Don’t respond to the stupidity of a fool; you’ll only look foolish yourself.
~ Proverbs 26:4, The Message
Be wise about how you respond
November 18, 2025 | 16 comments
Spiritual ideas that inspire healing
November 18, 2025 | 16 comments
Don’t respond to the stupidity of a fool; you’ll only look foolish yourself.
~ Proverbs 26:4, The Message
Amen!
Been there, done it, don’t want to do it again, lessons learned for sure, but sooo grateful I am learning the lessons of humility that blesses ALL!
Thank you SV and especially dear Evan.
…and haven’t we all done that! Great reminder to be alert! Thank you.
Thank you again, Evan, for all the SpiritViews. This admonition about not responding to a fool is very profound. It’s a reminder not to respond to mortal mind in any of its suggestions. They’re all foolish and will eventually dissipate in the light of Truth. Nothing beats the admonition to “Stand porter at the door of thought,” as Mrs. Eddy reminds us.
Indeed! Thank you, Bob, and thank you, Evan.
I am trying to work out how the picture relates to this
topic, which is a very good one.
We all need to be alert to this suggestion.. If we are seeing a fool, we are seeing ourselves, so we need to be always watchful of our thoughts and keeping them filled with love for our fellow man, and looking for the true image of God in everyone.
Thank you, Evan. I appreciate the reminder, and I love that translation. And thank you, Maggie, for your comment: “if we are seeing a fool…”
Thanks Maggie. Regarding the picture: maybe she just encountered a “fool” and is just walking away from the foolishness. But I do agree with your thinking that God never created a fool, so we can remember to separate so-called human behavior from the child that God created. The only fool is error, mortal mind, material sense, because it does not and cannot understand the majesty and all goodness of God so it’s always saying erroneous foolish things.
Thankyou Evan, I’m learning this lesson quite often. not to listen to mortal minds foolish suggestions. turning from the lie to ever Present Truth. Jesus said, What I Say Unto You I Say Unto All ” WATCH,” Thankyou all for your Uplifting Thoughts. Love to all.
Thank you Evan for the most evocative photo and for the warnings of Proverbs 26. How does one apply them as a CS? How does one see man as God’s image, yet verses 24-26 warn of people with bad characters who “greet you like a friend while plotting against you and just waiting to rip you off…liars whose hatred is covered by deceit”? I was deceived and victimized by such and was vulnerable since CS parents told me they were good. And now these verses rang a loud bell of caution about a friend.
Yes, I think it’s sad that Christianity in general, not just CS, has promoted the idea that we have to “forgive” people that treat us badly and then act as if it never happened. The first definition of “forgive” in Webster’s 1828 dictionary reads:
To pardon; to remit, as an offense or debt; to overlook an offense, and treat the offender as not guilty.
I found a series of podcasts on the Sermon on the Mount on the Bible Project website and during one podcast they discussed how through the centuries, people have stayed in abusive situations because of how forgiveness is portrayed in that Sermon. But in Matthew 18: 15-17 the “condition” for being able to treat someone again as if they are “not guilty” is very clearly described:
15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.
16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’
17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
This is referenced in the Manual of the Mother Church:
Violation of By-Laws. Sect. 2. A member who is found violating any of the By-Laws or Rules herein set forth, shall be admonished in consonance with the Scriptural demand in Matthew 18:15–17; and if he neglect to accept such admonition, he shall be placed on probation, or if he repeat the offense, his name shall be dropped from the roll of Church membership.
(Manual of The Mother Church, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 50:22)
So I have to conclude Mrs. Eddy gave importance to Matthew 18:15-17 in her own experience expected us to use this Matthew 18 code in our personal lives too.
If I were to write a manual for how to clear a string wrapped around a lawn mower blade I would NOT just write “Reach under the mower and grab the string and unwind it.” I’d instead write “Stop the mower, remove the cable to the spark plug to ensure the mower won’t start, then reach under the mower and grab the string and unwind it.” I feel like some of the references to forgiveness in the New Testament leave out the “conditions” for forgiving someone and just jump to the forgiveness part (i.e., leave out the “stop the mower” part). Maybe the conditions for forgiveness were so well known by the Gospel authors they didn’t think they needed to explicitly state those conditions every time they mentioned the importance of forgiveness. But I also don’t believe we should hold on to resentment and if someone that treated us badly is no longer in our orbit, we can forgive them and know they are in reality God’s child and free our thinking from the memory of the bad behavior.
Thank you Robert for your thoughtful response. How does one treat a pagan who still keeps trying to be in your orbit whom others have warned you of harm she did to them and when she has tried to hurt you? I ended the friendship last year since we are on very different paths but saw her again out of love and compassion and old habit when she called about 10 months later but think I opened up to what Proverbs 26 cautions against.
Robert, I forgot to thank you for this good thought:
*I also don’t believe we should hold on to resentment and if someone that treated us badly is no longer in our orbit, we can forgive them and know they are in reality God’s child and free our thinking from the memory of the bad behavior.”
Very helpful and hard to forget – a work in progress.
As for the Matthew code, if you don’t have others to take with you across the country, and if they are rich and famous and a major donor to their church, it doesn’t work.
Hi LOL. Jesus also taught, “Be wise as serpents.” Jesus was not naive about the evil intent in enemies around him. He read their minds. He could see right through them. And we are to be as wise.
To forigve does not mean we overlook evil. It means that we don’t let someone else’s evil become evil in our thought. It means retaining poise and dominion, and reflecting a Mind of Love that enables one to respond intelligently and adeptly to whatever is coming at them. It does not mean letting others abuse us. It means keeping a clear thought of Truth and Love that enables one to act and think in ways that protect one from abuse. It’s wisdom in action. It’s about keeping all evil out of OUR thought. Why? Because when we let evil take over our thought, we make poor decisions, blind decisions. We are not thinking clearly. We never ignore evil. We face it fearlessly, and stay so clear on the omnipotence of God, that we can prove it powerless to harm us. Hope that helps.
Thank you Evan. Coincidentally the thought “Wiser than serpents” came to mind earlier this afternoon. There is a fine old pamphlet of that name. I was so conditioned to be naive and to see no evil and told “evil is unreal” by my CS mother quoting MBE and to see evil doers as good. She was trying to live in the Absolute as her CS teacher taught her. So I was not wise to serpents for decades. And then in uncovering evil, it entered into my thought. And in standing up to evil in my family, I was rejected, not supported nor loved.
And since I was trained to see everyone as good and not see the evil intent in family and those whom I thought were friends I could trust who deceived me, now it is hard to believe that I have been victimized by that old friend. But she opened my thought to evil, to the darkling past, and then some bad things happened to me since I last saw her a few months ago. And those verses in the Proverbs 26 just screamed at me last night with her name on them, so it has become evil in my thought. Jesus cast out evil spirits. He did not say there is no evil. I don’t know how to do that, only to avoid her again, to stay safe from that darkness that came at me through her.
PS. The darkness is powers, principalities and wickedness in high places which I experienced and she wants to expose..
I think mm (mortal mind) tends to have us believe that someone is against
us (like the serpent in Genesis) and our misinterpretation tries to see this
erroneous belief as a personal flaw … but in Reality, we are all children
of God’s being, despite what it may Seem to be. To me, the photo above
is like trying to stay on the path of Love, despite what may appear to a storm
(rain) around us. Ahead is bright and we are protected by the umbrella of
Love’s comfort along the way … shielding us from whatever would attempt
to take away our peace and happiness.