Chapter 10

Note: After a day spent not doing very much at all, I’m much more on top of things. So, on with the commentary!
--

We’re now getting into the proverbs in earnest. From here on, the themes of the book are (deliberately) less consistent. That’s as it should be, because this book is a collection of, well, proverbs.

What this means is that there’s little point in trying to describe what Solomon is saying; it’ll change from verse to verse.

Rather, what I’ll do is to pick out a few proverbs that make a particular impact on me this time, and comment on them. Note that this book is a bit of a Rorschach test, and what you’ll see this time will be what you’ll see next time you stop by Proverbs.

Whilst there’s no hard and fast rule about all of them, many of the Proverbs listed in verses 1- 14 of chapter 10 are about honesty. The Message has the section titled “Honesty is immortal,” which is a pretty good way of putting it. Of course, there are few that would dispute this one; even outside of the Judeo-Christian worldview there would be little disputing it.

Nor would there be much in the way of dispute against the second major theme, in verses 22-32 – discipline (though some may raise eyebrows at comments like “the wage of a good person is an exuberant life”, which flies in the face of the prevailing public opinion (which holds that a good person lives a boring life, whilst the “bad boys” are the truly interesting people!).

But the third major theme is that the Fear of God Expands Your Life. And this deserves a little comment.

The image of Christians that is prevalent in our society, rightly or wrongly[1] is of sad and sober people. Just this evening I was watching the movie “Happy Feet” with my daughters, and the thinly-veiled statement against religious faith that is found there reinforced the image I am talking about. The religious people . . err, penguins . . were depicted as old, out of touch and unthinkingly arrogant.

Now, it’s easy to say “Real Christians aren’t like that.” Oh really? We’re not?

The trouble is that some of us ARE like that; enough few enough that we feed this image.

[1] I think WRONGLY, obviously; but that’s obvious!

The bottom line for us is this: We are Christ’s representatives onEarth; and if we are to live up to that, it’s going to be necessary for us to rely on the help of the One who created us.