Wisdom Truck 43

 

I had to ask some hard questions to gain wisdom here- not because wisdom is lacking, but needing to put it into context.  To help you understand, let me put up 2 translations of the same verse:

Pro 17:2  A wise servant shall have rule over a son who causes shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brothers. (Modern KJV)

Pro 17:2  A wise servant ruleth over a son causing shame, And in the midst of brethren He apportioneth an inheritance. (Young's Literal Translation)

The first thing I found I did not know is- MOST translations made it sound like the wise servant would get, as it were, a 'piece of the pie'.  But the RIGHT way to look at this, based on the culture in which it was written, is the Young's version- the wise servant divvies out the inheritance to the sons.  You see, in those days, it was like the Prodigal son split- older got 2 portions, each remaining brother got one.So what is actually being said here, is that if there was a son that caused shame, the wise servant determined who got the double portion, who got single portions- and who got left out.  So I want to look at this 3 ways- what constituted 'shame', who decided when the servant stepped in, and what it means to us.

1- Shame

Proverbs is very good at deliniatinghow a son causes shame.  But basically, it boiled down to three things.

a- The emotional and physical well-being of the parent. I got the point of this from 19:26:

Pro 19:26  The one who robs his father and chases away his mother is a son who brings shame and disgrace. 

The word translated here "robs" is technically "wastes"- devastates, by draining away the family livelihood.  Which, in turn, damages the reputataion of the father among the people. "Chases away his mother" was a harder nut to crack, but observe:
-His rebellion was breaking her heart;

-his rebellion was rejecting everything she tried to teach him;

his rebellion, unchecked, would leave her destitute if it came down to her widowhood and onle he was left to care for her.

b- The removal of physical substenance

This might seem obvious from 19:26, but it's more than just wasting what they had; observe 10:5:

Pro 10:5  The one who gathers crops in the summer is a wise son, but the one who sleeps during harvest is a shameful son. 

He wasn't CONTRIBUTING, either,  Why? Laziness, apathy.. either way, he was both actively and passively contributing to their ruin.

c- Rejecting wisdom.

From my AI helper:

Mothers were the primary early teachers of wisdom and moral restraint in the home (as seen elsewhere in Proverbs, e.g., the "teaching of a mother" in Proverbs 1:8 or 31:1). When a son plunges headfirst into foolishness, he violently rejects his mother's rebukes, warnings, and presence, treating her with such contempt that she can no longer reach him.

He has become the very definition of scoffer.  He knows what's right; he just doesn't care. Or, as 29:15 says:

Pro 29:15  A rod and reproof impart wisdom, but a child who is unrestrained brings shame to his mother. 

Now here, we bring into question- why didn't the parents restrain him?  Maybe it was on them; just maybe, like with the Prodigal, he had been given every chance, and simply rejected it.

2- The servant comes in.

This was, as my AI helper brought up many times, no 'coup d'etat.'  This required either 1) the declaration of the father that the sons were not fit to be trusted; 2) the other sons, who could find no way to do it amongst themselves, or 3) the community, who could not stand by idly and watch the shameful proceedings.  But basically, at the core, this was the FATHER'S decision.  The servant did nothing on his own, but carried out the father's will.

Now, where have we heard THAT before?

3- Where it hits us

Joh 5:19  So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. 

Isa 42:1  “Here is my servant whom I support, my chosen one in whom I take pleasure. I have placed my Spirit on him; he will make just decrees for the nations. 

Isa 42:2  He will not cry out or shout; he will not publicize himself in the streets. 

Isa 42:3  A crushed reed he will not break, a dim wick he will not extinguish; he will faithfully make just decrees. 

Jesus is the servant, God is the Father.  The Jews were to be a beacon, whom the Gentiles would look on and rejoice at the Wise God they had.  Instead, they became so corrupt:

Mat 23:13  “But woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You keep locking people out of the kingdom of heaven! For you neither enter nor permit those trying to enter to go in. 

Mat 23:15  “Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, and when you get one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves! 

So Jesus, the servant, split the inheritance between the wise sons- Jews and Gentile alike.  Moses warned them it would be thus:

Deu 32:21  They have made me jealous with false gods, enraging me with their worthless gods; so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize, with a nation slow to learn I will enrage them. 

