He who walks with wise grows wise but a companion of fools suffers harm - Proverbs 13:20. This nugget of wisdom says more than what i think we see at face value! The first part tell us that wisdom is contagious!
My wife tells the story of a really memorable Easter as a young girl. She and her brother are gearing for Easter a couple weeks before; making church and family plans, shopping for clothes and getting excited about candy - when all of the sudden she gets the Chicken Pox! Well, she freaks out scared to miss out on Easter and literally hours before celebrations and candy, she was diagnosed as healthy! ...But what no one expected was that she had , despite being quarantined the whole time, rubbed off on her brother her case of the Pox! So, literally hours before the celebration and the candy, he was diagnosed as contagious. He would go on to miss Easter and hunting for eggs - truly devastating!
This is the effect wisdom has! Try as hard as you want, but if you spend enough time close enough to wise people, you will grow in wisdom! This is a promise based on a lifetime of observing the ways of God! It will rub off eventually - wisdom is contagious.
The second part of this wisdom nugget tells us that fools are dangerous! This is more of a warning and what is interesting is that Solomon doesn't tell us that we will become foolish, just that we will get hurt! You have seen this...you are with a group of friends and you refuse to do the things they do because, well, its stupid. The problem with that is that you eventually end up in the wrong place at the wrong time and you are guilty by association!
bottom line: its not about participation, its about proximity!
If you are close enough to the...
wise - you will be wise (promise)
fool - you will be hurt (warning)
parts from Andy Stanley's "why cant we be friends" Guardrail series.
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