I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Proverbs 29-31.

    The beginning of today’s passage is more of the short unconnected wise sayings. If you are looking for “fortune cookie” wise sayings, this would be a good source for them. I am going to focus on the last of these because I think it is easy to miss the point it makes.

The righteous despise the unjust;
the wicked despise the godly.

If you just read it casually it might seem to be saying, “Good people don’t like bad people and bad people do not like good people.” However, if you do read it closely you realize that it is saying that the righteous despise the absence of justice, while the wicked despise those who do not do wrong. The righteous despise those who mistreat others because they care about people. The wicked despise those whose actions are blameless because it highlights their own wickedness.

    The Book of Proverbs ends with the sayings of Agur. We do not know anything about Agur other than what is mentioned here and many have speculated on the meaning of the introduction to this section. However, the part I am going to focus on is the request the writer makes of God. Those requests are ones which we all should make. First, we should ask God to help us to never tell a lie. The fact of the matter is that no matter how well-intentioned we are, without God’s help we will tell lies time and again. They may be outright lies, or lies of omission, but they will be lies nonetheless. The second part of his request is more interesting. He requests that God give him just enough to satisfy his needs, not so much that he is wealthy and not so little that he is in poverty. That si my desire as well. If we become wealthy we may begin to think that we do not need God. On the other hand, if we are impoverished we may commit sin in order to have enough to eat.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Proverbs 25-28.

    Today we are back to one or two sentence wise sayings. As is the case with most of this book they are of varying utility (all of some value, but a few less valuable then others). I am struggling with what to write about this because so many of these proverbs stand alone and do not really have a theme tying them together (except that they contrast the behaviors of a wise person and a foolish person). However, I am going to start with a theme which turns up repeatedly in the Book of Proverbs, and elsewhere in the Bible: Do not seek honor or recognition from others. Or to put it another way, do not choose your actions so that other people will think you are a good person, or to be acknowledged by the “important people” (however you might define “important”). Instead, do things because they are the right thing to do. Now it is important to note that there are times when we should do things that are neither right or wrong so that people will not think we are bad people. I have never found a way to explain the distinction between doing things so that people will not think badly of me and doing things to make myself look good. The only way I can explain the difference is that the first is designed to keep people from misjudging me (to my detriment) based on their prejudices while the second is designed to encourage people to misjudge me (to my advantage) based on their prejudices.

    I was going to spend a little time talking about how the writer includes multiple sayings which talk about how the fortunes of a nation are tied to the morality of its people and its leaders (and how those two are tied together), but then I came to Proverbs 25:21-22. (See how I got that bit about society and morality in there anyway).

If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat.
If they are thirsty, give them water to drink.
You will heap burning coals of shame on their heads,
and the Lord will reward you.
The point here is to always take the high road because by doing so sometimes we can convert an enemy into a friend. And even if we cannot, God will reward us for showing His love to our fellow man. However, just a few verses later the writer reminds us that there is a limit to what constitutes the “high road.”

If the godly give in to the wicked,
it’s like polluting a fountain or muddying a spring.

In taking the high road versus our enemies it is important not to enable the wicked actions of the wicked.

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Proverbs 22-24.

    Chapter 22 concludes the section of short one or two sentence sayings of wisdom. I will highlight a few of these that represent important points (although most of them make good points we should take to heart). One of the points which the writer makes is that no matter who we are, rich or poor, we were created by God, in His image. No person is more valuable than another and each and everyone of us was made in God’s image, according to His intention. If we understand this we will naturally understand that practicing injustice can only lead to disaster. Those who commit injustices against others will, in due time, suffer themselves. On the other hand, those who are generous and provide for those in need will be blessed beyond measure. When we remember that we are all equally God’s creatures, most of the rest of the wisdom contained in this Book follow.

