A Thematic Approach to Proverbs

My wife and I have employed the Proverbial Intake System for about four years running. Over this time we've become quite familiar with the book and the message it portrays.

One of our new goals is to decipher a theme for each chapter and institute that theme during the day.

This isn't as easy as we thought. Many of the chapters have multiple themes. Some appear just to be random thoughts reading like the chart below.

Randomness

Still others send a clear message. One chapter in particular, 20, devotes 9 different verses to honesty in our business dealings. We'll discuss this in detail and others over the next few weeks.

Until then, off to Houston for our son's high school graduation.

God Bless.

Proverbial Intake, Insight

While working on my new book Proverbial Intake I've noticed one of the most popular themes throughout Proverbs is telling the truth. Why is that such a large part of the overall message Solomon is trying to convey?

My opinion is this. All relationships start with a attraction of some kind. Whether it be visual, commonality, or even adversarial. Something brings two people together.

Over time the relationship is either grown by trust, or forgotten by lack thereof.

In order to gain trust, both parties must be truthful.

There you have it. If there's no truth, there's no trust, thus no lasting relationship.