Reading Proverbs – 27:17 Iron Sharpens Iron
Competition may be fun (if you’re competitive!), though physical competition isn’t very comfortable (I prefer humming). This verse carries the image of one man going up against another in some sport – wrestling, perhaps, or archery or fencing – and each is pushing the other to more effort, developing more strength and eventually more skill.
Alone, each man may have been pretty good, but together they can hone each other’s skills to a razor sharp level.
Similarly, accountability is never comfortable. It’s giving someone else authority over us, and we’ve fought all our lives to be competent and independent of others. We don’t want someone else in our face, monitoring what we do or say; we don’t want them critiquing our actions; we don’t want them calling us on doing (or not doing) something. Nor do we want to put ourselves under the authority of a mentor who will push us to do things we don’t particularly want to do, as if we were an apprentice.
I think accountability ‘is the new black’ where competition is concerned.
Mike
Dave Travis
Rose
Thanks for this great synopsis. (BTW, “No Name” near bottom of your list was Mel Lawrenz, Elmbrook...