daily java

Daily Java:

Don’t answer the foolish arguments of fools,
    or you will become as foolish as they are.
Be sure to answer the foolish arguments of fools,
    or they will become wise in their own estimation. (Proverbs 26:4-5).

Someone once said that the Bible is full of contradictions and used this verse as one. And it is a contradiction. However, it is so because there is no real way to deal with a fool.

Whatever you say to a fool, whatever you try to counter his arguments with, he will find another place to go. His argument is liquid and one trying to argue with him cannot ever get a real hold on anything.

He will jump around to illogic, to outright falsehoods, to arguments ad hominem, to whatever he can use to argue with you. And the facts don’t really matter. All he wants to do is win.

On the other hand, you hate to leave his contradictions and his foolishness unaddressed. You want to try to answer what you hear and know to be plain lies and stupidity masqueraded as philosophy or wisdom or in some instances just plain information. You know it is not and that it is leading people astray and you want to challenge it.

But arguing with a fool is like trying to keep the ocean back with a squeegee. It just doesn’t work. The minute you get on one track, the direction changes and you end up looking foolish.

So what do you do? There really isn’t much you can do. You answer him and you look foolish because you have stooped to their level. You don’t answer him and you look like you are afraid and the misinformation remains out there for someone to believe.

It is a conundrum and there isn’t a lot you can do. You can try, but make sure you do not sink to their level.

When Jesus was faced with a fool, he said nothing. At his trial in Luke 23, we read this:

Herod was delighted at the opportunity to see Jesus, because he had heard about him and had been hoping for a long time to see him perform a miracle. He asked Jesus question after question, but Jesus refused to answer. Meanwhile, the leading priests and the teachers of religious law stood there shouting their accusations. Then Herod and his soldiers began mocking and ridiculing Jesus. Finally, they put a royal robe on him and sent him back to Pilate. (Luke 23:8-11)

Jesus knew that all Herod wanted was a show and declined to be the entertainment. He never said a word until finally it made Herod mad and he began to show his true colors. Jesus knew it would do no good to say anything.

So you address what you can when the fool speaks, but in general it is better just to shut up and let him blather. Talk to people afterwards after the fool has gone home to his hovel. Then you will have a certain measure of decorum and common sense.

It is a hard thing to know when to talk and when not to talk. The problem is that fools are often better at it than you.

daily java

Daily Java:

Only fools say in their hearts,
    “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their actions are evil;
    not one of them does good! (Psalm 14:1)

What’s funny about this scripture is that it is not talking about atheists, it is talking about those who come to church, maybe even get into leadership, teach classes, get on the board, and yet never really acknowledge God in their lives.

On top, they profess him as God. But down in their hearts they don’t. down in their hearts, they have never really been converted to the grace of God.

They are the same people Jesus was talking about in Matthew 14:3. He told a story about a farmer who went out to sow seed. The seed fell on the sidewalk, rocky ground, among thorns and on good ground. The sidewalk seeds did nothing. Seeds on the thorny ground got choked out. Seeds on the rocky ground never got a decent root structure and one day just died. The good ground helped those seeds to grow and was fine.

The people Psalm 14 talk about are the ones that fall on rocky ground. The root structure can’t really go anywhere because when it comes down to it, the person really doesn’t care. He might think he does and even delude himself into thinking that he is really doing the will of God from his heart, but the first real problem, he is gone.

That is why people can be in church so long and then one day be gone. They might leave the area for another job and never get around to going to church. They might find another woman and leave their families behind and never go back to church. They might just get tired or get their feelings hurt or something. And they just stop.

They don’t believe from the heart and because of that they die. They become corrupt and have evil actions and never do any real good ever again.

They are sad to look at. They did stuff that maybe was great at one time, but fall by the wayside by their own choices.

And like Hebrews 6:4-6 says:

For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened — those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come — and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.

To come back, they have to come back to that which they had left. In other words, the rejected it once and now have to recover the love they turned from. And that is almost impossible.

Of course, as Jesus said in Matthew 19:26

Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.

God can bring them back, but you see it so rarely. And it is a shame.

daily java

Daily Java:

Stay away from fools, for you won’t find knowledge on their lips. (Proverbs 14:7-8)

Several years back I was watching an episode of the Monkees on MTV. This would have been sometime in the 1980’s. At the end of the episode, it came back to a picture of the four Monkees standing together. the announcer began to ask them what they thought about certain things. One of the things was the war in Vietnam. Since this was the late 1960’s, that was on all young men’s minds.

The Monkees began to talk and then to pontificate a bit. Some of the idea was that someone as phenomenally popular as the Monkees had to have greater thoughts than regular people.

They didn’t. they sounded like the vapid young early 20-somethings they were.

