Peacemaking vs. Contention

Welcome! Today we continue our series in Proverbs and look at peacemaking versus contention. We will start with contention. This is probably a word you do not use in everyday conversation. What I mean by the term is arguing, disputing, the expression of anger, complaining, and just general grumpiness. These types of things never happen in your house do they? The truth, of course, is that contention is more common in our lives than we care to admit.

Now, I’m not an expert in comedy or humor, but one thing that struck me this week is just how much humor is based on contention. If I were to guess, I would say it is the most common basis of humor. And this is not just in our culture, but seems to be universal. I recently got myself sucked into some Korean drama programs (with subtitles), and the humor is very much the same. If you have watched British shows, again, very often arguments are a central source of humor.

Purity vs Infidelity

What is purity?

According to "Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary" purity is defined as "the quality or state of being pure" and when a substance is referred to as pure, it can also be known as, " spotless, unmixed with any other matter, characterized by no appreciable alteration, marked by chastity, and containing nothing that does not properly belong." Some synonyms of pure are: innocent, guiltless, unblemished, chaste, clean, uncorrupted, unmixed, and genuine. We here people use the term pure gold when speaking of the value of this precious metal.

Even though the value of gold has risen over time, the value of spiritual purity has lowered in our world over time. People continually discover new ways to compromise their spiritual purity and find ways to attempt to justify it to themselves and others.

Wisdom vs. Folly

We are going to continue the topical series on the book of Proverbs that Carl introduced last week. This is a topical series because if you read the Proverbs, it is kind of like reading the dictionary. There are many different topics in a single chapter. The neat thing about that is by reading a single chapter of Proverbs, you are exposed to wisdom applied to a wide spectrum of your life. So, God allowed Proverbs in the best possible way. However, for a message like today, it would be a challenge to go line by line through Proverbs. So, we are going to take a topical approach looking at wisdom and folly.

Wisdom versus Folly. What a title! It is an epic battle isn’t it? Wisdom squares off against Folly in a fight to the finish. Could you imagine?

In this corner, shining brighter than the dawn, radiant in truth, formed by God Himself before the foundations of the world, we have Wisdom. And in this corner, lurking in the shadows, bringing only punishment, causing wounds to fester, is Folly.

Introduction to Proverbs

Good morning! Today we begin a new series on the Book of Proverbs. Today we are going to begin by talking about the book in general and look at the opening verses of the book.

To start, what is a proverb? It is some kind of a saying. It is usually short, and it is meant to make you think and reflect. The proverb is supposed to teach you something, share something of wisdom.

One place you see proverbs in the world today is inside fortune cookies. Did you know that fortune cookies are based on a Japanese cookie not a Chinese one, although the modern kinds of messages in the cookies is a distinctly American custom only going back to the late 1800s. Fortune cookies are almost unheard of in China. About 3 billion fortune cookies are made per year, and almost all of them are consumed in the United States.