A huge theme in ancient writings (and especially the Bible) is the difference between foolish and wise people. When we aren’t aware of it, we are tempted to look at everything people are doing in the Bible as examples of what is good and right but the Bible isn’t that sort of book. It’s a book about God being wise and putting up with humans—when even the best of them do some incredibly foolish things. The contrast shows us how patient and kind God is. Another word for patience is long-suffering because that’s what best describes God and how He must suffer in dealing with our nonsense! So, what does it mean to be a fool in the Bible and in our lives today. What does it mean to be wise?
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler! Welcome to this week’s episode of Context for Kids, where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel, where I usually post slightly longer versions. All Scripture this week comes from the MTV, the Miss Tyler Version, which is the CSB (Christian Standard Bible) tweaked a little or a lot to make the context and the content more understandable for kids.
Words are important. We talk to each other with words, write with words, teach with words, and we warn and we encourage with words. But words are only half the story because if we don’t understand those words, then we might think someone is saying this when they are actually saying that. A really good example of this is when we are reading a modern Bible translation vs the King James Version vs reading the Bible in Greek and Hebrew—which I can’t do but you know that. Maybe you will learn to do that someday and you can teach me! Languages change over time because the meanings of words change. Did you know there are some words in ancient Hebrew and Greek that we don’t even know what they mean anymore? They’re lost words. And I think there are more of them in the Psalms than anywhere else. We don’t know what selah means or mazzaroth. And Paul used some Greek words that we think he made up by combining other Greek words in unique ways when there was no word that meant exactly what he wanted to say. Have you ever wondered what you would do if you had to translate a word from your language into another language if they didn’t have a word that was anything like it? A great example is one of my favorite words—Ubuntu. There is no English word for it. It means “I am because we are” but it means so much more than that. It means that we are all connected together but it also means more than that. I could write a whole book on explaining Ubuntu but if I was South African, I wouldn’t have to because they know what it means. Ubuntu can’t be translated and it takes a lot of work for people who weren’t raised with that word to even begin to understand it. Some words are concepts or ideas that mean more than any words can say.
In the same way, the Bible has quite a few words in it that are a mystery—words that meant something “obvious” to the people who used them but since they aren’t written anywhere else and there were no dictionaries back then, we just have to guess and oftentimes, no one even tried to translate them. That’s why you see these strange words in the Bible just the way that they are. It’s also why people use them exactly how they want to, filling those words with meanings we don’t even know if they ever had in the first place. Today we’re going to have our first word lesson with a word that shows up all over the place in the Bible and that’s the word fool. Now, the word fool is easy to understand and it is also hard to understand because, in the Bible, it means more than we might think. The world of the Bible was very concerned with wisdom and foolishness, and especially the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs are mini-teachings that give us ideas about what to do and what not to do—and a lot of the proverbs disagree with each other because you can’t just always say, “don’t do such and such” because sometimes such and such is a good idea and sometimes it’s a bad idea. Like talking back to fools when they are saying things they shouldn’t. The Bible says we shouldn’t, in Proverbs chapter 26 and then the very next verse tells us that we should. What the heck is going on here? I thought the Bible was a rule book! Well, not exactly. Because people and situations can be very different, how we handle them has to be different too. Handling them badly is foolishness and handling them well is wisdom. Let me give you an example.
Proverbs 26:4 says, “Don’t answer a foolish person according to his nonsense or you’ll be like him yourself.” And so that means when someone is saying something just ridiculous, even though he needs to be corrected and given a reality check, don’t do it because arguing with him is stupid and you will be sorry you even tried. The next verse says, “Answer a fool according to his nonsense or he’ll become wise in his own eyes.” That means if you don’t give that foolish person a good talking to, he will think he is all that and a bag of chips when he isn’t. So, we have two pieces of advice for dealing with foolish people but they are exact opposites. That’s because not all foolish people are the same, and not all situations are the same, so sometimes it is a good idea, and sometimes it’s a bad idea. When we don’t know the person, it’s generally a bad idea because we don’t know how they will react but sometimes we don’t do it because we know the person and understand that answering them is more trouble than it is worth. Is the foolish person about to lead people into trouble? That’s a good time to answer him. Is the foolish person usually okay with being told that what they are saying is wrong? Then it would be a good idea. It all depends. There are many different kinds of foolishness—sometimes it’s their fault and sometimes it isn’t.