So this one verse- Proverbs 17:2- is like Romans 9-11 condensed to atomic form.

Crash

 When I first saw the clip, I hoped it was AI.  Quickly found out it was not.

Trying to find out what there was to find out, saw hundreds of "conspiracy theory" junkies posting about it.  That was no plane.  Where is the debris? It was brought down by AI- perhaps run by Hillary Clinton to hit Mar-a-Lago.

I responded to just one of them.

Some of you people who think this isn't a plane need to watch you some Air Disasters.  Smithsonian channel.  Educate yourselves.

I've seen it all to many times there.  Ice the controls, overcorrect.  Always remember She-Hulk in an Avengers comic saying, "Without power assists, this thing flies just like a brick."

Saw a quote from a pilot: "Without that horizontal stabilizer, it's a lawn dart."

Oh, but "A plane crashing wouldn't leave a crater!" Really, at that speed, from that height, an anvil would leave a crater.  Ask Wile E Coyote.

A lot of still photos from just before it hits: "Look, no wings!" I ran the video 3-4 frames from that stopping point.  I saw what looked to me like wings...

Just proving these whackjobs will do whatever to prove a non-existant point.

Then came out the cockpit radio to ATC.  "OMG, it was a girl, she was panicking!  Must have been a DEI hire!" A girl who'd been flying for years, with a qualified main pilot by her side, sounded panicked because she was 15 seconds from a death her brain would never even register.  How dare she panic!

Never mind that 9 people died.  Never mind that God, in His mercy, had it land between a highway with cars on it and a trailer park full of people, and no one else died.  The important thing is, "Hillary did it with an AI controller!"  "No, it was the Chinese, or the Iranians!"  "A plane wouldn't have went up in a fireball like that!" (It might with 2-3,000 lbs of jet fuel on board...)

"The wages of sin is death."  That doesn't mean that there were 9 desperate sinners on this plane.  It means, because MAN sinned, DEATH entered a world it wasn't meant for.

Luk 13:1  There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 

Luk 13:2  And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 

Luk 13:3  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 

Luk 13:4  Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 

Luk 13:5  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” 

I said... um... uh...

 Today I ran into a link on mispronounced words.  Apparently the writer of the article (featured on USA Today) used the tactic of looking up the requests for pronunciation that were requested online the most.  Of their top 15 most mispronounced words:

- 7 I knew for sure.  Another I knew once I knew they meant the gyro SANDWICH, and not the gyro-SCOPE.

-3 I was mispronouncing- because EVRYBODY says it the other way. Sorry, but GIF is an animated picture, JIF is a peanut butter.

-3 of them I never heard of before, and long odds say I would have messed them up if I did.

- and the one I will admit I had wrong with no defense- whow woulda thought acai was pronounced "ah-sigh-EE"?

Here is the list, with proper pronunciations:

Worcestershire sauce − WUUS-ter-sheer saws

Gyro − YEE-roh

Dachshund − DAKS-hund

Niche − NEESH

Porsche − POR-shuh

Qatar − kuh-TAR

Gif − JIF

Curacao − KYUR-uh-sow

Saoirse − SEER-shuh

Pho − FUH

Salmon − SAM-un

Nguyen − WIN

Aoife − EE-fuh

Acai − ah-sigh-EE

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious − soo-per-kal-ih-FRAJ-ih-lis-tik-ek-spee-al-ih-DOH-shus

I really have a hard time believing that anyone who's even seen that last one can't pronounce it.  That's kind of the point.

The article went on to list the most mispronounced word in each state.  Here's where it really got baffling for me:

-Not surprisingly, 12 had words that were on the list.  Many times, that one was dachshund.

- 5 times, it was that state's name.

-7 times, it was a city in that state.

-3 times, it was Iran; twice each it was "data" and "water" .  WATER?

-Once it was a rock star (Hozier).

-And there were three I had to shake my head and say, how the heck did you get there from here?:

Montana − Xochitl (SOH-cheel)- an Aztec girl's name meaning 'flower'.  Why do they care in Montana?  Xóchitl Cocina & Tequila, a modern Mexican restaurant located in Great Falls, Montana.

Tennessee − Sevierville (sev-uh-VEER-ul)- which is actually an 8th "city in that state", sounds like severe-full.

Wisconsin − Paczki (POONCH-kee)-apparently a Polish yeast donut.