    In the next section the writer fleshes out the wise advice with a little more explanation of their meaning. Once again the writer emphasizes a few points by coming back to them and addressing them in different ways. He warns against gluttony, drinking too much alcohol, and greed. He points out the ways in which such things will result in unhappiness. There are three points I want to look at more closely. The writer advises us that we will start to imitate the behaviors of those we spend our time with. If we spend our time with people who readily lose their temper, we will increasingly find it hard to control our temper. If we spend our time with those who do wrong, we will find ourselves justifying doing wrong ourselves. On the other hand, if we spend our time with the godly, we will behave in a more godly manner. Closely related to that is his warning against envying those who do wrong. IF we begin to wish that we had the things they have or lived their life, we will find ourselves imitating their worst behaviors to our detriment. What they have may seem appealing, but the price is more than it seems. The writer warns us against taking advantage of others, particularly the poor and powerless. God will act as their defender and hold us accountable for their loss. Finally the author tells us an important point (I know I said there were three points and this is a fourth…deal with it). God will not excuse us for looking the other way while evil is being performed. All too often, we choose to look the other way and no know when something evil is happening so that we will not have to stand up against it. God will not let us off that easily. Saying “I didn’t know” is not good enough when we should have known. If the reason we did not know that evil was going on was because we did not want to know, God will repay us for our failure to act.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Proverbs 9-13.

    Wisdom and Folly each call out to passersby, offering up rewards to any who will accept their offer. Those who accept Wisdom’s offer will experience life abundantly, while those who accept Folly’s will have short term pleasure followed by death. The wicked and the foolish resent correction, but the wise and the righteous embrace being told where they were wrong. The passage is filled with short proverbs (gee, I bet that comes as a surprise). There is no one theme, but they come back again and again to the same ideas: live your life with discipline, speak well of others, keep their secrets, avoid lies and deception, be straightforward and honest. The writer places an emphasis on the importance of what we say and how we say it. One other thing which the writer comes back to repeatedly is that foolishness and wickedness are indistinguishable.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Proverbs 5-8.

    The bulk of today’s passage is a warning to stay away from adulterous women and to avoid sexual entanglement with other men’s wives. The writer addresses himself to men in this passage, but I believe that similar advice applies to women as well. Someone who will not keep their marriage vows will lead you to destruction, being that person who fails to keep their marriage vows is worse. Mixed in with the writers advice against adultery is an admonishment to live a disciplined life. The writer ties a lack of discipline, laziness, and adultery together as failures to apply wisdom. He views all three as varied symptoms of the same illness. Spending our time and resources pursuing sexual relations with someone other than our spouse takes away from gathering resources for the lean times and using those resources to serve God.

    Wisdom is there for the taking for anyone who desires it. All one needs to do is embrace integrity and truth while avoiding wickedness and deceit. God built all of creation with wisdom, which means that we can use wisdom to understand His creation. Wisdom, prudence, and discretion are siblings. Pride and arrogance oppose wisdom and knowledge. The simple and foolish do not need to remain simple and foolish. If they embrace fear of the Lord and put their trust in Him wisdom will come to them and take them by the hand.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Proverbs 1-4.

    The proverbs contained in the Book of Proverbs were compiled to teach wisdom and discipline. Studying them will give insight to the simple and increase the wisdom of the wise. Those who are truly wise lead disciplined lives and do what is right, just, and fair. On the other hand, the foolish are enticed by the wicked who promise them a shortcut to wealth by taking advantage of others. Those who seek such a path will fall into their own trap. Just look at the world around us. All of the successful cons run by con artists are based on taking advantage of those who seek to take advantage of others.

    The young will do well to listen to the advice of their parents and their elders. They were your age once and know the thoughts and opportunities which occur to the young. Listen to their advice and judge it based on how their life turned out. If their life turned out well and they advise you to make certain choices and do certain things, heed their advice carefully. On the other hand if their life turned out not so well and they advise you to avoid certain choices and things, once more, heed their advice carefully. However, if their life did not turn out well and they advise you to follow a certain course of action, carefully consider if perhaps those were the sorts of choices which led them to be where they are. By whatever means possible, from whatever source you can find, obtain wisdom and do not let it go.

    Wisdom is there for the taking, but do not wait for when things go wrong to seek wisdom. Seek it when times are good and you think there is time to act foolishly. If you act foolishly now you will discover that it is too late to apply wisdom when things have gone wrong. The path to wisdom is trusting in the Lord and not relying on your own interpretation, your own understanding, of what is right and what is wrong. God used wisdom to create this world, so we can discover wisdom by studying how it is put together.