Proverbs 26 (a day late)

⁴ Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
   or you yourself will be just like him.
⁵ Answer a fool according to his folly,
   or he will be wise in his own eyes.


THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING! THE BIBLE IS CONTRADICTING ITSELF! AAAAAAHHH! This is a great passage for lots of debate on its meaning. I don't actually believe these to be contradictory. We have to understand, for starters, that the Proverbs aren't airtight promises, but general principles that generally prove to be true. Since "fool" is often the name given to the person rejecting God, I believe these passages are talking about speaking to such "fools" about faith in faith-terms. If an atheist challenges your theology and you don't respond, verse 5 will be proven true. That person, who prides himself or herself in logical thought, will puff themselves and their cleverness up, since they were able to stump the Christian in the Christian's own belief system. However, if you do bite at the fool's bait and open the dialogue, you may fall into several traps. You may end up fighting an uphill battle that you will never win because a hardened heart stands in your way. You may also find yourself actually getting to a place where you allow such a "fool" to impact your faith. It may begin with subtleties and small concessions to their way of thinking, or it may be with a theological haymaker they drop on you that you don't know the answer to. Many people have lost faith because the naysayers say it just doesn't make sense. 


But here's their folly: atheists (often) know just enough scripture to make them dangerous. They know some key passages and verses that drive their point home, but often miss context and big-picture concepts. They take this limited understanding and base their theology (what they believe about God) around it, allowing their minds to run wild with limited information. If their folly is limited knowledge, then we need to combat this with truly knowing the Word of God. We need to see through these arguments, know what we believe about God, sin, salvation, Christ, grace, love, justice, angels, demons, judgement, etc. We need to seek it out in the pages of the Bible and trust God's Holy Spirit to do the talking, instead of our own logic. In this way we can avoid answering them according to their own folly. 


I believe these two verses, rather than contradicting, are exposing both extremes in a situation, and encouraging a balance on the part of the believer.