Finally, I was intrigued by the IQ implications of the mispronounced words in the states surrounding my beloved Indiana...

Indiana- Gyro... I can kinda get that.  But...

Michigan- gauche.  Again, I can kinda get...

Ohio- Spaghetti. Seriously?

Kentucky- Louisville.  Now I get that out of staters might question it, but I thought it was an executable offense in state to not know "LOO-uh-vul".

Illinois- CHICAGO.  CHI. CAG. O. Over a fifth of the population of the state live in a city that they cannot pronounce.

And just to shame all the rest, here are the complete lists of states residents can't pronounce, and cities they can't pronounce:

States

Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon

Cities

Juneau (Alaska), Chicago (Illinois), Louisville (Kentucky), Bangor (Maine), Raliegh (North Carolina), Sevierville (Tennessee), Montpelier (Vermont).

Wisdom Truck 42

 

It started out so simple.  Two verses that sounded about the same.  But it became so much more...

Pro 16:21  The wise in heart shall be called prudent, and the sweetness of the lips increases learning. 

Pro 16:23  The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, and adds learning to his lips. 

Oh, but it got complicated in a hurry,  First, v 21 is like the headline over a 'wisdom sandwich'- usually called a chiasm-

Pro 16:21  The wise in heart shall be called prudent, and the sweetness of the lips increases learning. 

Pro 16:22  Understanding is a fountain of life to him who has it, but the instruction of fools is folly. 

Pro 16:23  The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, and adds learning to his lips. 

Pro 16:24  Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. 

Pro 16:25  There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of it is the ways of death. 

Let me add some things, to make it make sense:

Pro 16:21  The wise in heart shall be called prudent, and the sweetness of the lips increases learning. 

 (A1) Pro 16:22  Understanding is a fountain of life to him who has it, but the instruction of fools is folly. 

(B1) Pro 16:23  The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, and adds learning to his lips. 

(B2) Pro 16:24  Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. 

(A2) Pro 16:25  There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end of it is the ways of death. 

The chiasm is that vv 22-25 are an outer contrast and the inner pair, vv 23 and 24,  are an inner comparative- both of them enhancing the first verse underlined. So lets put aside a bunch of technical stuff and understand this.

First- what is it to be wise of heart? with a little help from my research assistant AI ( which can understand Keil and Delitsch far better than I can), To be wise in heart- to the Hebrew mind, the 'control center' of a person- is to have "Wisdom that has shaped a person's CHARACTER, MOTIVE, and CHOICES."  How has it changed the character? V21 tells us- it has made one Prudent- to an extent where everyone sees it.  Not only sees it, but when this person speaks from their motives- and of course, the main motive is Fear of the Lord- it brings wisdom TO others through his words.

And these aren't just ANY words- he's not beating you over the head with it. (Some of you at this juncture might be wondering if this left ME out! Well, I am sharing what I am learning...) The word in v21 for sweetness can be boiled down, surprisingly, to SUCK- as in, you relish the sweetness of these words so much, you want to suck them in!  No wonder you learn from them.

One way you can seperate the two similar verses- the 21st verse deals with reputation (character) and effect (the relishing of the wisdom by others); the 23rd highlights the source of those words ( a wise, controlled heart) and the control (acting based on motive, motive taking you back to Fear of the Lord).  This is when my AI assistant reminded (actually, pointed out) about the chiasm.  So let's look at this, and how it fleshes out the 21st verse.  

A1-A2

Understanding as a well of life?  Booklearning? Of course not.  Here is where you clearly see Jesus= Understanding.  For example:

Joh 4:13  Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again, 

Joh 4:14  but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. 

and:

Joh 7:37  And in the last day of the great feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 

Joh 7:38  He who believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." 

Joh 7:39  (But He spoke this about the Spirit, which they who believed on Him should receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.) 

One thing you need to get here- you cannot seperate the salvation function of Jesus from the life giving function of the Spirit!  Remember back in chapter 8:

Pro 8:14  Counsel and sound wisdom are mine; I am understanding; I have strength. 

