Proverbs 14:24 ESV
The crown of the wise is their wealth, but the folly of fools brings folly.
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=proverbs+14%3A24&version=ESV]
Nuclear bombs and foolishness have something in common: they are, barring divine intervention, self-perpetuating phenomenon, at least until the side effects blow the whole thing to smithereens. See, that’s another way they’re alike. Nuclear bombs start with a few atoms splitting, spitting out particles, and prompting a few more atoms to split; foolishness starts with a few bad choices, likely in youth, which, going uncorrected, set the precedent for a few more bad choices, and a few more after that. The atoms keep splitting, the energy builds, and the bombs goes off; the choices keep piling up, the damage, both to soul and body, accumulates and cross-pollinates, and the fool’s whole life comes tumbling down, very often through death into perdition. Yet the wise have a different ending.
Why does foolishness bring folly? To be foolish, in the simplest terms, is to make choices by a standard other than God’s law and character. We humans have all sorts of new standards we can use, ideologies and religions and prejudices by the billions. We might choose because we’re angry or because Allah commands or because the arc of history bends ever more towards anarcho-socialist utopia. Whichever one it is, those wrong values lead to foolish actions, deeds which even if they were perfectly virtuous on a mechanical level are nevertheless corrosive to our souls and consciences because of the evil nature of their motives.
These choices are easy for people to make, and they only get easier with repetition. We are sinful creatures, perpetually sinning against God (Rom. 3:20), hating Him (Ps. 14:1). Further, we are people who like to do what we’ve done before. Those two facts add together to make a foolishness a slippery slope indeed, a path we can slide down while wearing cleats if given the chance.
What does this mean for us? It means that we must guard against foolishness diligently, not merely worrying when we do something monumentally stupid or get into really big trouble. We must be faithful in the small things (Luke 16:10), must seek wisdom in all parts of our lives. The small things, after all, will lead into the big things. A man who has made a habit of stealing five dollars from the till every other Thursday will have much more trouble resisting the desire to swipe the hundred dollar bill that the guy in front of him had fall out of his wallet. ‘If he can just drop hundred dollar bills,’ the reasoning might do, ‘surely it’s not that big of a deal if I take it? It’s not any worse than taking that five dollars earlier, right?’ The old saying, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ is a fact of human psychology. We find small sins a ready lubricant for large sins.
Folly can lead to utter destruction in our lives. At first it’s generally harmless, often enjoyable. Who doesn’t want to let their temper out a bit more, think about their problems a bit less, sleep a little longer, make more feel-good donations, or forget about their troublesome relatives? If you haven’t wanted all of those, at some point or another, you’ve wanted some of them, because you’re human, and like me and all other humans, you’re a fallible, foolish creature, rendered so by the sin of Adam’s Fall (Rom. 3:23). It doesn’t stop there though, and these decisions pile up, crisscrossing your life, fostering character flaws which jump from one field into another. I might start out being lazy at work, but that laziness will eventually help me be lazy at home. I might start by letting my temper rule me in politics or sports, but eventually I’m going to let it have more rein than it should with work or with family. I might start by applying a worldly standard to my treatment of the annoying guy who works in the shop next-door to my workplace, but eventually I’ll apply that standard to my family, my friends, and my church. Character flaws don’t stay in one place, and foolishness is fertilizer for character flaws.
So eventually, all of these will build up. My relationships might collapse first, or perhaps my job. Maybe nothing will look like it’s collapsing from the outside, but from the inside I know that it’s miserable. Maybe, if my foolishness is more physically or chemically oriented, it’ll end in a physical destruction of my body, whether by reckless actions or by drugs or by that all-too-easy in America soporific, gluttony. Whatever the result, this remains true of it all: it won’t be good, regardless of how it looks (Ps. 73:18-20).
Wisdom has other results. To walk in wisdom is to walk in the way and the fear of the Lord (Ps. 11:10; Prov. 9:10). To walk in wisdom is to walk in righteousness towards holiness. This brings blessing. On this earth, in God’s grace, it can bring wealth, worldly wealth even. The world is God’s world, after all, and so the good man will prosper in it, if sin does not tear him down. Yet this world is imperfect, marred by the Fall. ‘Righteous men perish while no one takes it to heart,” states Isaiah 58:1, and we can see this truth every day. The wealth which crowns wisdom, which is its culmination, is not then a wealth assuredly of this earth. For the truly wise, redeemed and God and reformed in His wisdom, the wealth he finds it the wealth of God’s countenance, His love, His glory, the great treasure which is stored up for the Christian in heaven.
God bless.
Written by Colson Potter
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
