Wisdom and Folly

Our SoulPerSuit group going through the book of Proverbs has been contrasting wisdom and folly.

What marks a person as a fool?
What makes a person wise?
Are fools destined to be fools forever? Is there any hope?
What does the world consider wisdom, and how does it compare to what the Lord defines as wisdom?
Is there a foolishness that masquerades as wisdom?
Is there wisdom that appears to be foolishness?


I only have an answer for the last question today.

Comparing "The Enticers" to Lady Wisdom in Chapter 1 of Proverbs, I get a sense of secret whispering and the low tones of the foolish sinners. "The Enticers" want to keep their ways under wraps, speaking out of the sides of their mouths. They're keeping it cool, looking acceptable on the surface.
Not so with Lady Wisdom! She's in the busy marketplace, at the corners of the streets, shouting her invitation to the world- "Come to me and find life! Ask me and I shall pour out my riches!"

Wisdom is willing to look like a fool in public so that she may save just one ignorant youth from destruction. Wisdom makes a ruckus. She makes a spectacle of herself. She causes a scene. Without concern for her own reputation or the opinion of her neighbors, Lady Wisdom pleads with any who will listen.

Someone else was scorned and despised. He called out to the spiritually ignorant wherever and whenever he found them. He shouted in the marketplaces. He stopped traffic. We esteemed him not. There was nothing within him that we should be drawn to him. And he did not consider equality (and social standing) with God something to be grasped. We thought he was a fool.


Jesus Christ was willing to become a fool in the eyes of the world in order that he might purchase us from the slave market of sin.
"And if that makes me crazy, they can call me crazed. I'm happy to be seemingly naive..."