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One day, a Sunday school teacher asked her class of children about their favorite Bible verses. One boy volunteered that his favorite was John 11:35, "Jesus wept," because it was short and easy to remember. A girl said her favorite was John 3:16, because she'd been told it was a summary of the gospel message and had memorized it for Bible school the previous summer. One boy said he liked the story of David and Goliath, especially the part about David killing Goliath with a stone from his slingshot.

Next the teacher asked if any of them knew their parents' favorite verses. One girl volunteered that her mother liked Psalm 23, and a boy said his mother must like the Golden Rule, because she was always reminding him to "do unto others as he would like others to do unto him."

Finally, she asked if anyone knew the minister's favorite verse. The class was silent for a moment until a little guy in the back piped up and said, "He's a preacher. He has to like them all!"

Well, as Christians, don't you sometimes feel that way -- as if you are expected to connect with the entire range of scripture? Doesn't it seem kind of disloyal to admit that there are parts of the Bible that either don't make sense or don't seem to fit with the basic Christian message? Or perhaps there are even some parts you don't like.

There are times when we feel as if we'd have to take leave of our reason to embrace some passages. Take Leviticus, for example. That book is primarily a handbook to guide the ministry of the Levites, those who oversaw the sacrificial worship system of ancient Israel. There are pages of detail about which parts of the innards of a bull are supposed to be burned for sacrifice. I doubt modern Christians can find much use for those particular verses. (The whole book, on the other hand, gives a picture of the holiness of God and can be read profitably.)

There are other biblical passages that actually seem sub-Christian, such as when Saul was told to wipe out every man, woman, child, and livestock of the Amalekites.

And then there is the whole book of Proverbs. What are we to make of it? The theology of the book seems to be the notion that good people will be rewarded materially and bad people will be punished. Goodness, so the argument from Proverbs goes, is the sensible way to be because it pays off. If things are going well, you must be doing right. If you are suffering, these proverbs seem to say, it's because you have turned from God's ways and followed some evil course. So if you are smart, you'll be good. In other words, nice guys finish first.

Now I think you recognize that that's a pretty simplistic view of life. Jesus certainly did not promise wealth and ease to those who followed him. And we know good people to whom bad things have happened. We also know of bad people who appear to have done pretty well in this life.

We even know that some now-discredited televangelists were rightly criticized for preaching a gospel of health and wealth, claiming that Christians were in for the best life has to offer materially if they'd only believe.

So what are we to make of Proverbs? It may be helpful for a moment to consider what was happening in Israel when the proverbs were composed. In the earlier parts of the Old Testament, the people of Israel, though they often displeased God, were still basically a religious people. Even when they sinned, they did not try to fool themselves into thinking that they had just made honest mistakes. They recognized the wrongness of their actions. These earlier Israelites understood their relationship with God as being based on a covenant that required obedience and righteousness on their part.

In that society, the priests held special authority because they were the mediators of that covenant between the people and God.

Later, however, after Israel became a monarchy, things began to change. King David remained conscious of his religious obligations before God, but his son Solomon, who succeeded him to throne, gradually turned away from God.

The powerful and united kingdom that Solomon inherited from his father thrust Israel into new circumstances. Economically, Israel's control of the major trade routes gave the nation a kind of influence it had never known before. Politically, Israel was now involved in international relationships with a clout she had not previously had. The united kingdom of Israel also absorbed many different peoples with different religious practices, and the nation for the first time struggled with major problems of cultural and religious pluralism.

Solomon, although he appears to have made a good start, soon became caught up in this new power, affluence, and sophistication. No longer was he, or many others in Israel, satisfied to refer problems of faith and culture to the priests and the covenant, but looked now more to the example of other nations around them.

This period of Israel's history might be called a kind of "renaissance" where the old traditions and old ways began to seem irrelevant. Israel was no longer a religious society, but was fast becoming a secular one.

Now, as Solomon turned away from the priests, another breed of teacher began to gain respect. They were those known as "the wise." These wise ones were neither priests nor prophets, but people who observed life and drew conclusions about how best to live. The basis of their belief seems to have been that the world operated according to orderly principles that could be perceived by those who were wise. Further, they believed that if a person lived in harmony with that order, things would be well and happy for that person.

Now this was not a godless belief. In fact, in the very first chapter of Proverbs is this verse: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge" (1:7). But it was a belief system in which God was addressed not by sacrifice in the temple, but by cooperation with the order God had built into life. As such, it was not a particularly Jewish view, but a knowledge considered as the common property of all humanity.

