Leaders Understand the Danger of Fools

Proverbs 17:12 (NIV) Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly.

Does this seem like a hyperbole? A bit melodramatic? A stretch? A human who spreads his/her folly more deadly than a 500 pound Syrian Brown Bear, with bared teeth, menacing growl, towering height and long claws, diving down and running at us?

Fear the deadly, angry mother bear vs. a person wise in their own eyes: doesn’t seem like a choice? A person, who having no need for God, with whom we seek out for advice, listen to and admire is more deadly than that mother bear!

Why is that? Is it because the folly of fools fills us with false hope. Or is it because that folly is seductive: it appeals to our self-centered natures. It makes us feel good -- feeling good is paramount today.

Perhaps it is because the world’s words, having wormed their way into our willing hearts and minds, seem somehow filled with wisdom. And, after all, if “everybody” is thinking “that” way, it takes courage to provide a different perspective.

We have become a timid lot, we followers of the Way. It seems that takes more courage to stand up to a passionate person, wise in their own eyes, having no need for God and seducing the world to idolatry (worshiping anything other than God - a fool in his folly) than the deadly, angry mother bear.

Sharing God’s Word with grace and truth demands of us a discipline of active listening and attractive communication. It demands asking good, thought-provoking questions, not vicious verbal attacks are passionate disagreement.

Committed Christian leaders must be always learning not only when to “stand up” – to discern the seduction of words and thoughts that have their genesis in Hell – but also what and how to say what honors God.

Who are you afraid of most: the bear or the fool?


Copyright ©2009 by P. Griffith Lindell