Friday, January 30, 2009

January 30th - Chapter 12

Your thoughts, comments, questions...

2 comments:

  1. I've just started to catch up here, but I wanted to share something oddly comforting that hit me as I was reading along.

    Something I tend to do, which I think is natural for most people, is to assume that the ideas and opinions I form as I go through life are in some way new, and that those ideas, formed through my own specific experiences, will help shape some better future for myself and the people around me. I've learned that this assumption could not be farther from the truth, at least in the sense that my experiences are teaching me something new.

    Proverbs is proof that wisdom is old. As I read along the authors wise words resonate with me, they pop out of the page. Why? Because they are relevant right now. How? Well, society hasn't changed much it seems. These words were written during a wealthy time in ancient Israel, they were a blessed nation during the reign of Solomon, much like we are today. But here's the old problems I read about: Gossip, lack of discretion, dishonesty, pride, greed, envy and jealousy... these are very, very old problems. This text was written several thousand years ago, and it strikes me that even back then, the ideas considered wise were: honesty, discretion, fairness, hard work, equality, humility... These ideas are old ideas, spoken of before the Civil Rights Movement, before the US Constitution, before the Gospels, even before the pyramids.

    They were and are still relevant, and there's something comforting to me about that.

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  2. Matt,

    It's great to hear from you! I love what you said and how you said it. Yeah, just because Proverbs is old doesn't mean it's outdated or irrelevant for us today. What's striking is that we struggle today with the same core issues human beings have always struggled with. There's nothing new under the sun...

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