I am bringing this up now because of Ishmael’s behavior in last week’s broadcast. Sarah hated him, through no fault of his own, and hated his mother, which was more complicated and both their fault. When we know that people hate us, the worst thing in the world we can do is make fun of their kids or try to ruin their big celebration. No matter how angry or hurt or frustrated we are. They have the power, which is the ability to make our lives better or worse. If Ishmael had known what Sarah might do to get even, he never would have risked getting her angry or maybe he just didn’t care anymore. He was seventeen and if he had been wise, he would have been more careful, but he was seventeen and when we are young it can be very hard to control our emotions and behavior. I mean, that’s what growing up is all about—learning what to do when and how and where and why. That’s wisdom and it takes a lot of mistakes to get there. Foolishness is just natural but we are supposed to do our best to get rid of it.
When the Bible is talking about foolish people, it is saying that they don’t know their place in the world and they aren’t doing what is right. Psalm 14 starts out with telling us that foolish people, on the inside, are thinking like there is no God and so they are acting like He isn’t real. They are doing terrible things because they don’t think that there is anyone who can do anything about it. If there is no God and there is nothing after we die, then a fool believes they can do whatever they want. But that same Psalm tells us that wise people love God and want to learn about Him and live in ways that make Him happy. No one is born wise—we are all foolish when we are born because we don’t understand anything except hungry bellies, dirty diapers, being hot or cold, and tired or awake. We are either comfortable or uncomfortable. As we get older, we understand that temper tantrums aren’t okay and that screaming and hitting isn’t as wise as using our words; that some words are better than others and some are much worse than others. Some words will cause people to listen to us and others will get us into fights, while there are words that can save people or put them in danger. A fool doesn’t care about what happens with their words but a wise person does.
Ishmael wasn’t Abraham’s only son anymore and so now he was in danger of being totally cut off from the family. Isaac was now the most important son in the family, as unfair as that was to be replaced by a toddler who didn’t know anything about how to take care of all the things Ishmael had been taught to do. A big part of how foolishness is talked about in the Bible is not understanding where we fit in or what we know or what we can do. When Hagar was being mean to Sarah, Hagar was acting like a fool. She wasn’t understanding that even though she was having Abraham’s baby, she was still Sarah’s slave and that Abraham wasn’t going to do anything to stop Sarah from hurting her. Hagar didn’t see herself as a slave anymore but maybe as Abraham’s wife and she thought that having a baby when Sarah couldn’t made her more important than Sarah. But in those days, Hagar wasn’t ever going to be seen as more important, baby or not. Hagar was probably about the same age as Ishmael at the time, just a teenager, and so she acted in a way that got her into trouble. Sarah had all the power, and when Hagar treated Sarah badly, it got her into trouble. In a way, Hagar and Ishmael made the same foolish mistakes of getting on Sarah’s bad side by not being respectful. I have done plenty of foolish things in my life, believe me, so I am not judging them harshly. I’ve done far worse and with less of a reason.
I see foolishness a lot on social media. People who are trying to teach and be experts on subjects that they don’t know enough about. Folks giving medical advice that can be very dangerous because they don’t know enough to understand the dangers and they don’t even understand what kinds of questions to ask before giving advice. People teaching the Bible who haven’t even read the whole thing or giving terrible advice based on what they believe the Bible says when it doesn’t say that at all. People hating each other because they aren’t voting for the same people and believing that’s more important than being brothers and sisters in Jesus’s family. You see, to be wise, we have to be smart about what is and isn’t the most important. Jesus is the most important, and if you are loyal to Him then you are my brothers and sisters, no matter what. God is our Father, and so He’s in charge and we are all just brothers and sisters, which makes us the same with no one more important than anyone else. But even if no one is more important in God’s Kingdom, we still have to live in this world and this world has rules. Sometimes it is wise to break the rules and sometimes it is foolish—it all depends. That’s why foolishness is so easy and wisdom is so hard.
Let’s go back to Proverbs and whether or not we need to answer a foolish person when they say something totally messed up. Because, I was a fool and chose foolishly last week. And I knew it was a bad idea when I was doing it but I was in a mood so I chose to do it anyway. Someone said something ridiculous on a social media post of a friend of mine. My friend made a good point and this person didn’t like what they said and was trying to embarrass my friend. Well, we all have things that make us angry and I hate bullying. So, I confronted them and asked them why they were doing that instead of talking about what was really going on. And I didn’t know this person at all. Well, not only did they start messing with me but they got a lot of their friends to come after me too. And they were all acting foolishly at this point and so, guess what? I answered a foolish person according to his nonsense and I became a foolish person by doing it. It was nothing but a big mess at the end and I didn’t accomplish anything good. And like I said before, I knew better. But I was angry and we are much more likely to do something foolish when we are angry because when we are angry we stop caring about the consequences—which means what is going to happen if we do this or that. I didn’t care. That was foolish of me.