Proverbs are classic wisdom writings, as are the biblical books of Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. They do not contain references to the temple, the priests, or the covenant. In fact, there is nothing in them that would offend the non-Jew. They do not speak of heavenly rewards or divine punishment, but instead, speak of how to achieve a happy existence in this life. The goal of life, according to this non-religious theology, was to achieve fullness of life, characterized by well-being and happiness. People who cooperated with this order of life were wise. Those who did not were fools. Nice guys finish first.

The scripture reading for today contains many such wisdom sayings.

While from a Christian standpoint, the Proverbs may seem like religion-lite, we have to acknowledge that our culture is more like the secular world of Solomon than the covenant world of Moses. Wisdom theology, though it falls short of the glory of New Testament Christianity, is still far better than the self-centered, materialistic, grab-all-you-can-get attitude that characterize some parts of our society today.

We also recognize that a lot of people are not deterred from doing wrong simply because those things are a violation of God's laws. For some, the wisdom motif -- do good because it pays off -- is a more compelling reason to do the right thing. So in a way, the concept behind Proverbs is a connecting point with nonbelievers because Proverbs speaks the language of the world.

Let me give you an example. Several years ago, a neighbor woman, knowing I was a minister, asked if I would be willing to counsel her daughter and son-in-law who were having marital problems. They were not churchgoers and neither had much religious background at all. But the mother felt that a minister might be able to help. I agreed to meet with them.

They were in my office only a few minutes when a painful tale of marital infidelity on the part of the wife began to unfold. From a religious point of view, it would have been easy for me to talk about the sinfulness of her behavior, but the fact was, she was not even thinking of it in that context. In her mind, she felt justified because of some slights on her husband's part. In fact, she was still seeing the other man. In my opinion at that moment, simply pointing out that her behavior was wrong (which I expect she knew anyway) would not have achieved any healing of the relationship.

Instead, I started from their interest in saving the marriage. I pointed out that the first "prudent" thing to do if she truly wanted to give the marriage a chance was to stop seeing the other man. She reluctantly agreed and we set up another appointment to work on the other problems in the marriage.

Now if they had been a church couple, or people who at least permitted religion to have a role in their lives, I might have offered to pray with them at the end of the session. But this was not part of the language of their lives, so I did not suggest it.

In effect, I didn't function much differently than a secular marriage counselor that day, but as I continued meeting with them I repeatedly raised the "wisdom" position -- that treating each other with understanding and consideration would have a positive effect on their marriage. In other words, I told them "Nice guys finish first."

By the third time we met, we were able to begin speaking about some very theological things -- the wife's need to repent of her actions and the husband's need to forgive. He also had some things he needed to repent of and she had some things she needed to forgive.

But the point is, before they could even consider those things -- which they ultimately did, by the way -- they had to be helped to see a somewhat higher view of life than they had been living with. At first, they were not even convinced that caring about the other person's needs would have a beneficial effect on their marriage.

The wisdom motif, that doing right pays off, helped them to open that door for me to begin talking about deeper things.

Do you believe that nice guys finish first? That's what the Bible says, but I don't think that's what many people believe. A few years ago, The Plain Dealer Sunday magazine published some "man on the street" interviews in which the reporter asked the question, "Why does the good guy always finish last?" Notice the question. It did not ask, "Do you think the good guy always finishes last?" but was worded to assume that good people always lose out.

All four of the people whose responses were published indicated that, in one way or another, nice guys get shortchanged because they are not tough enough or because they don't have winning as their primary goal. Two did go on to say that sometimes good guys do come out on top, but one of those attributed this to luck and the other to persistence.

Where all this is leading is this: Ultimately, following God's way is the best way. Doing something because it pays off is not the most worthy of motives, but consider what happens when we ignore this wisdom. When we harm others, we ultimately harm ourselves.

According to tradition, Solomon was a very wise man. In fact, the Proverbs themselves are attributed to him, although many Bible scholars believe that this was just a professional courtesy to make the king appear wise. Solomon, as the Old Testament makes clear, did not live up to the wisdom ascribed to him and came out the loser.

The New Testament, in Matthew 12, points out that though Solomon may have been considered wise, in Jesus, someone much wiser had come, and Jesus taught that nice guys finish first, if not in every earthly situation, than at least in life's ultimate tests. One place he said that is in Matthew 6:33: "But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Jesus, of course, never promoted righteousness simply because it pays off. He called for a higher motive. He calls us to righteousness today as a response to God's great love for us, and that's a worthy motive for doing good.

But the fact remains: Nice guys do finish first.