The mouths of fools are their ruin;
they trap themselves with their lips.
they trap themselves with their lips.
Proverbs 18:7
Its pretty easy to point out that Kanye West is a fool. I don't say that as my opinion... from his own mouth he shows us that according to the Bible he is a fool. Take a look.
"When someone comes up and says something like, ‘I am a god,’ everybody says ‘Who does he think he is?’ I just told you who I thought I was. A god. I just told you. That’s who I think I am," September 24, BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe
"I am so credible and so influential and so relevant that I will change things." June 16, New York Times
"I will be the leader of a company that ends up being worth billions of dollars, because I got the answers. I understand culture. I am the nucleus.” June 16, New York Times
There is so much more evidence.
Like I said before, its easy to point out Kanye's foolishness but its a lot harder to pinpoint when we are being fools ourselves. We make subtle moves of foolishness. Of course we don't like to define ourselves as fools, or liars, or thieves...but we know that the Bible says that even looking at a woman lustfully makes you an adulterer. So committing one sin makes you a sinner.
The Bible associates fools with godlessness, stupidity, anger, fighting, selfishness, envy, lacking discipline, no common sense, trouble, dishonor, lawlessness, divisiveness, pride....shall I go on?! (Scripture references at bottom)
Proverbs 1:7 tells us this - Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. When our view of the One True God is altered in any way from who He truly is, we are in danger of being fools. You won't fear a lion if you dull his teeth, weaken him, and remove his claws.
As Christians, our starting point and our world view should come from God alone. He created the world in everything in it-why would you look to anyone else for how the world works? It would be like going to a plumber for help with your iPad. Nonsense.
But even when we put our faith in God, we sometimes behave like fools. Honestly, its a gradual process but can be just as dangerous-if not more so. If we don't regularly renew our minds and submit our lives to Christ, we end up just like those at the tower of Babel. They decided that to become famous they would make a tower that reached to God.
Look at what God says... “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” Gen 11:6-7
He knew that if they were already on a path together of foolish pride and destruction, that He would need to take away their understanding just to slow them down. They thought they had figured out how to reach God. They looked to their own knowledge and wanted to see the world through their own high point instead of letting God show them through His eyes.
Its not surprising that when He takes away their understanding that they scatter and give up on their little project.
I LOVE that He contrasts fearing God with not having wisdom and discipline. What this means for us is that wisdom comes by seeing God in all his glory and power. We don't limit him to our concepts or understandings; We don't put Him in a box- We let Him rock out in our mosh pit!
Let us not be like those in Babel thinking that we can understand our world better than God by building our own viewpoints to stand on. Practically this should encourage us to humble ourselves and pray more when it comes to success and promotion. Thinking that more money will make our lives easier is just adding rocks to the tower. When it comes to voting day, not screaming that we will move to Canada if our candidate doesn't win-don't doubt that if the wind and waves obey him that the opposing candidate can't be swayed by Him. When it comes to social debates- remembering that winning arguments accomplishes nothing but lifting our prides...Oh Lord stop us before we build our own Tower of Babel by standing on the heads and hearts of those we've "won" arguments against.
I pray that our generation wises up, humbles ourselves, and keeps God as our viewing point-Seeing ourselves and our world through Him alone.
I leave you with a bit of 1 Corinthians 1 for your pondering pleasure.
I LOVE that He contrasts fearing God with not having wisdom and discipline. What this means for us is that wisdom comes by seeing God in all his glory and power. We don't limit him to our concepts or understandings; We don't put Him in a box- We let Him rock out in our mosh pit!
Let us not be like those in Babel thinking that we can understand our world better than God by building our own viewpoints to stand on. Practically this should encourage us to humble ourselves and pray more when it comes to success and promotion. Thinking that more money will make our lives easier is just adding rocks to the tower. When it comes to voting day, not screaming that we will move to Canada if our candidate doesn't win-don't doubt that if the wind and waves obey him that the opposing candidate can't be swayed by Him. When it comes to social debates- remembering that winning arguments accomplishes nothing but lifting our prides...Oh Lord stop us before we build our own Tower of Babel by standing on the heads and hearts of those we've "won" arguments against.
I pray that our generation wises up, humbles ourselves, and keeps God as our viewing point-Seeing ourselves and our world through Him alone.
I leave you with a bit of 1 Corinthians 1 for your pondering pleasure.
God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.
Pr 26:1, Titus 3:1-11, 1 cor 1:27-29
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