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Welcome to today’s Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation covering Proverbs 29:9 wherein we are encouraged to play the part of the wise man in our disputes.
If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet.
Can you picture the type of scenario that this proverb speaks of? Two people encounter a subject that they don’t see eye to eye on over the course of a conversation. It might be that there is support that could be given for both sides of the issue, but only one of the speakers is worth listening to while the other engages in the dialect known as idiocy. He mostly elevates his voice, and through a stupid grin, interrupts every time he gets the chance so that he can continue in the delusion that he is the winner of another verbal combat. You can picture that guy. The desire of the wise man is simply for a reasonable level of quietness and relative peace with his acquaintance, but there is none to be had.
Before we get carried away though, isn’t it interesting that we would read such a verse and automatically put ourselves in the “wise man” category? That is certainly the desirable side and the one most commended by God throughout the Scriptures. But have you ever had those times where you’ve felt threatened and perhaps unable to argue your position well when put on the spot? You might be passionate about what you believe and don’t want to risk looking foolish with nothing insightful to say. And so…you do the exact thing that makes you look foolish: raise your voice and repeatedly interrupt.
Here is the thing that we would all be helped in remembering: Nothing is any more or less true because you or I say it. We often actually do more to confuse things than to clarify them. All words or positions must be measured by something else and that standard is the Bible. We are submitters, learners, and interpreters. Postmodernists despise statements like these but I don’t think God feels all that threatened by their raging and laughter and neither should anyone else.
Now, know that what I’m not saying is that there is never a time to raise our voices in circumstances where people must hear something that they have simply refused to listen to (Jesus did this) or when someone is in great and immediate need of deliverance from another. I heard a story on the radio recently of a man who used his words to continually overpower and beat down his wife to the point where she was curled up weeping in a corner of the house. Someone bigger may need to step into that situation and make him cry. But I digress. The call here is for us to exercise wisdom expressed through our words which ultimately means seeking to make God (truth) known to our listeners. Let us be the kinds of learners and sharers that bring God glory and, hopefully, pull the rug out from under the arguments of fools.
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