Don't be Fooled by the Speech of Fools

A mechanic is an expert in automobiles.  He or she has been trained in the maintenance and repair of motor vehicles and has gotten sufficient experience for them to be considered mechanics.  As a result, they are trusted for their study as experts in their respective field.  Because of this, it would seem utterly asinine and idiotic for someone without any prior education or experience to tell that person what they "think" or "believe" to be the cause of their car troubles.

Or consider a medical doctor.  After having spent years of arduous study and rote memorization, coupled with years of hands-on experience in dealing with various types of patients and their syndromes.  Yet, inevitably, the patient will offer their arm-chair diagnosis with such gusto as if they themselves had done the schooling and they might know better or with more fullness what was actually going on.

However ludicrous the aforementioned examples may seem in their context, this principle is done with relative regularity and astonishing amounts of confidence in matters of faith and religion.  Truly, just like everyone who tries to offer their own diagnosis of car troubles or health, the unrepentant unbeliever will often make up his or her own story about truth and about God, with no care nor reference to the work and study done by believers and theologians who have given their very lives to the task of pursuing God and His truth.

Moreover, the unbeliever who would assert their own unfounded theological systems, tend to do so in such a relativistic way that warrants any discussion of true truth, that is to be found solely in the One who IS truth, is made impotent by their babbling.  Thus, the discussion is left unresolved because to the unbelievers unwillingness to hear the truth of God, due to their hardness of heart.

Strangely enough, Solomon spoke about such useless and foolish babbling several centuries ago.  He writes in Proverbs, "A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, only in sharing his own opinion (Pro. 18:2)."  He writes also that, "The wise lay up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool brings ruin near (Pro. 10:14)."  Thus, the man who continually airs his own opinion with no regard for transformational understanding is a fool.

This also brings to light the essential importance of humility in any theologizing.  If we are to be people of wisdom, then we need to be slow to speak and quick to listen in these matters (James 1:19). The challenge is that this principle, though easily asserted for its merit, is far-from-easy to implement.  However, if we remember that a fool will expose himself by his many words, if we simply listen attentively we will be in much better positions to address the fool with the truth that will pierce his foolishness: the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Let us then take heed the work done by great Christians of the past and those of the present who dedicate their very lives to pursuing God.  For they are the spiritual doctors that are studied and trained in the things of God and should be thought of as such.  Praise be to God that He would not leave us autonomous but that He would commission a body of believers with various gifts and callings to advance His Church and His Kingdom!