Proverbs 26:4-5, 12

Beloved of God,

This evening’s passage is Proverbs 26:4-5, 12:

⁴ Answer not a fool according to his folly,
lest you be like him yourself.
⁵ Answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own eyes …
¹² Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?
There is more hope for a fool than for him.

I’m not going to resolve the contradiction between vv. 4 and 5. Sometimes, I suppose, it’s a good idea to “answer a fool according to his folly,” and sometimes it’s not. The nature of my relationship with the “fool” probably has something to do with it. So does my attitude: would I be speaking in love and humility or in pride and self-righteousness? Or am I “wise in my own eyes,” in which case, according to v. 12, there’s more hope for the fool I’m eager to correct than there is for me. But, sometimes, yes, I should do my best to correct a fool’s folly. The hard part is knowing when.

There’s no definitive biblical guide to resolving this conundrum. There are some general principles (love, kindness, gentleness, justice, godly rebuke, prophetic model), but they cover a broad and sometimes incompatible range of motives. Perhaps the Holy Spirit would simply have us face the contradiction and learn to live with the uncertainty. Rather than resolve the contradiction in these two verses, then, I’d rather suggest that their unsettling juxtaposition is not carelessness on the part of the human author, but an inspired warning against too much certainty.

Certainty can be dangerous. It’s harmless enough in small doses, I suppose, but it can spread like a weed, and when it does, it can lead to dogmatic intransigence about more and more issues. Indulged further, it can become an ideology, the conviction that all truth can be reduced to an internally consistent system of thought that answers all pertinent questions (or at least points towards such answers) and so provides an incontestable (foolproof?) ground for right action. Ideologies try to silence opposition. Ideologies justify any means that will advance their predetermined end. 

Christianity can become an ideology. When it does, it worships a false god. The true Christian God is not a system of doctrine or ethics, but three divine persons, whose nature is fully revealed in human form in the person of Jesus of Nazareth (Jn. 1:18, Col. 1:15, Heb. 1:1-3). The divine Word became flesh (Jn. 1:14), not a bunch of ideas or a collection of words. Divine and human persons alike resist reduction to systems. 

After forty-six years of marriage, I know Ann pretty well, but I would be a fool to think that I could reduce her to a set of verbal propositions. God invites human beings into relationships not manifestos. In good, loving relationships, we grow, we learn more about one another, we understand one another’s idiosyncrasies, we trust one another. Husband and wife do so by spending time together over a lifetime. Paul believed that a good marriage is a lived illustration of the relationship between Christ and the church (Eph. 5:31-2). It’s not the only illustration; the Trinity is perhaps a better one.

None of this is intended to devalue the written word of God. But it is to say that the Bible should never be the raw material of an ideology. Rather we should read the Bible in prayer that the Holy Spirit will allow us to deepen our relationship with God who loves us and who has fully revealed himself in the incarnate Christ. The Bible doesn’t turn in on itself, inviting us to build a watertight system of truths mined from its words. The Bible points us beyond itself to the person and work of Christ, to the love of the triune God, inviting us to an ever-deepening relationship with the persons of the Trinity. God is love, not a set of disembodied truths.

This, at least, is how I prefer to read the uncertainty of Proverbs 26:4-5. I hope I’m not pretending to a wisdom I don’t have. Perhaps I’m simply mistaken. If I worshiped an ideology, I’d be afraid of getting it all wrong. But I worship the God who is love, the God who is Father, Son, and Spirit, the God who forgives my sin and yours, and who longs for us to know and love him better. We are embraced by the God who is love and, in that embrace, we are free to relax in the comforting truth that we don’t have all the answers. It’s okay. We have God’s love.

Your foolish brother in Christ,

Max