Strange Proverbs

Proverbs 26:4-5 (NRSV)

Do not answer fools according to their folly,
or you will be a fool yourself.

Answer fools according to their folly,
or they will be wise in their own eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Substitution mass confusion
Clouds inside your head
Well foggin' all my energies
Until you visited
With your eyes of porcelain and of blue
They shock me into sense
You think you're so illustrious
You call yourself intense

"Bye Bye Love" by The Cars from The Cars, 1978

These two couplets from the Proverbs are facinating. In identical situations, it gives conflicting advice for different reasons. The biggest difference between the two is that to answer the fool is a pain to the person who answers and not answering the fool is to bolster the fool in their own mind. So here's the choice, is it better to allow the fool to be high in their own mind or is it better to get a scarred forehead after beating your own into a brick wall?

Seemingly, any answer is going to be laden with downside.

When people call scripture "God's Owner's Manual" I like to think of these two verses and wonder what to do with these instructions. Both of these lessons can be found in other places in scripture, but finding these one after the other makes me think Solomon was messing with us.

Often, we want to solve the riddles of scripture. Where did Cain's wife come from? How did it take 40 years to cross the Siani? What did Jesus mean when he said "Hate your parents?" If a women can't instruct men in church then why is this female pastor teaching me so much? How can we both answer and not answer fools?

On this side of glory, there are far more questions than there are answers. Still, we like to solve puzzles. As the song goes, "Substitution mass confusion, Clouds inside your head" But as the new-wave boys from Boston remind us, this happened "until you visited." In Christ there is peace that puts mass confusion to rest.

Put Christ first--In Christ the law is fulfilled; not replaced but fulfilled. Christ is found in scripture. Christ is found still in life through the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ is found all around us. Anything else is kind of foolish.

That's intense.