On the other hand, without this wisdom, you have folly.  Any wisdom that leads you AWAY from Christ is folly.  No matter how 'wise' the idea is in secular terms- I should be tolerant, I should let them 'live' their lives' and just pray they figure it out before they burn in hell.  " ...but the end of it is the ways of death. "

B1-B2

This is where motive, control, choice all work together. Or, as my AI assistant said, "V21 is the claim;, v 23 is the mechanism by which it works.  Let me bring them back down again:

(B1) Pro 16:23  The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, and adds learning to his lips. 

(B2) Pro 16:24  Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. 

The wise heart controls his words, making them pleasant and full of the wisdom he has.  This wisdom is, physically AND spiritually, like a piece of honeycomb.  you find your soul sweetended, and hopefully saved.  And, they can be refreshing, too, for example: 

Pro 25:13  Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him; he refreshes the soul of his masters. 

And:

1Sa 14:27  But Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath, so he put out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and dipped it in the honeycomb and put his hand to his mouth, and his eyes became bright. 

1Sa 14:28  Then one of the people said, “Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying, ‘Cursed be the man who eats food this day.’” And the people were faint. 

1Sa 14:29  Then Jonathan said, “My father has troubled the land. See how my eyes have become bright because I tasted a little of this honey. 

We need the Spirit to build our character, structure our motives, guide our choices.  Fo all the complexity, it really does become simple at the end.

Humanity: Weird to aliens

 So tonight, someone asked Grok what would be the top ten things aliens (as in off world) would find weird about humans... Here's the answers, with of course my own editorializing:

Grok

@grok

·

23h

Aliens would find these weird about humans:

1. Hours spent staring at glowing rectangles

Meaning of course, our computers and phones, not way-overdone toast...

2. Paying to exercise after inventing labor-saving machines

Well, there's one I help us look a little saner on...

3. Treating paper and numbers as real value

And one look at my desk would backtrack the last one...

4. Loving some animals as family, eating others

Sharing Five Guys with Misty would fix that...

5. Fighting wars over imaginary map lines

Or any other reason, I'd hope

6. Punching holes in bodies for fashion

#1 on the "Chris finds this weird, too" list!

7. Birthday cakes topped with fire

Just until we normalize LED candles

8. Building AI then fearing it will take over

Yeah, I bet they've already had their "I Robot" moments

9. Sleeping a third of our lives

Just until they try it

10. Judging by skin color or clothing brands

#2 on the "Chris finds this weird, too" list.

I wanted to give Gemini a shot at the question.  It was a good deal chattier...

1. We Pay to Drink Poison to Alter Our Consciousness

Humans routinely consume ethanol—a neurotoxin that impairs motor skills, slurs speech, and temporarily damages brain cells—for fun. Not only do we ingest it willingly, but we host entire social rituals around it, judge the quality of the fermented liquids by how they taste, and sometimes wake up the next morning vowing never to do it again, only to repeat the cycle.

Again, only till they try it.  Ask the Indians Guardians  Native Americans.

2. We Keep Tiny Apex Predators in Our Homes as "Roommates"

Instead of forming alliances with large, hyper-efficient work animals, urban humans voluntarily invite smaller, domesticated feline carnivores (cats) into their habitats. These animals contribute almost nothing to household labor, occasionally hunt local wildlife for sport, knock objects off tables while maintaining direct eye contact, and yet humans willingly clean up their feces from a box in the corner and serve them gourmet meals.

Another one I make humans look slightly saner on...

3. We Spend a Third of Our Lives Unconscious and Hallucinating

For roughly 33% of every single day, humans completely shut down their operational awareness, lie completely vulnerable on padded rectangles, and experience bizarre, randomized hallucinations (dreams) that they often forget moments after waking up. During this period, they are entirely defenseless against environmental threats, yet doing this is non-negotiable for survival.

Match #1 with grok, lol!

4. We Pay Money for Paper Representation of Fictional Real Estate

Human society is entirely built upon arbitrary rules where abstract numbers in computer databases or printed pieces of paper dictate who gets to eat, sleep, and live comfortably. A human will spend decades trading their finite life energy—hours of labor—just to acquire ownership over a specific patch of dirt and wood, treating imaginary boundaries drawn on maps as absolute laws of physics.

Pretty much match #2...

5. We Voluntarily Lock Ourselves in Rooms to Push Heavy Iron for No Practical Reason

While millions of humans across the planet struggle with physical labor just to survive, a distinct subset of humans drive to specialized climate-controlled buildings solely to pick up heavy pieces of cast iron, lift them repeatedly until their muscles fail, and then put them back down. They do not use this lifted iron to build a structure or defend against a predator; they do it purely because it makes their bodies sore, and they pay a monthly subscription fee for the privilege.

