Raising Kids in the Age of Foolishness

There are enough fools in the world!

The Age of Foolishness: Senseless

Proverbs 7:7 – And I saw among the naive, I noticed among the youths, A young man lacking sense...

The context of this verse involves a young man either being lured, straying into, or deliberately seeking out a wayward wife who is trying to seduce him sexually. This is a Mrs. Robinson situation. (If you don’t get it then you have never seen The Graduate.) The word for “sense” is literally “heart.” The word is used in a variety of situations expressing emotional, intellectual, volitional, or social aspects of the heart. Since the heart is the seat of the self, you would expect these different kinds of emphasis depending on the context. It seems to me the volitional aspect is primary here. The naïve person must be trained to make good decisions. This young man who being seduced by an older and brazen women, a wife no less, is being assaulted volitionally. In our society and under our law, if he were below the age of 18, this would be considered predatory behavior and statutory rape. The law is so written because we know that a child lacks the ability to give informed consent to sex with an adult. The child lacks sense. However, this young man may be older and still lack sense.

Later we will look at other traits the naïve person may lack. This is the main one. Some have suggested the meaning here is what we call “common sense.” We joke that common sense is not as common as it once was. Perhaps it is because we are not instilling it in the newer models of children. Today what once was considered too obvious is studied to death. We must have a ten-year study of why children are seducible. The wise man says it is because they lack sense.  Our response to such a situation as we see on the internet with nefarious people tempting our children to sin is to try to rearrange the environment in which it happens. This is important, but there is a much more effective way to deal with the instances of child seduction, and that is to train our children to have more sense.

I grew up in Southern Georgia in the country where rattlesnakes roamed freely. Every summer it was not unusual for us to kill at least three or four snakes around our home. My parents knew that the solution to the rattlesnake problem was not to try to eradicate all the snakes within a ten-mile radius of our house. Their solution was to train me to avoid having a confrontation with one. They instilled in me some common sense in the way I moved through the yard, the fields, and the woods. Snakes will be snakes, and evil people will be evil. There will always be the Mrs. Robison’s of the world. It is common sense that if you want to avoid a dangerous situation you do not get near a dangerous situation. I will give you a commonsense tip. Stay out of bars.  THERE ARE ENOUGH FOOLS IN THE WORLD.