Proverbs 26:4-5 Good answers

⁴ Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
    or you yourself will be just like him.
⁵ Answer a fool according to his folly,
    or he will be wise in his own eyes.

Wha-a-a???  
That was my response, gentle reader, when I first read these two verses. I knew I needed help, so I turned to Matthew Henry's and John Gill's commentaries . . .

John Gill covers these verses by telling us that one should not answer a fool at all. He cites as examples the ministers of Hezekiah and King Hezekiah himself, who did not respond directly to Rabshekah, the field commander of the Assyrian king. (You can read the whole story in Isaiah 36-39.) 
There was a time when Christ did not respond to the railing of the scribes and the Pharisees, either. Check out the passage in John 8. There was an onslaught of questions, aimed at cornering and discrediting Him, and He simply did not answer.

Matthew Henry notes that the proverbs here are cautioning us against answering the foolish question in the same manner in which it was asked -- to avoid responding to anger with anger, railing with railing, sarcasm with the same, etc.  When we answer a foolish person, we must do it in wisdom, to keep him from thinking he has "won the argument" and puffing him up with pride about his superior intellect and reasoning!  In other words, you don't let the person get away with his foolishness, but don't respond in the same manner in which he proposed the question. And, sometimes, silence is golden -- especially if we realize that answering would make our argument or solution appear weak, because we are not fully prepared to answer in wisdom.

Now there are some real, rational questions that people may raise when discussing the Christian faith. But we all probably know people who think up questions that they know are not constructive; going round and round on a trivial issue with someone who is being hostile, combative, and argumentative is not going to accomplish anything --- except that you might begin to lose your composure and then lose your effectiveness as a witness. Someone watching the two of you might have a difficult time deciding who was the Christian, and who was not! 

We can be better prepared for these situations by immersing ourselves in His word; by knowing the scriptures backwards and forwards; by praying for the opportunity to share with someone who is willing to hear.

 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. I Peter 3:15-16

Proverbs 18 : 12 - 13 Two Cousins

Pro 18:12  Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honor is humility.
Pro 18:13  He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.

Hmmm....where have we heard the first verse before? In slightly different words? I'd like for you to research that, and if you would like to answer in a comment, that will be great. I'll give you a hint: it wasn't too long ago . . . once in chapter 15, and once in chapter 16, too. (There are others, but those are the most recent.)

I'd like to concentrate on verse 13 for today. Two cousins came to my mind when I read it --- one was Mrs. Gotta Interruptya, a person who often thinks she knows exactly what someone is talking about, even before they finish. She has forgotten all about the fact that God gave her two ears, and that she would be wise to listen twice as much as she talks. Convinced of her own wisdom and experience, she is only too willing to cut a speaker off in mid-sentence, and sometimes has to retire in red-faced confusion when she is corrected by further explanations.

Her cousin, however, is Mrs. Jumpinto Conclusions, who will listen eagerly to a speaker, and as soon as they stop to breathe, she will jump in like a paratrooper from a skydive, and tell anyone patient enough to listen to her, that she knows all about the end result. She knows what will happen; she can predict the future just as well as if she had a crystal --- well, you know.

Neither one of these ladies is a very good witness for the Lord. In fact, once they have engaged someone in conversation a few times, it has been observed that the hapless victim will go to great lengths to avoid their company.  This drastically reduces the chances of the cousins' saying an encouraging word or asking if they might pray with someone.

I thought that Matthew Henry summed it up rather well:

It is folly for a man to go about to speak to a thing which he does not understand, or to pass sentence upon a matter which he is not truly and fully informed of, and has not patience to make a strict enquiry into; and, if it be folly, it is and will be shame.

I think I shall be very careful NOT to be like those ladies . . .

A Side Note: Crumpled Papers

I saw this joke and wanted to pass it along, because it goes so well with something I was thinking about yesterday . . .

A little girl had a dad who was a pastor. “Daddy, how do you know what to preach on Sundays?”
“God tells me,” responded the dad. 
“Then daddy, why do you crinkle up so many sheets of paper and toss them into the waste basket?” 

The writer then noted:  We are much better off saying, “I think God wants me to tell you this” rather than “thus says the Lord.” God doesn’t make mistakes; our discernment of what we think God might want us to say to someone is imperfect. (Ed Vasicek - Sermon Central). 

I hope that when you read these blog posts, and study the Proverbs in your own Bibles (you do that, don't you? I sure hope so!)  . . . where was I? Oh yes, I hope that you don't just take our word for it. We are only human beings, and we attempt to be guided by the Holy Spirit. I know that I sometimes use humor in my posts, but the intent is still the same. My prayer is still the same --- that I may be used by God to explain a passage or verse, and that the explanation may help one of you readers (and me too) to be a better follower of Christ. We are certainly not infallible, or "know it alls" and we pray and write in an attempt to bring glory to Him.
If something doesn't seem right to you, or if you read our post and still have questions, then PLEASE do one or both of these things:

1. Pray about your question, and then search in your Bible for clues that will help.If your Bible has a concordance or study notes, utilize those to find other verses that may help.
2. Ask us! We may not know the answer right off (or maybe we will - that would be wonderful) but we can study and try to find an answer for you.

In any event, don't just dismiss it, or think "aw, it's not that important" or let it bug you. And please remember that when we (Tonya and I) are posting here, that we are saying "this is what I believe God is saying here, after studying it over."

I'm kinda glad that we use computers now and just type our stuff there. If I had to use a typewriter or write it out by hand, I'd definitely have a mound of crinkled, crumpled papers!!  :)