Fool Folly

(Proverbs 26:4 KJV)  Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

This verse should be read together with the next.  A quick reading makes them seem contradictory but they are really complementary.  Both of them have the sense of responding to fools as they deserve.  This one says not to, the next says to do so.  The context explains the difference.  This one is pointing out that we should not allow the fool to dictate the terms of our discussion.  We do this in a regular basis when we let the politicians, educators and movie stars define words in such a way that they lose their meaning.  Love, respect, tolerance, hope, gay, the list goes on.  When we let the pagans talk about the God of love and they define love as “Never having to say you are sorry”, we have lost the battle.  When we allow them to use “gay” for anything but lighthearted and carefree, we have retreated from the field.

God explains to us what love means in I Corinthians 13.  The entire book of Proverbs explains what wisdom means.

So?  Trust your culture at your own risk.  When we stand before God He will define things in eternal terms, not contemporary cultural understandings.