But there have been other times when I have answered someone behaving foolishly and it has been helpful to them. I have something called high blood pressure because my body doesn’t get rid of salt on its own. High blood pressure is dangerous and some kinds can be cured through exercise but not mine—I have it no matter what I do or what I eat. And there are five different types of high blood pressure and you can’t deal with them all the same way. I mentioned it to someone one day and they told me that all I need to do is take cayenne pepper and I would be cured. I asked her which of the five types of high blood pressure that worked on and she didn’t even know that there was more than one kind. I told her that her advice could kill me if I had the wrong kind of high blood pressure and that she shouldn’t tell people what to do with their bodies unless she actually understands the problem. It was foolish of her to be giving me that kind of advice and it could have been very dangerous, but I answered her and she learned something and that was good for everyone and hopefully she took me seriously and doesn’t do that anymore. It’s easy for us to think we know a lot and have all the answers when we really don’t know anything at all. Part of being wise is knowing the importance of being honest with ourselves about what we do and don’t understand. Like, when people ask me about Greek or Hebrew, I tell them I am not really good with that sort of thing but that I can give them some information from a book written by an expert. And there are plenty of times when someone will ask me a Bible question that I haven’t studied enough to answer and I just tell them that I can’t answer. It’s wise to be honest when we can’t do something. Just because I have read something or watched a video about it, doesn’t mean I understand it.
I have gotten some really bad answers to Bible questions from people whom I thought knew a lot but really they just acted like they know a lot. People are foolish for all sorts of reasons. Not just when they are angry, which is usually when I do it. That’s why we always have to be careful because there are foolish people everywhere, and for different reasons and even though some people are smart about one thing doesn’t mean they are wise. There’s a big difference between being smart, which just means that some sort of learning is easy, and being wise, which means living rightly and carefully. But being wise isn’t about just following the rules because that can be foolishness. If there is a rule that is almost always good, that’s great, but sometimes a rule can be dangerous. Some rules are always good, like not drinking sulfuric acid. But other rules need to be thought about very carefully. Jesus had all sorts of teachings about the Sabbath, and the Sabbath is a day of rest with no work. But there was a group called the Essenes who took it way too far and they wouldn’t swim out to save a drowning person on the Sabbath because it was too much work. But Jesus made it very clear that we should even work to save an animal that has fallen into a ditch on the Sabbath. Foolishness just says, “I am not doing anything for anyone” while wisdom says, “this is important and I can’t rest and honor God while someone else is suffering.”
Over and over again in the Bible, we will read stories from the lives of the people of God and we are always supposed to ask ourselves, “Was that a foolish thing to do or to say or to believe or was it wise?” Just because it’s in the Bible doesn’t mean that a thing is wise. Everyone is going to do foolish things and only Jesus is perfect, and some things are definitely more foolish than others. It was foolish for Adam, Eve and Cain to ignore what God had said. It was foolish of Noah to get drunk in his tent. It was foolish of Abraham and Sarah not to wait for God to give them a child. And we will see in future stories where Joseph, Moses, Aaron and Miriam were all foolish. But you know what? We’re also going to see them acting wisely. People are complicated. Joseph was foolish when he was a spoiled kid but wise after he had suffered through a lot of terrible things. Moses was wise but when he got angry, he did something so foolish that God had to keep him out of the promised land. When Aaron the high priest was scared, he made an idol—possibly the most foolish thing he could do. When Miriam was jealous, she foolishly accused Moses of something, even though she was a respected prophet. These people weren’t fools all the time, but they weren’t wise all the time either. Part of growing up is learning why we do foolish things and trying to keep ourselves out of those situations.
