Book Nook: Street Smarts from Proverbs - How to Navigate Through Conflict to Community

At some point in life, everyone is going to end up in conflict. While there are many good conflict-resolution books out there, not a lot of them are based around Proverbs. I had a chance to review Street Smarts from Proverbs, a book that uses the wisdom of Solomon as a guiding force behind conflict resolution - and staying out of major conflicts as well.

Proverbs are fairly universal. Although they're understood by Christians to be inspired wisdom from God, a large portion of the Proverbs don't even mention God, but instead give worthy advice for anyone, believer or non-believer.

The book follows 12 key words: righteousness, equity, justice, wise behavior, understanding, wise communication, prudence, discretion, wise counsel, discipline, knowledge, and learning. Through these guiding principles, readers learn how to resolve conflict that has already occurred, and how to minimize conflicts in the future. Using real-life stories makes the application a lot easier to see, and the traits apply to conflicts at home or work, with friends, or in ministry.