your shots. So it just depends. Okay.
Tim: Okay. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, Nathan, because you're right, especially when you first meet somebody. It can be how they carry themselves. It can be, do they look you in the eye? It can be how do they walk? You know, there's all these little things that perhaps from people in our own past, we might connect them with somebody like that. And so we'll see something in them and we'll automatically make an assumption about them from their appearance, from what they drive, how they dress, how they present themselves.
Vicki: Oh, I'm on a roll now you brought that up. If you say you're gonna be there at 3, Be there before or at 3. Don't show up at 3:15 and give me an excuse. Show up on time. I went and helped a friend babysit, and this couple knew we were coming. They knew we were coming. Hold that in your heads. They didn't make the bed. They didn't clean the kitchen. They didn't clean anything, and the place smelled like a wet dog. And I, you know, They may be wonderful people, but—
Nathan: Did they have a dog?
Vicki: Yeah, fortunately they had a dog. But I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that just, that spoke to me. Yeah, yeah, right.
Nathan: So all of those, how people smell, you know, they smell nice, they, uh, they don't smell nice. I'll tell you something, Bizarro World has nothing to do with this, so we shouldn't even go down this rabbit trail, but I had a semi-serious girlfriend in high school and that didn't work out. And oh my gosh, and then after I broke up, I go and I see my aunt who's 15 years older than my dad and she has the same perfume on that my girlfriend always wore. That was weird. She kept giving me a hug and I'm like, "I can't even hug you right now. I'm out of here." We make assessments based on smell. You know, somebody comes in, they're smelling. They smell bad. Oh, we're gonna, we're gonna judge on that. And we evaluate character on those issues. Um, but let's make it more personal. How do people evaluate their own character? So not just the character of other people, the way they smell, the way they walk, the what they look like, uh, how they keep their house or their car. Um, how do we evaluate our own character? How do people in general evaluate themselves?
Tim: Oh boy, I think we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.
Vicki: I bet that's true when it comes to character.
Tim: I like to say sometimes that we judge others on their actions and ourselves on our motives. We didn't mean to do something wrong, and so that makes us okay. And we just see that somebody else has done something and we assume that they meant to do it. And so I think in those ways we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to core character.
Nathan: So what I hear you saying is we don't even evaluate ourselves. We're like, no, I'm good, right? Right.
Tim: Yeah, yeah. We might evaluate ourselves on the sense of how did somebody respond to that? But then even sometimes then we might even think, well, I didn't intend to. They misunderstood.
Nathan: Right. Yeah. I'm justified. And justified.
Tim: Yeah. I've got reasons for what I did. Wow. Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah, I think that's— I can see myself in what you're describing. So thank you for that. You're welcome. So as we turn to the Bible, Solomon gives us one way to discern the moral standing of ourselves and other individuals. It's not all-encompassing, it's not foolproof, but it is a good indicator that we should pay attention to in other people, and probably even more so in ourselves. Vicki, you want to read us Proverbs 10:32?
Vicki: Sure. Solomon said, "The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable." but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.
Nathan: Hmm. So remember, the righteous are those who choose to follow God imperfectly, but they're following after him. And the wicked are people who choose to live without God in their lives. They might not be atheists, but they just live as if God doesn't matter or doesn't care what they do. Solomon says an indicator of a person's relationship with God is how they talk. It's, again, it's not the only indicator. It's not the only evaluation tool that we have of a person's character or of our own character, but it is an indicator. We can discern a person's relationship with God by what comes out of their mouth. Here in this proverb, acceptable not only means what is acceptable by society, uh, but what is acceptable to God. What does God want to hear come out of our mouths? And perverse can mean sexually inappropriate comments, but it has a broader understanding as speech which corrupts. So it takes something that's good and it corrupts it. And it might do it in a sexual way, but it could just, uh, be in a, um, a joking way or something that takes the good and drags it through the mud. Uh, so, so corrupting talk, talk that tears down, talks that hurts people, talk that doesn't build up. But talk that ruins lives. Tim and Vicki, what are examples of the kinds of things ungodly people will say? I've got a perfect example.
Vicki: I was listening, watching whatever, a video on Facebook yesterday, and there was this beautiful woman. Her hair was simple. It was classic. It was a bob, if you know what a bob is. She was— she had a gorgeous face. She was not too overdone. She had on a lovely simple but lovely outfit, and she was telling women how to dress, how to look expensive on a budget, something like that. And as she was speaking, she was using cuss words. And she would say, "Now, they'll say not to do this, but if you do that, it won't do blank." And all the way through it, she was using curse words. And I thought, "Oh, don't do that, because you're trying to show us how to be elegant." and elevated, but you're being so coarse, you're dragging yourself down. And I thought, don't do that. I mean, y'all, it's not that I'm a prude. It's just the exact opposite of what she was trying to get across. And that's an example of things ungodly people will do. And it's just, don't do that.