About that time, I began to notice other people saying other things in the same basic context. And it dawned on me that many of these people translated their success in singing or acting to special knowledge of other subjects. In other words, I am a good actor or singer so therefore people are going to turn to me for information on world events. It was as if their success in one area gave them special wisdom in others.

And it didn’t and doesn’t.

When we go to actors or singers or anyone in celebrity positions for our information on world events, we will have a lot of trouble. If you look at these people, they have trouble staying married, they are as immoral as anyone can be and still be alive, they are many times almost brainless. And the comments they make are goody.

Yet they become leaders in global warming, or animal rights, or family planning.

I still remember seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger for the first time on the old Mike Douglas show. There was a great looking man with what seemed to be a double digit IQ. I will have to admit that he got better as he got older. But the funny thing is, when they ask people like him, like the Monkees, like other actors or singers what they think and use it for a reference point, they are going to a poisoned well for drinking water.

Listen to these people talk for a while and that will become apparent. If they are allowed to just talk, they say all kinds of weird things. Some grow up, some do not. Some go on to be something better than what they were. Some just trade on their old fame the rest of their lives..

You want wisdom, go to someone who has wisdom. Don’t go to a man or woman who biggest talent in pretending to be someone else or making music.

One of the smartest comments I ever heard from a professional musician was made by Rich Mullins back in the 1990’s, just a couple of years before he died. We heard him in concert, and he made mention of how people came up to him to ask him big scriptural questions. His comment was that he was not a pastor or a teacher. He was a singer. Don’t go to him. Go to someone who knew.

It took a lot of humility and awareness to say such a thing. And for the most part, people in Hollywood do not have that awareness. They really think they know what they are talking about.

In the play Fiddler on the Roof, Rev Tevye, the main character, wants to be rich. If he were rich, he would sit at the city gates and talk all day. People would ask him questions and he would give wise and measured answers. And they would listen because, as the song he sings goes, “When you’re rich they think you really know.”

Being rich or popular or well-established at something else does not give you the wisdom to talk about things you do not know anything about. And going to fools for wisdom is always a losing proposition.

daily java

Daily Java: 

And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants. (John 3:19-21)

The reason the world does not want the Bible to be read in schools is that they do not want to see the light. They hate all that comes from God and want to stamp it out.

Those who hate God, who unfortunately have a lot of sway in modern America, will not go anywhere near the light. Even in situations where help is offered in countries or areas of the US that need it badly, if it comes from churches it will be refused.

The reason is that people like this are fools. Psalm 53:1 says: the fool has said in his heart there is no God.

And you can see the effect in our country today. The children are out of control, the schools are war zones, the teachers are afraid, our prisons are full and more are being built, teen pregnancy rate is high, things are going to pieces. The more those who hate God come into power, the more they control the courts, the more they dictate the laws and elect more people like them. And the more these things happen, the further down our country and our society goes.

You can see the results of that in Europe where the worship of God is definitely in the minority. You can see it in the violence in other countries, the immorality, the lack of any kind of ethic.

But the light keeps on coming. It has come for 2000 years and will continue until Jesus comes again.

Time and again, people have tried to stamp it out, have “prophesied” that it would be gone in another fifty years. As much as I like it, Star Trek: the Next Generation is based on the premise that humanity has evolved beyond the need for God.

Rarely is a movie seen with God anywhere near the characters. If Christians are portrayed, they are usually seen as mindless bigots and hypocrites.

But the light keeps on coming.

When I was a kid, I heard someone say something that always stuck with me. He said that ice cream parlors are well-lit and bars are dark.

While not necessarily always true, it does bear out a point. Walk into a bar and turn on the light and say, Well, let’s see who’s here. What would happen is people would become angry.

In general, where people are doing good things, the lights are on. Where they are not, the lights are off.

When people are in Christ, the Light is on. When they are not, it is off.

Praise the Light of the knowledge of God.

hearing the speech of a fool

As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words. (Ecclesiastes 5:3)

As I walked through WalMart the other day, there was a woman who was yapping on cell phone. She was speaking loudly and about rather personal matters.

My thought was that she was a fool.

Someone once said that the nicest part of no being telepathic is that you don’t have to listen to the thoughts of fools. But no more. They are everywhere, talking loudly as if they were the only ones in the store. And with the advent of Bluetooth and the ear buds, they have the ability to really carry on a conversation with the air.

I remember the first time I saw a man talking on a phone without holding it to his head. At first I thought he was mad, but not many crazy people wear tailored suits (well, more than that – they just blend in well). He was a lawyer and had the latest in technology at the time.

Then, all of a sudden, there were a lot of people with earbuds and speakers on wires. Then Bluetooth and the madmen seemed everywhere.

The funny thing about it is that if you look at them while they are talking, they get irritated, like you are eavesdropping, when all you are doing is hearing the speech of a fool.

answering fools

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.  (Proverbs 26:4-5)

That’s the problem with talking to an idiot. If you answer him, you descend to his level. If you don’t, his stupidity goes unchallenged.

