“True wisdom cries aloud in the street. It keeps raising its voice in the public squares.” (Proverbs 1:20)
For the most part, the greater world disagrees. Its counter-version is that True wisdom is found in the quadrangles. Only ignoramuses are found the streets and public squares. Witnesses have been known to use this verse to encourage each other, since they are in the streets and public squares a lot, the quadrangles not so much. One GB even cited the song as to what they look for there: “It’s the person, not the place. It’s the heart and not the face,” to which he added, “Isn’t that encouraging?” even though his appearance is not all that hard on the eyes.
Trouble is, in the quadrangles, one usually doesn’t find this:
“The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge.” (1:7)
That lack doesn’t harm the quadrangle’s math and engineering offerings. You may even need those to get where you’re going. But veer outside those fields and some of the others offerings will sabotage you. “The first effect of not believing in God is that you lose your common sense,” G. K. Chesterton said.
It’s like the passage from the highly recommended (by me) book, ‘Tom Irregardless and Me:’
“I’d be more impressed with that education if it bore fruit. Those who run the planet, in politics, business, or society, are well-educated almost to the person. The world is not run by commoners. It is rare to find someone in leadership position who has not had four years of higher education at a bare minimum, usually more. One would think the world they’ve collectively built would benefit from that education. Not a bit of it! It is an unjust, violent, chaotic mess, a poor return for their brilliance.
“Jehovah’s Witnesses do not ignore education, but they do redefine it. Whereas the world’s education emphasizes intellect and soft-pedals moral values, Bible education does just the opposite. Its educational focus is on overcoming greed, pride, and selfishness. It is mental brilliance, the focus of the world’s education, that is assumed able to take care of itself as needed. . . . Witnesses have learned to yield to one another. Their Bible-based education is the reason.
“Nobody sends their sons or daughters to the university in hopes that they will learn love, fairness, justice, or selflessness. Nobody imagines that to be the purpose of this world’s higher education. In the world of Jehovah’s Witnesses, those qualities are the purpose of their education. Brilliance is outsourced. When it is needed, it is not hard to find someone who has it or someone who can develop it.”
I wrote this book in 2016. Some of it I would write differently today, but most of it still holds. I might even expand upon the role of Bernard Strawman, sharply critical of the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses allow a man like Tom Irregardless to go door to door, seeing as how he keeps using that word and each time it makes Bernard wince. I hadn’t told him about Tom’s public talks.
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I don’t diss college as many in my faith do. Neither do I think it is the bee’s knees. On average, it does result in a higher income. Though, a certain employment counselor observed, “the funny thing about averages is that they don’t necessarily apply to anyone.” I know of several instances in which Witnesses without any college at all, regularly supervise college grads, even PhDs, in their secular work. They rose to their station on pure people skills and credit their religious activities for training them in interaction with others. I would never say it is the rule, but it does happen. I know of a pioneer who began part-time employment at a nearby 150-person company. They leaned on her to go full-time. She declined for the sake of her ministry. She figured that meant she would always be low-level, and she was okay with that. Nonetheless, in a short time they promoted her as trainer for all of their employees who interact with the public, and she remained the only part-timer in an outfit of full-timers.
Plus, in our area this very cold winter, there is a Witness from Africa who says, “I don’t know how the sun can be out yet it is so cold outside!” University isn’t helping him much, is it? for that is why he is here. 🙂
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The purpose of the Book of Proverbs is stated at the outset: “To learn wisdom and discipline,” (Proverbs 1:2) which “only fools despise.” (vs 4) It is: “To acquire the discipline that gives insight, Righteousness, good judgment, and uprightness; To impart shrewdness to the inexperienced; [I like how these qualities are all linked.] To give a young man knowledge and thinking ability.” (3-4)
It is good not to ignore these things:
“A wise person listens and takes in more instruction; A man of understanding acquires skillful direction.” (5)
This is true even though you will find some among humans who have a black belt in dispensing knowledge.
Counsel is difficult to give when people bristle over their independences and rights. One speaker likened it to cautioning someone over his tire, which has gone very low on air. “Oh yeah?!” comes the retort. “Well, your car has a dent in the fender!”
The downside of internet life is that it caters to a “showy display of knowledge,” yet you have no idea whatsoever whether the person “practices what he preaches,” though Jesus said the latter was the only thing that really counted. In person this is much less likely to happen.
Too, anyone who undertakes counsel that affects the life of another can get blowback should anything go wrong. One thinks of Paul in the first century pleading: “We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one.” (2 Corinthians 7:2) Why would he have said this unless to fend off frequent charges that they had?
The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom,” but the task is quickly delegated: “Listen, my son, to the discipline of your father, And do not forsake the instruction of your mother.” (8)
Mom and Dad are not always the sharpest knives in the drawer but they are the most available. And they are the only ones that you know are not likely to be pointed at you, at least not deliberately. If you have good ones, they align you right for life. Even if you don’t, you take from them what you can and fill in the gaps when you move on.
Usually, they protect you from “attacks” sure to come out of nowhere:
“My son, if sinners try to entice you, do not consent. If they say: “Come with us. Let us set an ambush to shed blood. We will lie hidden, waiting for innocent victims without cause. We will swallow them alive as the Grave does, Whole, like those going down to the pit. Let us seize all their precious treasures; We will fill our houses with spoil.” (10-13)
And then, their invitation: “You should join us.” (14)
Why don’t they mind their own business? What’s in it for them?
