Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Mockers and the Wicked

Today's Reading:
  • Proverbs 8:33 - 36
  • Proverbs 9:1  - 6
Read Bible Passages Online

Proverbs 8:33 - 9:6
We hear more from Wisdom in these verses.  Wisdom beckons those who are simple and who lack good judgement to dine with her and to begin to live and learn to use good judgement (9:4-6).  So it doesn't matter how "simple" one is or how much judgement one lacks.  Wisdom and good judgement can be learned if you are willing. 

I think a good majority of lack of wisdom just comes from being young.  You think you have the whole world figured out, and that your views are supreme to others, but in the end you just don't have the experience to realize that you are building a box around yourself.  But the good news is that Wisdom can be learned, and is open to all those who seek it.

There are a few more interesting verses here that talk about those who mock and those who are wicked.  Just yesterday I wrote about the people of today who leave boisterous and outrageous comments all over the internet.  What happens if you reply to one of those?  Why, they lash back with a fury, of course. 

When has a well thought out comment, even completely lacking in judgement against the original offender, ever caused that person to say, "Hey, I see your point and have gained some wisdom/empathy/sympathy/understanding" for this situation"?.  Yeah, it doesn't work that way.  All that happens is that those people fire back an even greater insult at you.

This is confirmed in verses 7-8 of Psalm 9:
Anyone who rebukes a mocker will get an insult in return.  Anyone who corrects the wicked will get hurt.  So don't bother correcting mockers; they will only hate you.  But correct the wise, and they will love you.
 As hard as it is, we must learn to let these things go and leave the "mockers" and the "wicked" to their own devices.  There are those who love wisdom and would love to gain more of it, so we should focus our energy on sharing our knowledge, insights and wisdom with those people, and to take in return what we can gain from them.

Notes
This concludes my reordering of readings that began when I smashed the two Matthew readings together a few days ago.  I won't promise that I won't do it again, because sometimes I just have to follow my inclination to keep reading, but at least the readings will be back to normal (for a time), starting tomorrow.

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