Today, I am reading and commenting on  Proverbs 14-17.

Every year when I come to this passage, and many of those which follow in the Book of Proverbs, I debate with myself how I want to approach writing about it.  Today’s passage is composed of a large number of short proverbs which each provide some guidance for living our lives.  However, they do not have a theme.  They are not grouped together so that those which are on a particular theme are together.  I have never even been able to find a thread which explains why the writer chose to place them in this order.  Today I have chosen a few ideas of these proverbs which seem to explain things which I have observed recently.  The first one is this:
“Whoever fears the Lord walks uprightly,
    but those who despise him are devious in their ways.”
I have noticed that you often times see people bring up arguments that they think will undermine their opponents position but which they do not themselves believe.  An example of this is someone who argues for a different interpretation of a verse than the traditional one who later reveals that they don’t think the verse should be considered authoritative even with their alternate interpretation.  

Another proverb which I have seen played out recently is:
“Mockers resent correction,
    so they avoid the wise.”
Here we see it with people who cut off ties with those who disagree with them.  And while sometimes that happens because one person was offensive in the way they expressed their beliefs, all too often it is because the person who cuts off communication does not want to consider that they were wrong and the other person correct.

Finally I want to leave you with one which all of us should heed more than we do:
“Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent,
    and discerning if they hold their tongues.”

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