Nathan: There is a number of articles of pseudoscience that were going around a number of years ago, not too long, maybe 5 or 6 years ago, saying, oh, people who curse, are actually more intelligent, right? The more you curse, the more of an indicator of intelligence that is. And my response, of course, was like, yeah, in the same way that people who pick their nose and eat it are actually the best foodies, right? It's just, come on, don't tell me you're intelligent. You don't have any self-control. You can't, uh, you can't not cuss. No, that's a good example. That is a good example. Hey, here's how you can be elegant, you blankety blank. Yeah.
Tim: Yeah, yeah. Just yesterday I was visiting with a couple, and one of the things that came out of it is she would say that he at times would give flowery criticisms. Oh, and I asked her what that was, that, and he would, he would mix in criticisms in flowery positive things. And so you always came away feeling like, well, you really don't I don't feel good about me if you're saying it that way. And he didn't even realize that he was doing it until she pointed it out a while back and it repeated a pattern, it showed a pattern over time. So I think that's one of the ways.
Vicki: Say a flowery criticism. Oh, okay.
Tim: You don't sweat much for an ugly person. No, that's not really a good example, but it's the kind of like, It sounds like it's a good thing, but it's not. That's a terrible example. No, and it's not.
Vicki: No. Yeah, just say it.
Tim: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, your cooking isn't so bad when you don't burn it. You know, it sounds good, but it's not. I was also thinking of ways When people speak ill of somebody else behind their back, then you know that there's something happening there that reflects their character. And you might wonder, well, I can't trust this person to not be this way behind my back. Uh-huh. Somebody who won't take ownership of something and apologize, somebody who is repeatedly making excuses or blaming somebody else. I mean, those aren't necessarily corrupt in the sense of corrosive, uh, neg— like, like just blatantly, yeah, nasty things. But, but it is corrupt, right?
Nathan: Oh yeah, it's perverse. Well, it is. It, it literally perverts the truth, right? If you did something and you won't take ownership for it, you're perverting the truth, or you're corrupting the reality of the situation. Or if you're trying to explain away why you did that horrible thing but you're justified in doing it. That's corrupt, right? That's corrupt talk. I— out of the mouth of the wicked, it's perverse. Uh, no, I don't— I, I didn't do that, or I, I was justified to do that because X, Y, and Z.
Tim: Yeah. And blaming others, uh, it doesn't— especially not in their presence, or even in their presence, it's not building them up at all. It's— yeah, it's, it's, it's corrosive to relationships and other people.
Nathan: I, I can remember I was in a church and we were discussing, uh, some hard decisions that we had to make, and the pastor basically said, we can't do that because my wife wouldn't let me. And I was— I, I just remember, like, why would you throw your wife under the bus like that, right? Just like, oh, it's all her. I guess Adam did that too. It's not me, this woman you sent me, Lord, right? I guess it goes back to there. But I remember sitting there just— if I would have been a little bit older and wiser, I would have called it out. Like, don't disparage your wife. She was A, not in the room, and B, like, just make your decisions and live with the consequences.
Vicki: Even if that were true, what does that say about his masculinity?
Nathan: Yeah, really. Yeah, yeah. Yep. So yeah, as we're talking about him behind his back now, um, No names.
Vicki: No names.
Nathan: Oh man, I need Jesus. So, but okay, in contrast, the Apostle Paul encourages us to use our language to build up. Ephesians 4:29-30 says this. Vicki, you want to get that for us?
Vicki: Sure. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Nathan: Okay, so Paul expands Solomon's idea here a little bit. The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable. And Paul kind of gives us a little bit of a better definition of this, of we're building up people, we're giving grace to people. They don't deserve it necessarily, but you're building them up anyway. What are examples of the kinds of things people who are trying to follow Jesus will say? You know, what are, what are the positive things that people can and should say?
Tim: Well, the general category would be encouragement. I think one of the things that helps when you're parenting, I think it helps when you're helping disciple somebody, is to look for the things you can celebrate. And you can affirm, that's a great place to start. And it's not the necessarily the old positive-negative-positive sandwich. You don't always have to have something negative, but just looking for things that you can encourage, I think, is a thing that Jesus would do. It doesn't mean you never address challenges, but I think we should always be striving to find ways to encourage and point out the positives if possible.
