At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
A fool hath no delight in understanding, But that his heart may discover itself (KJV).
A fool has no delight in understanding, But in expressing his own heart (NKJV).
Proverbs 18:2
We are told here that the fool has no delight in understanding. From the contents and placement of the second part of this proverb, we may piece a few things together. The understanding that he does not delight in is an understanding of the world outside him, and we can determine this from what does delight him—and that is expressing his own heart.
A wise person wants to take in from outside. A foolish person wants to vent whatever it is that arises from within. Outside is not subject to our whims and distempers. We might feel peevish or out of sorts, but the earth keeps going around the sun. The world remains just as it was. Reality, as it turns out, is not optional. And this is what the fool hates about it.
A fool wants the objective world to behave in exactly the same way that his daydreams do. He can just wish it to be some other way, and the daydream obeys instantly. The world, as in, the real world, is extremely disobedient in this regard.
A wise man delights in understanding because if he learns the way the world is, he can learn how to walk in step with that reality. When he does this, he is blessed. Moreover, if he is really wise, he understands that if the world were a product he bought at the store, the Scriptures are the owners’ manual. If there is something you don’t understand about the world, you can look it up.
The fool detests anything rigid and immoveable outside of his wishes, desires, crochets, and lusts. He wants to express his own heart. This is the creed of the fool, and, as it turns out, it is also the creed of this senseless generation that we are all part of.
Believing Christians can and should reject this approach with loathing, but we should also remember that it is possible to get more of this gunk on our shoes than we thought we did, and then to track it into the assembly of the saints. Indeed, there are some parts of the church that are as bad as the world in this regard.
