"DON'T BE A FOOL" (An Article by Christian Henry) ~ 6/25/26

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

The fear of the Lord is the principle of true piety or devotion to His cause above all, and as I’ve said before, this “fear” describes the concept of reverence or obedience to God, resulting in worship and service. Not a servile fear of punishment, hell, wrath, or damnation, but a humble fear of respect. We respect God as a father; His power, His love, and His forgiving grace in Christ. “Fear” serves as the foundation or starting point of all true wisdom and ethical education; without which, all other knowledge is vain and useless.

Unless a person really knows God, knows God in Christ, and worships Him with the highest regard according to His revealed will, they know nothing. They are baseless and ignorant of the truth. All their knowledge will be of no avail and profit to them in the end. The pursuit of spiritual and evangelical knowledge ought to serve as the first and chief cornerstone of our lives, and without it, all the natural knowledge in the world would mean absolutely nothing. Men like Stephen Hawking and Steve Jobs were very smart while on earth; there’s no denying it. We still use a lot of what they developed today. People like them were influential and well-educated, but both Hawking and Jobs, as well as many similarly knowledgeable scientists, were very outspoken atheists. They were seemingly happy to deny the truth and lead others astray. While being extremely smart in the ways the world values, they are hopeless fools when it comes to real knowledge. The wicked are stupid, indifferent, and even blatantly ignorant toward God's character and government.

Solomon labels those who have a deep-rooted hatred for gaining understanding as “fools” because they do not fear God. Morons like this have no true wisdom and choose to follow only their own devices with no regard to reason or reverence for God. These people are so far from attaining any tangible understanding that they choose to despise it and all the means of getting it.

The wicked don’t desire the knowledge of God and His ways. Instead, they despise and disregard it completely, even to the point of treating the knowledge of God in Christ (in which lies the highest wisdom) with contempt. They despise Christ as well as the Gospel: its truths and all instruction in it. Fools hate the Scriptures, the ministry of the word, and the ministers of it, which are able to make people wise unto salvation. They especially abhor correction or chastisement because suffering reproach is simply too tough on them and too much work for the ungodly.

Dear reader, please don’t be a fool. Don’t shirk your duty of reading God’s Word and acquiring knowledge. Too many Bibles sit on the shelf gathering dust because too many people are busy chasing secular ideals and temporary happiness. Take heed of the vast wealth of knowledge in front of you, before it’s too late!