So what do you do? It seems that you cannot win either way.

When Jesus was faced with this problem, he did different things. At times, he would look at the people who said incredibly ignorant things and he would say, Have you not read? He made them look even dumber. Of course, they had read. They had triple doctorates in religion and theology. They knew a lot. So for this unschooled son of nobody to dare to ask them if they had read was more than they could handle.

The fact that he was right was even worse. Nothing is worse to an expert than to question his expertise, especially if he is wrong. It will infuriate him because it touches at the core of his self-image. It makes him sound like a new Bible student just come into Bible college. Guys with a lot of degrees hate to be shown up by someone with less schooling.

But what happens if you don’t answer him? When Jesus was faced with King Herod of Galilee, he said nothing the whole time, he just plain refused to answer. It made Herod so angry because he figured since he was a king and an Important Person, Jesus would be happy to show him whatever he needed to know. And when he did, it would be really interesting. Jesus would do some stuff and everybody would clap.

Instead, Jesus did nothing, said nothing, did no miracles. In fact, he just stood there. It infuriated Herod.

And then one time, when they asked him for his authority, he asked them a question about authority. When they wouldn’t answer, he said, too bad. He wasn’t going to answer them either.

So what do you do? answer or not.

If you answer, many times you get into an arguing match. It quickly devolves into stupidity and everyone looks dumb, including the smart people. But if you don’t answer, it sounds like you give tacit agreement with the fool. So people think you aren’t smart enough.

It is a situation where you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

I have had like situations and sometimes both approaches worked. And sometimes they didn’t.

No one can give you a one-size-fits-all answer. Each time is different.

It is getting to be the political season and you hear a lot of fools arguing. And it gets old. The world would be better off without fools.

daily java

"The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.” (Psalm 14:1)

I have read a lot of things lately and there are a couple of things that bother me about our country.


First is the recent Appeals Court ruling that cursing is fine on TV. European TV is fast and loose with everything including nudity. There are those who are almost desperate to have us be like them.

Of course, their society is dying, public nudity is acceptable, the church is virtually non-existent, and they do not have enough chidlren born to support those who are retiring.

I don’t really want our country to be like that.

Second is that the Health and Human Services Department is giving Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new high-risk insurance pool that will cover any abortion that is legal in the state. That is from CNSNews on the web. It was promised that taxpayers would not pay for abortion and it was not true.

One good note is that the American Civil Liberties Union sent Harrisburg Mayor Linda Thompson a letter asking her to end her habit of opening some staff meetings with a prayer. Her response: she said it is a voluntary practice that she has no plans to discontinue. According to the article, her devout Christian faith is no secret and she plans to continue.

The world (ie satan, the prince of darkness) wants to destroy our civilization and to try to convince our young people that this country was never intended to be a Christian country anyway. And that Christianity is not all that great.

He is doing everything he can do to tear. And those who help him have been fooled into thinking that God is not real, and if he is real, he is not all that important.

The problem is, a religion you can leave at home or church when you go places is not worth having. And a god who doesn’t care is not a god. He is an idol. The idol here is the desire to do what you want no matter the consequences.

If more people stood up like Mrs Thompson, more good things will happen.

And the fools would be silenced.

daily java

Daily Java:While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, 46"Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 47They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely." (Luke 20:45-47)

I saw this passage this morning on my morning Bible reading website and it startled me. It seems in direct contrast to the picture so many have of Jesus.

In this passage Jesus comes across as trying to antagonize the leadership of the Jewish system. He is sticking it to the Man.

While all the people were listening… He turns from telling the religious leadership a problem they couldn’t answer and tells everybody that these same spiritual leaders were self-important twits.

His question? How can the Messiah be the Son of David if David, the King of Israel, calls him King. How can the Son of David sit at the right hand of the Father and use the earth as his footstool (in a metaphorical way) and still be David’s son?

Of course, they had no answer. Their picture of the Messiah, like ours, was wrapped up in too much interpretational theology. They had figured out some stuff and tried to shoehorn the Messiah into it all.

Jesus says here that it doesn’t work. And he says that it just shows their ignorance. And he says it in front of everybody – all the people.

It is hard to reconcile the picture of this antagonistic Jesus with the Lamb of God, with the man who was meek and gentle. This Jesus was not considerate, and it seems, did not care about the sensitivities of his listeners.

It also sounds as if he just plain got tired of their stupidity and decided that he was not going to put up with it anymore.

If I did that, people would claim that I was not Christ-like in my attitudes.

Of course, one could say that Jesus was the Son of God and knew when to say such things, but I don’t think so.

I believe the human side of Jesus just got tired of foolishness and decided to not suffer fools gladly.

What if I did that?