Nathan: Yeah.
Vicki: I can think of some just off the top of my head, bang, bang, bang, like popcorn things. My dad was a big encourager, I think. Sometimes I'd say, "Oh, Daddy, I heard something funny," and I'd tell him a joke. And he'd laugh even if he didn't think it was funny, but he usually did. We had the same sense of humor. And he'd say to me after he laughed, he'd say, 'Vicki, that's your kind of humor.' And then he'd tell me why he thought that was funny and why I thought it was funny. And I always thought, 'Yes, that is my kind of humor,' as though I made it up. It was just something I was repeating. And I always felt so good after that, something like that. My mother was never a gossip. She just never gossiped. But she would She was an encourager no matter who or what, but she was just always so glad to see you. And she'd be, "Oh, Nathan, I'm so glad to see you." And she'd just light up and you just always felt real special in her presence. She would never, after you left, went, "Oh good, I'm glad he's gone." That wasn't even in her— she couldn't even imagine doing that. It was just not her at all. And I, as I was reading this, I was thinking, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. That grieves God. What a word, it grieves. I have been in grief before, and to think it grieves God that we talk about each other. Wow, that's really something.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's hard, it's hard. A couple Wednesdays ago, I have a young adult group that I'll lead, and We meet at 7:30 and sometimes that thing goes until like 10:30, 11 o'clock at night. And I am not a night person, but it has been good. We were in 1 Thessalonians in the sermons, and so we try to apply that on Wednesday nights with the young adults. And one of the texts was Paul starting off encouraging the Thessalonians for their faith in Jesus and what he saw. Result as their trust in him. And so, so I said, you know, what we're going to do to apply this is we're just going to go around the room and we're going to encourage each individual person. That was, that was our lesson for the night. We just went and said, how do you see Jesus working through this person? And we went around the room. I don't know, there was like 7 or 8 of us. And, and everyone just kind of shared. They're like, oh, I see this. You're, you, you always welcome people and you always are willing to have those hard conversations. Or, you know, you can speak the truth, but man, You're never mean about it. And it was incredibly affirming. And so that's a wonderful thing to do. Oh, so amazing. I, in fact, people who weren't there heard about it and were like, oh man, I can't believe I missed that. You know, one of the guys, he showed up late just as we were about to start because we do games and stuff beforehand. And, uh, and he was like, yeah, I was really tired. I wasn't gonna come. And I am so glad that I came. And, and we got around the room Finished everybody, and it's now super late, and I'm like, all right, let's close in prayer. And they're like, no, we're gonna encourage you. And it was, it, it was, it was, it was so awkward and hard to receive that. It really was. And it was wonderful. It was, it was. Why? I don't know why. I don't know why.
Vicki: Is that, is that your personality?
Nathan: No. Or was it that group? I don't know. I don't know. I just wanted to go past it, and they just heaped on encouragement to me, and it was wonderful. And yeah, yeah, it was good.
Vicki: My parents were in a group with two other pastors, and whenever they had a birthday, they would say what they liked about that person, the birthday person, what they liked about that person, appreciated about that person, or, you know, loved about that person, whatever. But they'd all go around and do that. And so we adopted that in our family. And now whenever I, you know, if I was at your house and it was your birthday, I'd say, hey, I got an idea. And then we'd all go around and do it. And I could do that. I mean, you guys feel free to practice on me, by the way. I'm great at it. I love that. Bring it on, bring it on, bring it on. Boy, my dad, he's not comfortable. You know, he's dead now, but he, boy, that was uncomfortable for him. And I just think I could go stand at the bus station and say, Brag on me, you know, bring it, I like it. Yeah, see, I—
Nathan: yeah, it must be a personality thing for me. I— that was, that was hard. What about you, Tim? Would you— how would you respond if, uh, you know, your staff gathered around and wanted to, you know, share all the positive things about you?
Tim: 95% of the time it makes me very uncomfortable, uh, but occasionally I'll try to sit in that and take it for what it is. But that's not easy, and I have to tell myself to do that. Yeah. Oh wow. Uh, yeah, I think that that's a hard thing to do. It's so much easier for me to give than to receive when it comes to that. Yeah. Oh, that—
Vicki: I wonder if it's a male thing. I don't know.
Nathan: I, I think it's a personality thing. This is a good topic for another day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, so how do we apply all this, right? I think there's two questions to answer. First, how do we relate to people who have corrupting speech? And second, If we find negative speech coming out of our own mouths, what do we do? So let's start with the first one. How do we relate to people who have corrupting speech, perverse speech?
