Proverbs 1:20-33

This is the first chapter of Proverbs, so it is setting up the reasons for listening to Lady Wisdom. That's about the only reason I can forgive it for not actually giving us any wisdom here, and just berating us for not listening. If there was awesome wisdom contained in the next 30 chapters, then maybe I could get on board with this. There is some okay wisdom to be found, but it's often specific to some time and place and sometimes just bad advice. So we are left with what sounds like my mother saying I should listen to her because she is my mother.

It's actually worse, because my mother could have explained her reasoning and presented her facts and she would have actually been right. I was just too young to be able absorb that, and she had better things to do, like make dinner so I would live long enough to go to school and learn all the things I needed to know so I could confirm or deny that she was right. The Bible has had thousands of years to prove itself and even the people who claim to live by it are still arguing. Looked at one way, these statements are accurate, it is good to be wise, it is good to listen to those who are wise. But not everyone is lucky like I was to be surrounded by people who knew what they were talking about. If someone begins their lessons by telling you they won't be there for you if you fail, I think it would be wise to seek other counsel.

James 3:1-12

This book of James is not really inspiring me. It's hard to tell where some of these come from or why they are included. It's supposed to be from a close friend of Jesus, sometimes referred to as "brother". Whether that's an actual biological brother, or a "brother" as in part of a brotherhood, I don't know. There's a fun Bible reference, a website with introductions and learning guides for lots of things. It's called shmoop. It makes a good and somewhat humorous point that James, Peter and others don't say much about this relationship they had with Jesus. Not in a way that would make you feel like they hung out together. There are no anecdotes, nothing about what he did while he wasn't performing miracles. Shmoop does it with humor, but scholars also see this as evidence that these books weren't written by some sort of inner circle of Jesus. Some scholars are starting to question if there ever was such an inner circle and wondering what that says about who or what Jesus was.

What we do get is how humans have tamed nature (they haven't) and how the tongue is set fire by hell (there is no hell). The word "hell" in his case is actually Gehenna. Rabbi David Kimhi from the 13th century said Gehenna was a place where trash and sometimes people were thrown on the edge of town and it was kept burning to consume the filth. Once you get passed the major translations, like New Revised Standard Version used by Vanderbilt in my links, the King James or anything before the 18th century, you'll find many translations have scrubbed the mistranslated "hell". The New American Standard, NASB, has "hell", but tells you in a footnote they are translating Gehenna. I don't spend too much time dealing with translations, but this one is pretty important. The "hell" that has been preached in recent centuries is a Greek construction, later immortalized by Dante, not at all what these authors were talking about.

Mark 8:27-38

Some other entries talk about losing your life to save it and rebuking Peter. This week, I'll focus on Jesus' predictions of his own death. This is the first time he does it in Mark. We'll skirt the other two passages later. Each time his followers don't get it. They argue about getting positions of power and Jesus has to tell them they should be servants and will probably get killed for following him. Amazingly, thousands of years later, followers of many stripes still don't get this. Or maybe not so amazingly, maybe that's why the stories have endured, maybe it's because they are about people we see in our lives every day.

Sometimes the Lectionary gives the parable and not the explanation, sometimes the other way around. This week, we get the disciples slowly starting to realize who Jesus is. The preceding parable had a blind man first seeing vaguely, men looked like trees then he could see everything. In this passage, Peter gets the answer right, but then doesn't get the part about needing to suffer and die. It doesn't help that the message isn't always all that clear. Jesus says this generation is adulterous and sinful. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of history knows no generation holds the franchise on that. Maybe if he hadn't kept promising everything would be magically fixed, they would have understood that they needed to work for justice and peace their whole lives, and that they likely would not obtain it for everyone.