Issue: Wisdom vs. Folly: The Bible’s Binary (Depth: Part 4/5)

Recently I was having a conversation with my wife when I shared with her my love and appreciation for a teacher in my life who made a huge impact. His name was Dr. Higgins. He was an English professor in my college days who was used by God to inspire me almost like no other teacher I’d had up until then. He had read more than anyone else I’d ever met. He was one of those people who had actually read all the books that people brag about having read but few have—tomes like Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Moby Dick, all of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, Tom Jones, Bleak House, etc. Dr. Higgins seemed to have read nearly everything and for us literary types, he became a paragon of what it meant to truly be well-read and educated. Dr. Higgins became an easy model for me to emulate in my own way. 

I still think of him often, of how his lectures in the English Department building would be my favorite courses, of how he would draw a T-chart on the dry erase board, and say to us, “Learn to think clearly. On the left side of the chart are atheistic writers who share the same beliefs, the same worldview, and this is how and why their books are anti-God, anti-life books, plays, and poems (The Stranger, “Dover Beach,” Thomas Hardy’s novels, etc.)” Then on the right side of the T-chart, he’d list several theistic authors and their life-affirming works (Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, etc.).and say, “Learn to think clearly. See the pattern?” Then he would begin his lectures, and we English graduate students would feast, then be dismissed to go and learn, go and write, go and grow. 

Question: How does this relate to the Bible’s binary of wisdom vs. folly and the issue depth in the Christian life? In Proverbs, the main idea is wisdom. That’s the whole point of the book. Be wise. It’s a book of instruction delivered from a wise father to a son. It’s filled with practical wisdom for how to navigate life as a wise person rather than as a fool. 

Again and again, wisdom vs. folly is the T-chart model. Not this but that. Do this rather than that. Don’t be this way, but instead be that way, etc. Here are just a few examples:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Pr 1:7)

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Pr 9:10)

“The fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short” (Pr 10:27)

“The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor” (Pr 15:33).

Encouragement & Application: The binary is so clear in Scripture. Don’t be shallow but be a person of depth. Don’t be a mocker of God, but worship God with reverence and awe. Don’t be a fool, but rather be wise. Don’t skate upon the surface of life but examine your life in light of what ultimately matters. As John Piper wrote in a book with the same title, don’t waste your life, but rather invest it by investing in the things of eternity—truth and the souls of men. 

P.S. I miss you, Dr. Higgins. You were a wise man.