Not everyone is smart or good at sports or popular, but everyone and anyone can become wiser. Jesus’s disciples are all perfect examples because they were up to so much nonsense that sometimes Jesus said, “How long am I going to have to put up with you?” They were worried about not having enough bread to eat right after Jesus fed like five thousand people with a few small rolls and some fishes. They were angry that someone was casting demons out of people just because he wasn’t one of them. James and John wanted to destroy the Samaritans just because they felt insulted. Peter was wise enough to call Jesus the Messiah, the King of Israel, but foolish enough just a few moments later to tell Jesus what to do. Judas was the most foolish of all, trading Jesus for money. But later on, these same guys became very wise—all except Judas of course because he died. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t still do foolish things sometimes—like when Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles in Galatia—but it means that they changed from a bunch of misfits with all the wrong ideas to people who ended up changing the world with the wisdom of Jesus.
But the biggest fools of all, like it says in Psalm 14, are the people who do evil things because they don’t believe that anyone is ever going to hold them responsible for it. They think that the world is theirs to do whatever they want with it and in it. But that’s like going to the bathroom in the well you drink from and believing that nothing bad will happen. And I know that seems crazy but when we are cruel to our neighbors and when we are doing things to destroy our planet that we have to live on and that Jesus will be coming back to, it’s the exact same thing. We are acting like there really isn’t a God who cares about people, or everything He created, or about what is right and good. Is that a good idea? Is that foolish or is it wise? Have you noticed what happens when you are mean to someone, or they are mean to you? What happens? Does anything good come of it or do you and that person go away and make someone else’s life more miserable? Does bad behavior make worse behavior easier in the future? What about good behavior, and honesty, and fairness? How does your day go when people are kind to you and how does it go when people are mean to you? Well, everyone is the same. We tend to be kinder to other people when people are kinder to us, which is why it is so important to be kind to others even when we are in a bad mood. We don’t want to be the reason someone goes home and kicks the dog.
There are other kinds of foolishness out there in the world—like “all or nothing” thinking. Like, if I don’t get straight A’s in school or win every single game then I am just worthless and so I might as well not even try. But no one can win all the time and if we need to win then we might not care how we win, just as long as we win. Thinking like that tells us that unless we are perfect all the time we might as well just be bad. And I know that there are grownups who sometimes think they are helping us to be our best by only talking about the things we got wrong. But all that does is mess us up on the inside because if that is the goal, then nothing will ever be good enough. The truth is that we need to be cheered on when we do good and hugged when we fail. We need to know that failing isn’t our whole story and that we are just like all the people in the Bible—complicated. Sometimes we are good and heroic and sometimes we get it so wrong that we think God is done with us forever. Sometimes, it’s easy to see only the bad things or what we got wrong and to lose all hope. That’s a terrible way to live and it’s also a terrible lie. You are bigger and better than anything you have gotten wrong. The whole point of growing up into healthy adults is knowing that you aren’t going to know everything, or be able to do everything. Everyone gets to shine. Everyone is good at something but no one is good at everything.
I have a beautiful singing voice but I can’t read sheet music. I’ve tried and I am just awful at it. My brain doesn’t work that way. I love studying the Bible and I love Greek and Hebrew but I have tried and tried to learn them for so long and I just can’t—my brain doesn’t work that way. I don’t like sports and I am bad at them too, and always have been. But I am really a good reader and I can learn just about anything from books—except for languages and how to read sheet music. I am good at a lot of stuff and I am bad at a lot of stuff. Other people are good at the things I am bad at and bad at the things that are easy for me. All or nothing thinking just means that everyone is hopeless and awful and that can’t possibly be true. It’s just plain foolishness because no one has ever been perfect except for Jesus. And even Jesus made his parents angry at least once when He didn’t go home with them after Passover when He was twelve. He was hanging out at the Temple, talking with the Bible teachers. Boy were they ever angry, but did that make Jesus terrible? Nope, it made Him a twelve-year-old who was thinking more about the Temple, the Bible, and God than He was thinking about being kind to His mom and dad. And if Jesus can make a mistake like that because He was young and excited, I suppose we can be understanding with ourselves when we do the wrong thing—sometimes for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong reasons. You are more than your mistakes or your abilities or whatever. You are my brothers and sisters in Jesus and just like me, you won’t always be right or do right or think right—but it doesn’t make you a wrong sort of person. You’re just human. Just like Ishmael and everyone else in the Bible.
I love you. I am praying for you. Is there something you really just aren’t good at no matter how hard you try? It’s not a sin to not be good at something even when you try your hardest, it’s just the way things are. Try thinking this week about the things you are good at and learn to love yourself just the way you are without being too upset about the things that other people can do but you can’t.