Proverbs chapter 27

vs 1

Does that mean we can boast about yesterday, because we know what it brought?

Seriously though, caution is always good, because it only takes one or two strange events to bring something that was going to be good crashing down. Unfortunately, publicly listed companies tend to ignore this sage wisdom, and boast about tomorrow as much as they can, to get their stock prices up - and then what happens? Market expectations overshoot, and they suffer. Or worse, something bad happens and they go under because people flee their stock like monkeys away from whatever is the natural predator of monkies. Killer whales.

vs 2

Try that in this world. I hate going to job interviews, because you have to "sell yourself". This whole society expects you to do that - to talk yourself up. I think the best job I ever had, I got by simply telling the truth about my lack of experience. I don't know if I had people who gave me good references and spoke me up, as it were. Maybe.

vs 3

I hate being provoked by fools. Brian gave me some really good advice once. He said that once someone said something to him that provoked and upset him at church, and he carried that around for ages, fuming and being upset and angry. Then he realised that the other person had no idea, was happily blissfully ignorant of what he'd done, and was living his life joyfully. Unfair, right? So he just went up to the person, set the record straight, and voila - pain gone. Why carry around the provokation of a fool?

vs 4

I'm not sure what kind of jealousy it's talking about. Is it talking about covetous jealousy, where you want something you don't have? Or is it talking about righteous jealousy, where you want to keep something that is rightfully yours? I can certainly see that standing against the second one can be damned hard. But then, people can get pretty driven by their desires too.

vs 5

Is open love better than both? Perhaps part of the fact that you're prepared to show rebuke is that you are loving enough to do so. Although, I think I've done plenty of rebuking not out of love. Perhaps it's just better to be open than hidden about your feelings, so that people can know where they stand. Don't want to be one of those silver tongued people from the last chapter, after all.

Which brings me an interesting thought. If you are a silver tongue, with sweet words and a bitter heart, this verse is saying it's better to be bitter in and out than just have a sweet tongue... why? I think perhaps because if you have to live with your own bitterness out there in the world, you might seriously consider what your heart is like, and want that to change, so that your outside world changes too.

vs 6

Even the worst thing a friend does to you is better than the best thing an enemy does. Enemies are enemies for a reason. Well, sometimes not, but you know what I mean.

vs 7

I have a feeling there is more to this than just a reference to people's eating habits... but I can't really work it out. I mean, I know that full people don't even eat nice things, and starving people eat garbage.

Ahh... so the lesson is that people who are starved will accept crap, and people too full will not even accept good things. Moderation, people. Even with wisdom, you know that people starved of wisdom will "eat" foolishness. But will someone with lots of wisdom really turn away more sweet, sweet wisdom? I think there was a passage previously which might allude to that. Perhaps you've got to let your wisdom settle before you go and eat some more, like.

vs 8

Well, yeah, because the nest is the bird's home? Sorry, this one is beyond me.

vs 9

Never been much of a perfume person, and to be honest I've found that advice can sometimes get treated like a bottle of cheap perfume - tossed in the back of the bathroom cupboard, where it never gets used, and then someone complains about how their life went bad because they didn't have anything to make them smell better.

The thing is, I guess, that even if people don't give the top notch advice, they really are trying to help, and that more often is the perfume, than the actual advice itself.