Re:Verse passage – Proverbs 27:17 (day five) This week’s Re:Verse scripture is what I call a “coffee cup verse”. Well known. Good advice. Truthful. Helpful. Short. Sweet. But there is so much we can unpack from this one verse. Necessity of relationships and community. Friction and tension needed to “sharpen” one another. I was struck this week that the two people or friends sharpening each other are both the same. Iron and Iron. When I think about process of sharpening knives, one is a steel blade and the other a natural stone. However, only the blade is sharpened. But the goal according to this scripture is for both to be “sharpeners and sharpenees”. Iron sharpening iron. We are born of the flesh. That certainly complicates things. But we also have the Holy Spirit. Interpersonal sharpening requires honesty, humility, listening, learning, loving. I think about Paul publicly confronting (sharpening) Peter in Galatians 2. We never see or hear about Peter rebelling against or rebuffing Paul’s correction. Instead, we see Peter writing about humility in his epistles. Only the Spirit living and working in each of us can help and cause iron to sharpen iron.
