Proverbs 17:17

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. [Proverbs 17:17]   Hardship is, to put it tautologically, the unpleasant part of life. It’s the part where you or I run headfirst into a brick wall, bounce off, and have to ask, ‘Will I climb over? Will I turn back?’ When…

Proverbs 17:15

He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord. [Proverbs 17:15]   The word here translated ‘abomination’ is no weak thing. It is not ‘unpleasant,’ it is not ‘ugly,’ it is not ‘repellent.’ It isn’t even something as simple as ‘evil.’ ‘Abomination,’ תּוֹעֵבָה (to-ay-baw), tells…

Proverbs 17:14

“The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out.” [Proverbs 17:14]   Water is calm and placid, when contained. When let loose, though, when given a single small egress, water destroys; it rushes and tears and cuts through the land like a knife, riving apart any who stand…

Proverbs 17:13

“If anyone returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house.” [Proverbs 17:13]   The most disgusting characters in fiction, I find, are the traitors. Adulterers, turncoats, false friends, they induce a concentrated hatred and revulsion; they have in them something which mere murder, mere villainy, cannot match. Whether they are parents who…

Proverbs 17:12

Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly. [Proverbs 17:12]   How pleasant is it to taunt an angry mama bear? 10 out of 10 corpses say: “Not very.” It’s definitively a Bad Idea. Yet the author of the proverb considers it the smaller risk, smaller…

Proverbs 17:11

An evil man seeks only rebellion, and a cruel messenger will be sent against him. [Proverbs 17:11]   We sometimes wonder at the persistent evil of other men. We watch men act in ways that seem deliberately foolish, deliberately self-destructive, deliberately and causelessly malicious. We find ourselves wondering at the sheer impertinence of the wicked,…

Proverbs 17:10

“A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.” [Proverbs 17:10]   Learning from reproof is a skill not natural to any of us. Sure, we, by the grace of God, have a habit of listening to certain people with at least some consideration- parent, sibling, spouse, friend-…

Brain Immunity Responds to Stress and Infection With Mental Illness in Young Mice

As research into the etiology (origin & cause) of mental illness continues and the rate of such illness continues to rise, studies like this one are linking various factors together to explain the growing epidemic. As with many health conditions, more than one trigger is needed to get the symptom train moving. Prior research had…