A Wiser Fool

“Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.” (Pr 26:12 AV)

 

This is kind of an interesting proverb because, on the face of it, it doesn’t seem to be true.  Solomon is comparing a wise man who is conceited with a fool.  What they are is what they are.  The wise man is wise.  The foolish man is foolish.  The wise man will make far fewer mistakes in life than a fool.  However, Solomon says a humble fool has more hope than a conceited wise man.  Pride is at issue here.  Not who makes the least number of mistakes.  The reason a proud wise man has less hope than a humble fool is the humble fool as the potential of becoming wiser.  However, the proud wise man will reach a plateau of wisdom and will go no further.  He is the final authority of what he believes.  That is what conceit here means.  He sees himself as wise regardless if he is or not.  He is wise in his own eyes.  For the most part, he might be right.  But those times he is wrong will never be corrected because he sees himself as wise.  We are all a bit like this!

We are all quick to formulate opinions.  We want to be right.  The difficulty arises when we have to admit we are not right.  When I was younger, it was difficult to take advice from older adults.  Call it youthful pride.  It was especially hard to take advice from my father-in-law.  There were times when I flat out disagreed with him because I thought I knew what I knew.  Yet, I married into the most gracious of families.  More times than not, he shared his opinion with me, but let me be me and learn the hard way that he was right.  There are too many examples from which I can pick, but one little incident will suffice.  Lisa and I lived in the country and we had some mechanics of our house that were new to me.  One such item was an electronic water heater.  I had always used gas.  The in-laws came for a visit and he noticed that our hot water was hotter than he would have had it.  So, he suggested I turn down the thermostat on the water heater to save energy.  I had already tried to do that and could not find a thermostat anywhere.  To which I declared our heater did not have one.  We debated back and forth.  I told him I looked high and low for a stat and had declared one did not exist.  So, he took me down to the heater and removed a panel.  The panel that would normally house access to the heater coils.  And there it was.  Stink!  Larry was right again!  Don’t you hate that when your father-in-law is right!  Ugh.

The whole proverb can be summed up in one quality.  Humble teachability.  If someone can be taught, then they can become wiser.  But this requires that he place himself at the feet of another.  Not his own feet.  I come from a family of self-taught people.  If there is a skill we have, it probably comes from time spent in our own efforts independent of other influences and learning by trial and error.  The thing is, learning that way we are limited by our own thinking.  We block out any other possibilities that other influences could bring.  Learning a musical instrument takes head knowledge and hand knowledge.  There are techniques we might not be able to learn unless someone else shows us.  Simply because in our limited thinking, we may not be able to imagine it.  A wise man who is wise in his own conceit is limited by his own ability.  He will not, nor can not, humbly admit he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and submit himself to someone who does.  The fool has hope because he might be humble enough to admit he doesn’t know and needs to learn.  He knows he can’t learn and will allow others to influence him.  There is more hope for a mistake-ridden humble fool than a wise man who makes few mistakes but will not allow others to teach him.