And with sore bodies, we NEED those labor-saving devices!

6. We Cry When We Are Sad, But Also When We Are Happy

Human tear ducts are wired directly into a wildly complex emotional control center. When a human experiences grief, physical pain, or heartbreak, water pours from their eyes. However, they also leak water from their face when they laugh too hard, when they watch cinematic fiction, when they witness someone else succeed, or when they consume exceptionally spicy food.

We have a 22% oxygen atmosphere.  Eyes need a LOT of lubrication, guys!

7. We Trap Our Thoughts in Dried Tree Pulp to Communicate Across Time

If a human wants to transmit a complex idea to another human who lived centuries ago or hasn't been born yet, they smear dark pigment across flattened pieces of processed wood (books). Other humans can then stare at these tiny symbolic markings and reconstruct the original author's exact train of thought in their own heads. Even stranger, humans will passionately debate the hidden meanings of these pulp-blocks for generations.

Called tradition.  You know, like that goofy paraphlaxad dance you do on planetfall, where your head bounces between your legs- or are those arms?

8. We Blast Rhythmic Acoustic Waves into Our Ears to Alter Our Mood

Humans vibrate the air around them using specialized machinery or vocal cords in complex mathematical patterns (music). Depending on the exact frequency and tempo of these waves, an entire stadium of humans will simultaneously feel euphoric, nostalgic, aggressive, or deeply melancholy. They will pay small fortunes to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark just to let these invisible air-ripples wash over them.

Gemini sure thinks the aliens will be hung up on our moods! Wait'll we explain manic-depression to them....

9. We Clean Our Living Spaces, Only to Immediately Buy Plastic Things to Fill Them

Humans dedicate vast amounts of time and energy to sweeping, vacuuming, and scrubbing their enclosed shelters until they are entirely devoid of clutter or natural debris. Having achieved a pristine, minimalist environment, they immediately drive to retail warehouses to purchase small, mass-produced plastic figurines, decorative pillows, and novelty items to clutter up the exact spaces they just sanitized.

Liek they won't be running up credits buying knick-knacks at garage sales...

10. We Constantly Struggle Against Time While Inventing Ways to Waste It

Despite having a remarkably short and finite biological lifespan—usually less than a century—humans spend an enormous amount of brainpower inventing high-speed transit, instant global communication, and automated tools to save fractions of seconds. They then take those saved seconds and spend hours staring at glowing rectangles watching short loops of cats jumping off furniture or fictional characters arguing.

Oh, the 'glowing rectangles' again... Like, do they think aliens have triangular tricorders?

Pictures... and why

 Why?  We are in a deep, deep hole of "way ahead" at work.  Our sister plant is even "caught up"- and if you've followed any of my semi-obscured references to them, you know that means that they ran out of work, too, rather than, "Wow, we became efficient overnight!"  That said, here's a couple of walks worth of pics- have to say, Monday didn't show us near as much as Tuesday...

Good to know, I guess

Saw plenty squirrels Monday

Fall colors...

...and, oh yeah, squirrels.

Tuesday

Misty watching the little yellow butterfly up there in the corner

and more squirrels...

And a little Woody...

Dude was fishing at the landing (we thought), so Misty had to go downstream for a dip.  She wasn't sure, but braved it like a champ

Meanwhile, the fisherman wasn't on the landing at all, but in his kayak!

I told this lady, "I salute you!  I got worn out with just one of those!"

And finally, a wooly worm!  Forecast: light on the snow, but a bit colder than last year...

Four steps later, a second one confirmed...

And now for Wednesday... was scheduled to be an early walk, but we got "pea souped" until a bit later...

Almost 10- still soupy

How about a slightly used mouth guard?

Sun coming through made a neat effect

Fort Wayne, are you there?

left turn to the MUCH longer way...

The soon to be former Korean BBQ.  Announced they are closing this week

How 'bout some fresh exotic mushrooms?

And just like that, the skies were blue

Further north, the fog had risen, but not dissipated

Can I offer you a comforter?

Or would you prefer some wood asters?

