When the more devout believers turn to their scriptures for truisms and spiritual metaphors, no one is surprised.

But I can only smile when I hear colleagues who would never darken the door of a house of worship — even folks resolutely skeptic — use expressions from scriptures in everyday conversation.There just seems to be no getting away from the Word in our words (for consistency, all examples below from King James Version of the Bible):

“Why Bob, you’re nothing but skin and bones! How’d you lose all that weight?” Or, “Whew, that was a close one! I escaped by the skin of my teeth!”
(“Skin and bones,” “skin of teeth,” both come from the Old Testament book of Job, chapter 19, verse 20, “My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.”)

“Dude, don’t sweat it. Next time. There’s a time and place for everything, yo?”
(“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” Ecclesiastes 3:1)

“So, I helped her pick up her groceries and load them into her car. Just goin’ the extra mile, I guess.”
(“And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.” Matthew 5:41)

“Like they say, ‘Red sky at morning, sailors take warning, red sky at night — sailor’s delight.”
(Actually, Matthew 16:2: “He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring.”)

“I’ll slap you upside the head, bro, faster than you can blink an eye!”
(From “Twinkling of an eye,” as in, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.” 1 Corinthians 15)

“He’s perfect for this job. Yep, he’s a man after my own heart.”
(“… the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart.” 1 Samuel 13:14)

“This so-called debt plan is nothing. It’s just a drop in the bucket!”
(” Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.” Isaiah 40:15).

“How did I know? Well, you see a little bird told me.”
(“… for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.”  Ecclesiastes 10:20)

“Well of course she did. A leopard doesn’t change it’s spots, you know.”
(“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” Jeremiah 13:23)

“Nothing was ever given to me, man. Everything I got I worked for, you, know by the sweat of my brow!”
(“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art…” Gen 3:19)

“Joe was given that promotion? Geez. Now ain’t that a case of the blind leading the blind!”
(“Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” Matthew 15:14)

Those are just a few examples. There are many more, such as, He’s just after filthy lucre? (1 Samuel 13:14). Stranger in strange land? (Not Robert Heinlein, but Isaiah 22:13). He thinks he’s a law unto himself? (Matthew 7:7). I’m at my wit’s end! (Colossians 2:5). You don’t know the half of it? (Proverbs 19:20).

So, get what I’m saying? Can you see the proverbial writing on the wall, or this blog?
Yeah, that too: Read it’s origins in Ecclesiastes 1:9.