Vicki: Well, I have two thoughts. One, when I'm with friends that cuss a lot, to me that's corrupting speech. I will say to them, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Please don't cuss around me. Don't do it because—" I don't want to pick that up. I speak, I'm around people, I don't want to pick that up. And if you do it, I'll do it. So when you're around me, please don't do that. Thanks. And that doesn't usually offend them, and they'll usually back off of it. And I don't want to pick it up. And I do, I can pick that up really easily. And they'll usually back up with that. If I'm tired, and they say something unkind to me, if I'm tired, it can wound me. It depends on what it is. And I'm not sure, it depends on the moment how I'll do it. If I'm not tired and they say something that's mean, sometimes I'll just joke about it. It just depends on my mood, but in a good way, I'll joke about it. I'll just joke about it and just say, "Stop that, Mr. Grumpy Pants. I don't need that today." "Hey, you know, take that back," and then they'll stop it. But if I'm tired and it wounds me, you know, it can flare up. So it's good to have a conversation like this to figure out what to say.
Tim: Right. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's helpful. I liked what you said, "I don't want to pick it up," because one of the things is I don't want to let it corrupt myself. And when I was thinking about the type of corrupting speech, talking bad about others, or about me. If it's me, it usually can run off my back, but I feel extra protective of others. But one of the things I will do is generally distance myself from that situation. It's not— we don't really have water cooler talk here at the church and like bad things happening around, but if somebody is doing something and speaking in such a way that is tearing others down I'll walk away. If it's harsh joking that is at the cost of somebody, then I'll try to say— I might say something in the right setting. How would you want to say that if they were here? Instead of saying something like, would you say that if they were here? I might say, how would you say that differently if they were here? And it just— I might do that. Challenge sometimes if it's the right people to challenge. There are lots of people I come in contact with that are far from Jesus or have recently come in contact with Jesus, so I am cautious about what to correct them on because they might misinterpret transforming their outside with transforming their inside. And I don't want to just add more rules so that they feel like they're making progress when they're really not. But, um, yeah, that's some things. It, it different— it differs with different people, I think.
Nathan: Yeah, that's actually a good segue to the second question. So what about ourselves? We all know willpower isn't enough to change our heart condition, right? So if you find yourself cursing or putting people down or gossip, malicious gossip, right? If we find ourselves with negative speech coming out of our mouths, what do we do? What are your suggestions?
Vicki: Well, I go back to my first answer. Confess it and just say, God, you know, this has been my go-to and I don't want it to be. Help me to be aware of it and help me not to choose to do that. And I'm sorry.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, I would echo that too, and confess it to somebody else. If you catch yourself in front of somebody else, then, then that's a powerful moment to say, oh wait, wait, wait, I apologize, that's not who I want to be, I'm working on that, uh, I, I don't think that's a healthy way for me to express myself. That, that could be a powerful moment And if it's the right person, ask them, hey, if you catch me saying something like that, please feel free to say something because I sometimes am not aware and I could use your help with that. I think that can help a lot.
Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because it's not about willpower, right? It really isn't. What comes out of our mouth is an indicator. Jesus said, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And oftentimes our speech will indicate the state of our art. So if we go back all the way to Brian's intro, back at Three Mile Island, the indicator light wasn't understood, so the coolant level was allowed to drop. With insufficient cooling, the core started to melt. Fortunately, catastrophe was avoided. There were many factors contributing to the failure, but one main issue was what experts call human-machine interface failure. People couldn't properly interpret the signals the machines were giving. The same thing often happens in interpersonal interactions. We have a really hard time of discerning character, but one clear indicator that God has given us are the words that come out of our mouths and the mouths of others. We can discern a person's relationship with God by what comes out of their mouth, and we can discern our relationship with God by what comes out of our own mouth. Pay attention to other people's signals and pay attention to your own signals.
Brian: How can we discern a person's relationship with God? By paying attention to what comes out of their mouth. I trust that today's discussion of God's word has been helpful and serves as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the word but doers. Together, let's bring God's word to life to our lives this week. The Crosstalk Podcast is a production of Crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. Crosstalk is training leaders in Bucharest, Moldova, Southern California, Kenya, and Kansas this season. Help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click "Donate" in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by rating it on whatever platform you're listening to us. Be sure to listen next Friday as we continue to learn from God's wisdom in the book of Proverbs. You won't want to miss it.