Do Not Answer A Fool

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

Proverbs 26:4

There is ‘a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.’  Only God can give us the wisdom to discern when we should do one or the other.  ‘In a multitude of words, sin is not lacking.’  We have two ears and one mouth and should use them proportionately.  At times we encounter such breathtaking displays of foolery that we can barely comprehend what the appropriate response should be.  At such times, we are better off to ‘not answer a fool according to his folly.’  The old farmers adage is, ‘never try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.’  If we look to the life of Christ, we see some excellent examples of this restraint.  At a certain point, when the Pharisees took offense at His truth-telling, He said to His disciples, ‘Let them alone:  they be blind leaders of the blind.  And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.’  The writer of Proverbs articulated the same idea in our text.  What we need more than anything else is the wisdom to know when to speak and when to be silent in the face of fools.  Natural inclination would lead us to ‘give as good as we get,’ but that is not what Christ teaches us by His example.  Therefore, we appeal to ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.’  God will give us wisdom for the asking, that we may know when to speak and when to be silent.  So, He leads us in the imitation of Christ.

Our most Wonderful and Wise God,
we rejoice that You teach us through Christ,
when to speak and when to be silent.
We praise You that daily You lead us by Your Holy Spirit,
as we grow in Grace.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning