Every word of God is tested;
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Add nothing to his words,
lest he reprove you, and you will be exposed as a deceiver.
The Book of Wisdom comprises both the best insights of the ancient Levant -- that area well-placed to learn from the Asian continent and the Mediterranean Basin -- with divine inspiration from the Word of God. The Authors could test the sayings and proverbs of gentile philosophers, merchants, and warriors against their experience with the God who brought Abraham and Sarah to Israel.
After a thousand years of gathering these teachings, they could say with confidence, "He is a strong shield to those who take refuge in him." This insight was more than an old man's advice; elders had learned it from their elders of many generations.
When I was in my late teens, we used to say, "Trust no one over thirty." Today, that same generation of geriatrics might say, "Trust no one under fifty." In either case, the wisdom of a secularized, sexualizing, power-hungry generation which knows nothing of spirituality and less of God, cannot be trusted.
I have watched their ideologies manipulate words and their definitions repeatedly. Bad was good in the seventies, and now it's bad again. Gay was happy; now its queer; but queer is good. I don't think so. Forget the word man when speaking of men, and don't even think of calling women girls.
"Put falsehood and lying far from me,"
In 1975, some teachers insisted that Jesus never intended to found a Church. They dismissed passages like today's gospel, and the evidence that Jesus had chosen twelve men from his seventy-two disciples; and from those twelve: Peter, James, and John. And from those three, Peter who should hold the keys of the Kingdom. "Written by men!" students of Elaine Pagels argued. But Pagels founded her own soiree church a few years later.
We begin each day not thinking of our own wants and wishes, thoughts, ideas and preferences, but with the Word of God.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.