My Daily Pause

April Fool’s Day

The joke goes something like:

An atheist complained to a friend, “Christians have their special holidays, such as Christmas and Easter; and Jewish folks celebrate their holidays, such as Passover and Yom Kippur. EVERY religion has its holidays. But we atheists,” he said, “have no recognized national holidays. It’s unfair discrimination.”

His friend replied, “Well … Why don’t you celebrate April first?”

There is plenty of scripture that compares the non-believer to a fool. I am convinced that in the Proverbs, wisdom = God’s word and the fool or foolish = non-believer.

In fact once, when Paul differentiated his inspired speaking from his own words, he said he was speaking as a fool. (2 Corinthians 11:16, 17, 21)

For fun today, here are five of my favorite verses that David and his son wrote about non-believers:

Psalm 14:1 – The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.

Psalm 39:8 – Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the scorn of the fool!

Psalm 53:1 – The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.

Proverbs 10:8 – The wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.

Proverbs 10:23 – Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool, but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding.

 ³ Whips are for horses, and harnesses are for donkeys,
so paddles are good for fools.
⁴ Don’t answer fools when they speak foolishly,
or you will be just like them.
⁵ Answer fools when they speak foolishly,
or they will think they are really wise.
⁶ Sending a message by a foolish person
is like cutting off your feet or drinking poison.
⁷ A wise saying spoken by a fool
is as useless as the legs of a crippled person.
⁸ Giving honor to a foolish person
is like tying a stone in a slingshot.
⁹ A wise saying spoken by a fool
is like a thorn stuck in the hand of a drunk.
¹⁰ Hiring a foolish person or anyone just passing by
is like an archer shooting at just anything.
¹¹ A fool who repeats his foolishness
is like a dog that goes back to what it has thrown up.
¹² There is more hope for a foolish person
than for those who think they are wise. – Proverbs 26:2-10

The discussion of wisdom and foolishness in the Proverbs is usually a discussion of godliness versus sin or evil. It is rare that foolishness is referring to intellectual deficiencies as we would use the term today.

In Peter’s passage on false teachers (2 Peter 2) we see him quote verse 11 – a vivid simile about a Christian returning to sin.

Paul refers to verse 12 as he discusses giving over our lives to God in Romans 12.

Can you see how relevant the Proverbs are when we equate foolishness with sin?

4 Don’t answer fools when they speak foolishly, or you will be just like them.
5 Answer fools when they speak foolishly, or they will think they are really wise. Proverbs 26:4-5

This seemingly contradictory couplet reminds us to look at every situation by its own merit before applying our wisdom to it. Sometimes a situation can be dangerous if left unaddressed. Sometimes a situation is nothing but a waste of time if you engage in it.