A Fly In the Ointment – kenbarnes.us
You can identify fools just by the way they walk down the street! (Ecclesiastes 10: 3 NLT)
As a “young and prideful” Christian, Kris Langham of Through the Word started reading through the Book of Proverbs. It was so obvious to him how foolish people were. He said it was almost “laughable” how stupid people acted sometimes. But it was not long before he started to see that God was not just giving him a picture of a fool, but a mirror image of one.
A Fly in the Ointment
Solomon tells us that like a dead fly in a bottle of perfume, a little foolishness spoils great wisdom and honor (Ecclesiastes 10:1). Some Christians, after conversion, think they know everything, but then reality sets in, and we realize that at times we all act like fools.
Closing The Mind but Opening the Mouth
The Book of Proverbs tells us that Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions (Proverbs 18:2 NLT). The fool loves knowledge to show off because, as Matthew Henry has said, “he loves the sound of his own voice,” Dr. David Jeremiah has said that the fool “closes his mind while opening the mouth.” Humility is the pivotal piece here. Humility understands that wisdom is never gained just to promote our own agenda. Self-effort never makes us humble. If we should gain a measure of humility and wisdom due to our merit, we ultimately will end up being proud of our humility. The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalms 14:1 NASB). We can seek wisdom and miss God, but we can never miss wisdom if we seek God first.
Pride has a noticeable stench.
A fool is always blind to his flaws, as deception is a by-product of conceit. If you think you are humble, you probably are not. If pride is operative in our lives, we will end up with a dead fly in our ointment. And people recognize this smell even when walking down the street.
Image used by permission from Microsoft.
Ken Barnes, the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places” YWAM Publishing and Broken Vessels through Kindle Direct Publishing.
Ken’s Website— https://kenbarnes.us/
Ken blogs at https://kenbarnes.us/blog/
Email- [email protected]
