Proverbs 12:23 (Part II) — Golf Story

The prudent keep their knowledge to themselves,
    but a fool’s heart blurts out folly.

Summary: How we view our personal beliefs determines how well we get along with others. 

In case you are wondering about our three golfers and how we resolve the question of who’s belief is “right,” this is where we get our first clue. The real God of the universe is… well… real. He is not just an “idea” or “religious concept.” People who have a belief in God fall into two camps. One camp includes the people who have direct experience with God. The other camp is made up of those who do not but like to talk about the idea of there being a God.

I have personal experience with God. If I share that experience with you, it is called a “testimony” in Christian circles. (Everyone else calls it “sharing your experience.”) So I can say I have “knowledge” of God. But this knowledge is personal. It is not transferable to you or anyone else. If I am playing golf with a Muslim and Jew and maybe an Atheist to round out the foursome, I can share my experiences with God but it is unlikely that my testimony alone is going to cause my three companions to give up their belief systems and adopt mine. They have their own experiences that they trust. Why would they believe my words rather than their own experiences?

Instead, one of two things has to happen.

The first option is that God reaches out to them personally and they can understand and accept that God is God. The second is that they have new experiences which put their “knowledge” to the test, and what they believe to be true fails that test. When that happens, a person is open to hearing from someone else whose beliefs appear to be working.

To return to Solomon’s proverb, the prudent do not hide their knowledge or beliefs. Instead, the prudent understand that each of us has our own beliefs about how things work. Even the most profound truth will sound like folly to someone who is not ready to hear it.

This brings us to a different golf game with different players. This time, all the players are “Christian” but they are all from different faith traditions. One is Episcopalian, a second is Catholic, the third is Baptist, and the fourth is a guy who calls himself Christian because he listens to Christian radio and has been to a community Bible church a few times.

Each of them belongs to a faith tradition that believes Jesus Christ is the key to salvation. But each of them has a different view on what that entails. Do they all put their arms around each other and praise God for their common faith, or do they avoid talking about their faith for fear that tempers will flare? My guess is that they avoid talking about their faith. Why? The answer to that is that none of us really “know” the same thing. This means that, in principle, none of us believe the same things either.

Now when I say we don’t really “believe the same things,” what I mean is that we don’t agree on all things. We can all believe that Jesus is Lord and still have different ideas about what that means. The early Christians used to overcome this problem with creeds. Having everyone repeat the same words they did, in fact, make an important step towards unifying the faith. However, just like there is never enough tartar sauce to go with my fish and chips, there is never enough creed to cover all the possible combinations of questions that come up about our faith.

(Continued…)

Application: Think about where your knowledge comes from and how it agrees or disagrees with other people you know. 

Food for Thought: How do we get past our fear of talking about our individual beliefs?