“My son, do not follow them. Keep your feet off their path, For their feet run to do evil; They hurry to shed blood.” (15-16)
You can be sure that there’s something they’re not telling you. Like in verse 17: “It is surely in vain to spread a net in full sight of a bird.” This is why I never let the mice watch as I am baiting the traps.
Switching “traps”—not at all implying they are the same—some kids sail through college (the quadrangles) just fine.* Others regret being manipulated by an education industry that shoves you, unless your grades are in the toilet, directly into college upon completion of high school. Though I did reap some benefit from college, I also reaped chaos and would have been far better off holding off until having more maturity—or even not going unless and until I had the need for it, if possible doing so on an a la carte basis.
“How come you never taught me to do things, Pop?” I complained to my 92 year old Dad. He’d always been reasonably handy, whereas I was not. Lack of a trade has been a thorn in my side throughout life. “I did,” the amiable duffer replied. “But you weren’t paying attention that day.” I think he just fell for the modern mantra of ‘Send your kids to college and they can hire people to do the grubby stuff for them.” Raised on a farm himself, he trusted the experts to do better for his kids.
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Working up to a grand finale here: “How long will you inexperienced ones love inexperience? How long will you ridiculers take pleasure in ridicule? And how long will you foolish ones hate knowledge?” (1:22)
He keeps reaching out, almost pleading: “Respond to my reproof. Then I will pour out my spirit for you; I will make my words known to you.” (1:23)
But, whoa! Tell him to take a hike and you discover that he really has an edge to him:
“Because I called out, but you kept refusing, I stretched out my hand, but no one was paying attention, You kept neglecting all my advice And rejecting my reproof, I also will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when what you dread comes, When what you dread comes like a storm, And your disaster arrives like a storm wind, When distress and trouble come upon you. At that time they will keep calling me, but I will not answer; They will eagerly look for me, but they will not find me, Because they hated knowledge, And they did not choose to fear Jehovah. They refused my advice; They disrespected all my reproof. So they will bear the consequences of their way, And they will be glutted with their own counsel.”
“Laugh when disaster strikes you?” It’s not exactly “Slow to anger, Quick to forgive,” is it? It is not hard to see from where comes the street-wisdom that the God of the New Testament is nice but the God of the Old Testament is mean.
Or is he? Just don’t push him over the edge, is the message. Until that happens, he is nothing but patience. Both the patience and the silence when the patience is abused are on display at the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem:
“Jehovah the God of their forefathers kept warning them by means of his messengers, warning them again and again, because he felt compassion for his people and for his dwelling place. But they kept ridiculing the messengers of the true God, and they despised his words and mocked his prophets, until the rage of Jehovah came up against his people, until they were beyond healing.” (2 Chronicles 36:15-16)
Jesus focused more on God’s loving side. Maybe this is because, by the time he arrived, humans had slid farther from the perfection the enjoyed at Eden. Maybe this is because they had more bad influences around them. Both of these factors are even more so today, so it is not surprising that ‘the God of the New Testament’ draws people so much more than ‘the God of the Old.’ But, those who suppose the God of the New is too much of a softie have not looked at Matthew 7:21-23. There, Jesus says:
“Not everyone saying to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of the heavens, but only the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will. Many will say to me in that day: ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them: ‘I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!’”
When I do my ‘Read a Scripture and Leave’ approach in door-to-door and use this verse, I say the reason I chose it is that some are surprised Jesus would be like that. They hear so much about his love that they begin to imagine it’s almost impossible to get him riled. If these verses are valid, however, even many of those who claim to follow him he wants nothing to do with.
One must find a balance. Jesus even said that a course of following God might even divide families, the worst of all possible sins to hear opponents of Christianity carry on:
“Do not think I came to bring peace to the earth; I came to bring, not peace, but a sword. For I came to cause division, with a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Indeed, a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” (Mathew 10:34-36)
Humans who accept God’s provision for redemption through the death of his Son: are we not all on a journey of sorts? That’s why Jesus’ analogies of the broad and spacious versus the cramped and narrow road work so well. It is also why I begin to think one of the greatest type/anti-types of all time played out right before me routinely as a boy—back when my siblings and I would ride in the back of the family stationwagon on long trips. Within a hour, we were peppering Dad with our discontent. Most of it centered around how bored we were, how much longer would the trip take? aren’t we there yet? lets stop at that rest stop, I want a snack, and so forth.
Dad would put up with it for a while, but at length would holler: ‘If you kids don’t stop crying back there, I’m going to stop this car and give you something to cry about!’
I thought he was just being mean. I was slow to realize that he was showing the wisdom of the ages, for sometimes that is exactly what must be done.
Someone played the ‘more loving than thou’ card on me recently. Yes, dads were like that back in the day, but he is more enlightened.* He will pull the car over and patiently answer all his children’s questions, no doubt as many times as it takes—taking for granted that the precious young things can’t possibly understand that it takes time to get from point A to point B, and that this is so because the world is big. And if—get this—despite all his loving explanations, they are still not reassured, he will turn the car around and head home, respecting their feelings. That annual visit to the relatives? Gone. That once-a-year vacation trip to a rented spot already paid for? Forget about it! Nothing is more important that he show love to his tiny children.
Look, the situation doesn’t come up anyone. People hand their kids a smart phone and they barely come up for air even when the destination is reached.
*****The bookstore