Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly.
How pleasant is it to taunt an angry mama bear? 10 out of 10 corpses say: “Not very.” It’s definitively a Bad Idea. Yet the author of the proverb considers it the smaller risk, smaller than that we run every day of meeting ‘a fool in his folly.’ Now assuredly this is, as an everyday matter, something of a hyperbole- most Fool Encounters are to be preferred to meeting a mama bear. Yet some can be worse- particularly in combination with our own foolishness.
Most interactions with fools will be, thankfully, not that big a deal. Many people are fools, but when they don’t have much influence on our lives, the damage they can cause is minimal. A foolish hotel receptionist is not going to match a mama bear for danger, in most circumstances. Further, many follies are small, petty, inconsequential in themselves. Eye-rolls and annoyance can be their greatest consequence, or twenty minutes of time wasted fixing the problem.
Some interactions go farther, though. Folly can lead into physical danger. A fool who drives without taking care to learn how to drive, a cook who doesn’t take care to avoid a friend’s allergens, etc. This sort of folly is mitigable but not truly avoidable- there are always fools around us.
The really and truly dangerous sorts of folly, though, are the sorts that change us, whether in our lives on this earth or as to our lives to comes, our salvation or damnation. This is the deep danger of folly: it turns us from the course of prudence and from the course of righteousness. This sort of foolishness is particularly deadly from within, of course, but a foolish advisor can all too easily lead us into foolishness, can give us excuses for our own foolishness.
Folly can lead us astray in all sorts of ways. It can be laziness (Prov. 6:6-11), keeping us from working as we ought or loving others as we ought. It can be selfishness, setting ourselves and our unjustified desires above the love we should bear for our brother (Is. 66:5). It can be fear, perpetually finding excuses not to do what is right. Folly in our hearts (but learned from without) can grow into a myriad of ruins.
The greatest and most dangerous folly is that which turns away from God. It is the folly which chooses the easy and wrong rather than the hard but right. This sort of follow can only damn us from within, but we must remember that birds who flock together tend to grow similar feathers. Psalm 1:1 warns us of walking alongside the unrighteous in part because those who live with the wicked much more easily enter into that wickedness to which they are accustomed. So if we accustom ourselves to the gluttony of others, we can learn gluttony ourselves (perhaps excusing it as ‘not as bad as that guy’), or we can go wrong in the other direction and make our avoidance of over-eating a point of pride. Living alongside a fool can in this way be much more dangerous than petting an enraged mama bear- it can damage the soul, not just the body.
More, if we indulge in folly, we will harm those around us; if they indulge in folly, we will be harmed. A prideful man does not merely injure himself, after all. He harms the lives and souls of his friends, his companions, and particularly his family. He thinks too much of himself and refuses to take accountability when he fails, working to blame others. If we’re the bystander to such folly, we can catch the shrapnel. If we’re intimately engaged, friends or family particularly, the explosion can hit us full force, the effects of folly crumpling against reality.
What’s the remedy? What’s our protection? Well, we have providence, the guard of God, against the physical problems, as well as the prudence He calls us to. As for the longer term issues, the ways folly can derail our lives and lead us into trouble, either practical or spiritual, again God has given us our answer. He gives us wisdom to discern; He gives us Scripture to guide our hands and hearts; He gives us His Spirit to illuminate our paths (Is. 59:21). We will make mistakes, we will err, but God in the end gives the victory (Deut. 20:4; 1 Cor.15:57), even against the folly of the greatest of fools (Rom. 8:28).
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.
