The Broken Chalice

  Continuing with Proverbs 31... Verse 16 "She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard." She is a businesswoman that seizes the opportunity to purchase land and makes smart investments. Not only is this woman doing all the research to obtain the lands value, but she is the one who decides what gets planted and eventually harvested for the financial gain. She is an entrepreneur and knows the value of hard work.  Verse 17 "She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong." Some variations actually say, "she girds her loins" which is a procedure where you prepare yourself to go into battle. This is a strong woman who is ready to face the challenges ahead with a strong spirit and great mental strength. She isn't afraid of hard work or responsibility. She builds herself in such a way that she is not becoming weaker but stronger.  Verse 18 "She perceives that her merchandise is profitable, her lamp do...

Let's start the journey in verse 10 and go onward from there to discover how we can take this old proverb and apply it to today's women. Verse 10 "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. " What would quantify a female to be virtuous?  It means having or showing high moral values. This definition would mean that she is nice, ethical, true, good, honorable, righteous and noble. It means that this female stands out amongst the rest.  Because there are so many women who have low moral values, for a man to find one that doesn't compromise, he has found a jewel amongst the trash. Verse 11 "The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will lack no gain." I'm going to first point out that it clearly says, "husband", not boyfriend, lover, significant other, nor fiancé. This is because this is the description of a legally married woman, not some side piece.  Her husband has no need to be grieved or spend his days worrying, ...

While Western Christians have been brain washed into the ideology of tithing most seem to simply do it out of an act of charity, or maybe there's an element of guilt to it. Though, I'm sure the church would never guilt innocent parishioners into giving up their money. There's always plenty of foolish people that give up their money without the consideration of who that money goes to and what you are unknowingly supporting. Originally, there was a temple and those attending temple would give to it as a means of communal and spiritual responsibility. The priests of the temple were the ones to receive a portion of the monetary tithes and were given a tithe of the harvest that was given to the priest's family. This was mandatory under Jewish law, so the majority of scriptures you'll hear pushing it come from Old Testament scriptures. Keeping that in mind, when sacrifices were made at the temple of the animal variety, it would be divided up amongst the priests and they w...