Emma Woodhouse to Harriet Smith:
“I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to ‘Yes,’ she ought to say ‘No’ directly. It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with half a heart. I thought it my duty as a friend, and older than yourself, to say thus much to you. But do not imagine that I want to influence you.”
Really?
2026-09-28 1 Kings 7:13-14 And King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. He was a son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze. And he was full of wisdom, understanding, and skill for making any work in bronze. He came to King Solomon and did all his work. The rest of 1 Kings 7 goes on to give the details and descriptions of everything that Hiram made for King Solomon.
2026-09-27 1 Kings 6:7 When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built. It often feels difficult and trying, or at least it has felt so for me, to read through all the descriptions and details in the Bible which might not immediately reveal their point or importance to us.
2026-09-26 1 Kings 5:4-5 But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side. There’s neither adversary nor misfortune. And so I intend to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, as the Lord said to David my father, “Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, shall build the house for my name.” While war with the Philistines had been constant and fierce in the times of Saul and David, King Solomon, on the other hand, dwelt in safety and calm all the days of his life.
2026-09-25 1 Kings 4:29 And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breath of mind like the sand on the sea shore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt. In 1 Kings 3:5, God appears to Solomon at Gibeon in a dream and asks him, “What shall I give you?” I have been awed by the fact that God would put a question like that so directly to a man: “What do you want?
2026-09-24 1 Kings 3:26 Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son, “Oh, my lord, giver her the living child, and by no means put him to death.” But the other said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours, divide him.” I expect that most of you reading this are quite familiar with how the story goes. But perhaps a quick summary might be fitting still.
Thomas Browne: There is no man alone, because every man is a Microcosme, and carries the whole world about him; Nunquam minus solus quam cum solus, though it bee the Apophthegme of a wise man, is yet true in the mouth of a foole; for indeed, though in a Wildernesse, a man is never alone, not onely because hee is with himselfe, and his owne thoughts, but because he is with the devill, who ever consorts with our solitude, and is that unruly rebell that musters up those disordered motions, which accompany our sequestred imaginations
2026-09-23 1 Kings 2:8-9 And there is also with you Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse on the day when I went to Mahanaim. But when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord, saying, ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’ Now therefore do not hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man.
Finished reading: New City Catechism Devotional by Collin Hansen, Timothy J. Keller 📚
2026-09-22 1 Kings 1:5 Now Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, “I will be king.” And he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. One way the Scriptures seem to indirectly caution us against polygamy is through the stories of the various feuds and uprisings that characterized David’s family and that must have been the bane of his existence. Absalom had styled himself king, and now, while David was old and cold, Adonijah too exalted and declared himself king.