PROVERBS, 3,000 YEARS OLD -- STILL YOUNG

SOLOMON TEACHING HIS PROVERBS

Yes, I am a Bible reader.  I read the Bible in many different ways.  I read it for the stories; I read it for the People in it.  Yeah, I'm an avid Bible-People, people watcher.  I also read the Bible for the humor that there is to be found there.  Like when David could have killed Saul when he found him obeying Mother
Nature's call in a cave.  David stole Saul's scarf, backed away out of the cave, went to a peak across the valley and waved the scarf in Saul's face from a safe distance.  A great "Gotcha" moment.  There are a lot of brave people in the Bible, like Moses and like Joshua, for instance.  Judith too. Now SHE is a favorite of mine.  God sends her to save the city where His people are being besieged.  She's newly widowed.  She doffs her mourning duds and puts on her make-up, goes to the besieging army's camp, finds the Captain, plies him with drink, seduces him to get herself invited to his tent.  He is so drunk that he falls asleep the minute he is in the warmth of the tent.  She unsheaths his sword and cuts off his head.  Score one for the brazen, saintly woman.  I am also an avid reader of old sayings.  I like them because the more I read them the more I realize that 3,000 years later, nothing has changed.  Here's a short favorite of mine: <Better open reproof than voiceless love.>  There are so many of these truth-filled sayings that I have been surfing them for years and I still get a kick out of them.  They are so true!  I am also a serious seeker of Bible poetry.  Not just in the Psalms.  Check out Kings and Chronicles.  You'll find great stuff.  There are so many REAL stories that bring the truth home to us today.  Read the story of Hagar and Sarah in Genesis and you will think either of yourself or of someone you know not too far away.  Think of the stage mother of the two apostles who walked up to Jesus and said, "I want that when my sons die, one will sit at your right and the other at your left."  Give me a break, lady!  I also enjoy the prayers of some of the psalms.  Gory stuff, and it's a prayer.  Go to psalm 137.  I read that and although I know it is wrong, I have to admit that I have similar thoughts.  Oh yeah, here's my point:
I often hear people say how good things were when they were younger.  How much simpler things were.  How much more pious and God fearing people were then.  I listen quietly and rarely do I contradict them although I know that it is not true.  I often think about the story of David.  He didn't have the Internet, movies, comic books and newspapers,  but he sure knew how to get around and ruin other people's lives.  He even had to run away from his own son. It's not for nothing that God forbade him from building a temple to house God.
The Bible is living proof that people have forever been super righteous, plain righteous, a little righteous, a little bad, bad, plain bad and downright EVIL.  As human beings, we will always be torn between good and evil, for as long as we live and as long as we exist as a race.  Get used to it.  It is our mission to make better everything that we can make better.  We can't do that by wishing for the past, becasuse the past doesn't hold the secret of good behavior.  The way we live the present in the hope of influencing the future is the secret of good behavior.  That's in the Bible too.  You don't even have to believe in God to find it there.  
As it happens, I believe in God.  I've been tested in my belief.  I'm still there.  I love the Bible so much, I fearlessly plug it as the most exciting collection of 73 books in such a small fraction of your home shelf space that you can find.  If you're Orthodox Christian, you have a few more books.  Lucky you.  Enjoy them.  Rest assured, the Bible is forever.  It is from God.  If it were from humans, it would have disappeared already.