{"id":5034,"date":"2025-11-12T08:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5034"},"modified":"2025-11-12T08:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:18:09","slug":"proverbs-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/proverbs-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Proverbs 1:1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Each day this month we\u2019re looking closely at one of the 1:1 verses of the Bible \u2013 exploring what we can learn from chapter one \/ verse one of various Old and New Testament books.<\/em>

\u201cThe proverbs\u00a0of Solomon\u00a0son of David, king of Israel.\u201d

When the British luxury liner Queen Mary<\/em> was retired from regular passenger service in 1967, she had made 1,001 Atlantic Ocean crossings.

After safely journeying to her final harbor spot in the port of Long Beach, California, her three massive smoke stacks (each over 60 feet tall) were temporarily removed for maintenance.

The restoration crew was shocked when all three of them crumbled on the docks.\u00a0They had been made of sheets of steel over an inch thick.\u00a0Over the years, each had been slathered with at least 30 coats of black and orange paint.\u00a0Those layers of paint were all that remained.\u00a0The steel had long ago rusted away under the influence of extreme heat and moisture.\u00a0

In her old age, the Queen Mary had become a kind of living lesson: Something can look great on the outside while simultaneously coming undone on the inside.

Or, if applied to the human race: A lot of smart people do really dumb things.\u00a0

A fairly large slice of any day\u2019s headlines \u2013 what we call \u201cnews\u201d \u2013 turns out to be a recitation of the missteps, miscalculations, and mistakes of people who probably should have known better.\u00a0

Stephen Glass was universally admired as a 25-year-old wunderkind reporter for The New Republic<\/em> \u2013 that is, until 1998, when it was discovered he had invented many of the \u201cfacts\u201d supporting his latest feature. Follow-up research revealed that 27 of his 41 pieces for the magazine were fabrications in part or in whole, including phone numbers and websites made up out of thin air. Glass explained he had been under a great deal of pressure to look brilliant.\u00a0

Senator Gary Hart was the frontrunner to become the 1988 Democratic Party nominee for president until reporters asked him to respond to accusations of infidelity.\u00a0Hart dared reporters to follow him around.\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019ll be bored,\u201d he assured them.\u00a0Within 24 hours reporters had uncovered a hidden relationship and Hart\u2019s political career was over.\u00a0

Why do educated, knowledgeable people routinely make decisions that shipwreck their lives and reputations?\u00a0

\u201cWesterners live in a culture that has separated knowledge from ethics,\u201d writes author Terry Muck.\u00a0Standardized methods for identifying \u201csmart people\u201d \u2013 whether IQ tests, SAT\u2019s, or routinely winning your family\u2019s annual Trivial Pursuit competition \u2013 are not to be confused with measurements of spiritual and emotional health.\u00a0 \u00a0

Insightful and informed people on the outside, in other words, are not necessarily good-hearted people on the inside.\u00a0It\u2019s quite possible to know a great deal about a lot of stuff, yet not know how to live.\u00a0 \u00a0

So what\u2019s the need of the hour?

It\u2019s wisdom.\u00a0And searching for wisdom always leads us to this Old Testament destination like no other.\u00a0 \u00a0

Proverbs is widely regarded as the most down-to-earth of the Bible\u2019s 66 books.\u00a0Reading it is like gleaning good advice from an older, wiser friend or a favorite grandmother.\u00a0

It’s ironic that the author of most of these pithy sayings was Solomon. As we discovered earlier this week, the exterior of his reign might have looked magnificent, but it turned out to be little more than beautiful coats of paint on an empty shell.

The first lesson of Proverbs, therefore, is simple and important: If things can go sideways for the guy who gets top billing in chapter one \/ verse one, it can happen to us, too.

The first nine chapters of the book have the feel of a series of lectures or pep talks.\u00a0Then comes a 20-chapter patchwork quilt of \u201csentence proverbs.\u201d\u00a0Poring over them is a bit like opening hundreds of fortune cookies at a single sitting.\u00a0Some hit the mark while others leave us scratching our heads.\u00a0Some make us laugh while others help us see old problems in a new light.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0

Above all, this unusual book \u2013 essentially a collection of collections \u2013 has one aim:\u00a0\u201cWisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom.\u00a0Though it cost all you have, get understanding\u201d (4:7).

Wisdom isn\u2019t about becoming a more intelligent person.\u00a0It\u2019s a practical guide to becoming a \u201cspiritually street-smart\u201d person \u2013 someone who knows how to thrive in a culture where listening for God\u2019s voice has become something of a lost art.\u00a0

There\u2019s an old saying that it\u2019s hard to fly with the eagles if you have to live with the turkeys.\u00a0

Proverbs has the unique power to remind us that we, too, are card-carrying turkeys.\u00a0

But the God who invites us into his family is able and willing to teach us how to soar.\u00a0
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Each day this month we\u2019re looking closely at one of the 1:1 verses of the Bible \u2013 exploring what we can learn from chapter one \/ verse one of various Old and New Testament books. \u201cThe proverbs\u00a0of Solomon\u00a0son of David, king of Israel.\u201d When the British luxury liner Queen Mary was… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5035,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1029,123,1036,122],"class_list":["post-5034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-11-series","tag-proverbs","tag-solomon","tag-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5036,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5034\/revisions\/5036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}