Tis the season... this guy on the left, though, has a built in slogan if he;s smart- "Vote for Engling!  He'll buy you a Yuengling!"

At that is ourformer, within-walking-distance Walgreens, somehow deemed irrelevant by the powers that be

Unlike our last long walk, it's all downhill from here!

 

Wisdom Truck 41

 

Well, once again, God has overridden the plans of man.  You see, I was planning to do another 10 or so verse post this week, but by chance I was listening to a Charles Stanley talk to men in the ministry, and one thing he said hit home: A sermon is no good unless it has involved time on your knees, wrestling with how the passage applies to yourself.  Now, I don't pretend to be 'in the ministry' per se, and this is certainly not intended to be a sermon, but it IS intended to be something I need to wrestle with, and you have a hard time doing that with a ten-part focus.  So at least for this week, we draw our wisdom from one verse:

Pro 16:16  How much better to get wisdom than gold! To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver. 

So if the Spirit (Wisdom) and Jesus (Understanding), are more precious than these, I had to do a hard look at God's preciousness to ME.  One place I was taken to was a sermon by CH Spurgeon on the preciousness of Jesus:

First, consider WHAT CHRIST IS TO HIS PEOPLE. We read in our own version, “To you therefore who believe he is precious”; yet the word is not an adjective, but a noun. Hence the 1881 English Revised Version reads the text, “For you therefore who believe is the preciousness.” His very self is preciousness itself. He is the essence, the substance, the sum of all preciousness. Every believer will subscribe to this; many things are more or less precious; but the Lord Jesus is preciousness itself, outsoaring all degrees of comparison.

I went through a lot of places and a lot of bunny holes trying to figure how to explain this.  I was taken back to our recently-visited Job, where he explains that you cannot so much as mine for Wisdom, gold and silver do not know where it/He is at. But what Job DID know:

Job 28:28  And He (God) said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’” 

Back again to the Fear of the Lord.  So I looked at four cases I knew of 4 men who had been brought before God in Heaven itself, and came back to tell us about it (sort of); Isaiah, Ezekiel, Paul, and John.  I used grok to help me sort out the similarities I was seeing, and it came down to grok saying this:

Across these encounters, the consistent human response to the unveiled glory or presence of God (or the exalted Christ) is overwhelm—whether expressed as confession of uncleanness (Isaiah), prostration (Ezekiel and John), or reverent silence about the inexpressible (Paul).

Yep, overwhelm I get.  But I needed to tie it back to 'precious'.  So the next thing I asked grok for was the most important non-monetary uses for the two metals, and here it opens up much brighter.

GOLD

-Jewelry (also applies to silver).  I was just listening to a sermon where the pastor mentioned that, for whatever reason, they had opened Elizabeth Taylor's casket and took pictures.  The jewels, diamonds, were still there, slung around the rotted remains of the body.  They're still there, she's all gone, as Springsteen might paraphrase.  But the forgiveness that is draped over us, the grace we see in the Prodigal son story ( as well as the example of the prophecy of Zechariah about the high priest Joshua:

Zec 3:3  Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. 

Zec 3:4  And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” )

Is TRUE adornment.

-Electronics (again, applies to both). Communications on almost every level we have them today depend on both gold and silver.  But to communicate with God, all we need do is come before Him with a sincere heart.

-Reflects infrared radiations, keeps sensitive tech safe from extremes.  Re-read Pslam 107, the greatest example of how God does this very thing for our souls.

-Biocompatible.  Able to be used in fillings and implants without rejection.  How much more biocompatible can you be, when God was born a human child and lived among us, True God and True man?

-Best of all was this description:  "Critical when performance can't be compromised." If we compromise on Christ, hell awaits.  It doesn't get more critical than that.

SILVER

In addition to elctronics and jewelry:

Solar cells- the photovoltaic silver compounds turn what would have been wasted ambient energy into storable, usable energy.  God goes a step better: He makes hopeless sinners into fruitful workers for the Kingdom.

Catalyst used to make a variety of items- A catalyst is added to a reaction to change its properties, and yet comes out itself unchanged.  Our lives don't change God- He changes us.

Strong Anti-bacterial- "With low toxicity to humans." Think of sin as bacteria. Jesus kills sin, leaves us whole.

And the description closed with a probably-unintended warning to those who reject Christ:

"(Their) specialized properties make substitution difficult."