Mike Blogs

18: 1. The one who lives alone is self-indulgent, Showing contempt for all who have sound judgment. You may notice that I skipped right...

18: 2.   A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion. Ho boy! I didn’t write this stuff, but I...

17: 7-10. Fine speech is not becoming to a fool; still less is false speech to a ruler. A bribe is like a magic stone in the eyes of...

By now you might be recognizing certain forms that proverbs take. The first verse of Chapter 17 displays one of those forms. We might...

Proverbs is often referred to as a ‘book of wisdom’, but there are various perspectives on how the book should be read. Some interpret...

We have all seen it in our competitive contentious society: In a marriage, one sharp answer sparks a smart aleck response; and the race...

14: 20  The poor are shunned even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends. We have an interesting couplet, verses 20 and 21,...

Sometimes it is obvious who is righteous and who is wicked. Other times, it takes a while and we only realize in retrospect who had our...

Memorizing verses is a great practice. When I was a child, at church we had contests to see who could quote the verse that our youth...

These verses seem to provide us with a theme. There is a running contrast between ‘the righteous’ and ‘the wicked’, sometimes under...

From here on in Proverbs, I am going to pick a few verses in each chapter for us to meditate on. This makes sense in that the verses are...

Beginning here, Proverbs looks more like a list of individual folk wisdom without order or connection. Unfortunately, some people treat...

This chapter is the conclusion of Solomon’s introduction which is chapters 1-9. Chapter 10 has a heading for a new section: “The Proverbs...

The following reads like a poem. Solomon has tried, in various ways, to highlight wisdom and to emphasize how close wisdom is to...

In this chapter, Solomon warns his son, or children, or students, to make wise financial decisions and not to be entrapped by a...

I argued last week that the writer, presumably Solomon, uses metaphors, saying one thing in order to understand another thing. Good...

Many commentators assume that Solomon is talking about sex here, a prostitute in Las Vegas, perhaps, or a neighbor’s wife who seduces a...

4: 1-4a.              Listen, children, to a father’s instruction,                                    and be...

3: 21-35.    My child, do not let these escape from your sight: keep sound wisdom and prudence, and they will be life for your soul and...

3: 13-20.            Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gets understanding, for the gain from it is better than gain from...