daily java

Daily Java:

Wise people treasure knowledge,
      but the babbling of a fool invites disaster.  (Proverbs 10:13-14)

Ignorant displays of knowledge can be funny.

In 1973, I worked for a radio station in Odessa, TX. It was an easy listening station, back in the day when that meant quiet music played in grocery stores and the like.

The man I worked for was, although highly dishonest, was still a very educated man and a man who made his living with words. He did, after all, own a radio station, and all a radio station has to offer is words and music.

I have always had a large vocabulary because I have always read a lot. But most of the people I hung around with were not large vocabulary people. A lot of the words I knew were purely academic. I had never heard them, just read them. So I had no idea how they sounded when pronounced.

I was talking with the radio guy (Roy) and I used a large word – aficionado – and mispronounced it badly. Roy stood there for a few seconds and said (in his very resonant radio voice) Do you mean aficionado? And he pronounced it right.

I felt like a fool. I knew the word and knew what it meant, but I was showing off to a man I knew was educated. I even realized then that it was the word that I heard nightly in a station promo and had not recognized it. And I got called on it.

Since that time, I rarely mispronounce words. It is almost like a mania. And if I feel I am going to, I will generally substitute another word for it and then go check it out later. It is a quirk of my personality that I have to research my own conversations. Pathetic, I know.

It is always like that when I hear people try to show off their Bible knowledge when they really do not know what they are talking about. I am not talking about earnest seekers who make mistakes, I am thinking of the guy who likes to quote great blocks of the Bible to show everybody how well-read and intelligent he is. He ends up looking stupid.

I was watching a movie not long ago where the main character would recite Bible verses before he would do something bad. It made him feel good to quote the Holy Written Word before he did something wrong. Kind of like the people who used to like to buy church furniture for their bars and strip clubs. Sitting on church furniture made them feel “deliciously sinful” as one said.

A wise person learns more. It is not because he is any better, but it is because he has a thirst for knowledge. And a real wise person knows where the wisdom comes from. He knows it doesn’t come from within himself but from a source greater than he is.

Any source I learn from, no matter how small it may be, at lest for a moment is greater than me. And as I have said before, I do not mind asking questions. It is not that I am so great, it is that I hate looking like a fool.

And that especially goes with God. I want to treasure knowledge, not babble disaster. And only he can give me true knowledge or wisdom.