Daily Bible Study: Proverbs 9:13-18

A foolish woman is clamorous;
She is simple, and knows nothing.
For she sits at the door of her house,
On a seat by the highest places of the city,
To call to those who pass by,
Who go straight on their way:
“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here”;
And as for him who lacks understanding, she says to him,
“Stolen water is sweet,
And bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”
But he does not know that the dead are there,
That her guests are in the depths of hell.

Proverbs 9:13-18 (NKJV).

If you've ever been to a party or political event, or perhaps just have a social media account, you can easily bear witness to some of the most self-destructive behaviors that men and women subject themselves to, and try to justify, in the process of denying God's designs in this world.

Time and again, the Bible extols the different virtues and follies of men and women. Each has a distinctive role in relation to each other and in relation to the remainder of creation, and each of them received a different prescription for the state they would find themselves in because of their sin.

Yet despite this difference, our modern culture tries to blend the two into androgyny and turn God's curses into virtues, evil into good.

Note that nothing the "foolish woman" does is compulsory. Her hands are not forced, she's not being put out on the street, she's simply bored and stupid, looking to create drama and excitement by snaring ignorant men who happen to pass by. These men are also just as bored and stupid, thinking that partaking in adultery is going to be beneficial to them in any way.

At no point is anyone forced in this entire situation. Everyone is willingly participating in their own destruction, presuming that "they know best" and that the choices they are making are sufficiently well thought out. They are "leaning on their own understanding", and will bear the full responsibility for the decisions they have acted out on.

Much ado has been made in our modern culture about the dynamic of compulsion, about victims, about oppressors, about abuses, and yet all of it is carefully crafted in such a way that, while everyone is apparently harming everyone else, nobody is really responsible for anything at all.

Whether genetics, your parents, your school, what someone did, what someone said, what someone believes, the list of reasons as to why one is absolved of any individual responsibility is long and growing by the day, the more fantastical the more enthusiasm will be found in adding it.

But here's the thing: we're just doing it to ourselves.

Nobody is forcing us to sin.

Nobody can force us to sin, and if hypothetically killed for refusing, God is not ignorant as to whose glory you were proclaiming in your dying breath, but that's another topic altogether.

On top of this, how men and women sin, the material or temporal nature of our sin, is different, and that is seen back in Genesis if you need to understand the nature of specifically how men and women failed from the beginning and have continued to fail to this day. While all have sinned and fallen short, in one fashion or another, we always make decisions in the context of who we are and what our place is in reality.

The circumstances were real, and so were our choices and the actions that flowed from them.

While both the "foolish woman" and the "ignorant man" sin, the nature of their sin is different, and the material consequences for each of them would be different as well. The motivations may be simplified to the same dynamic, but each of them is playing a different role.

So why the focus on the differences? Why focus on individual responsibilities?

Because teaching your sons and daughters how to avoid being the foolish woman or the ignorant man is going to require different lessons for each of them. The temptations they will face will be different, and trying to teach a boy not to be a foolish woman or a girl not to be an ignorant man should sound ridiculous but is what is put forth as "natural" in our "post-gender" society, as part of sustaining the various narratives regarding victims and oppressors.

Nowadays, you're not supposed to teach your daughters to be lovely, and your sons to be respectable, to teach your daughters to be chaste, and your sons to recognize empty flattery. Teaching different things is viewed as discriminatory, instead of just being accurate and pertinent.

But this will end only in death, and we'll have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Thus is why turning to God, relying on genuine wisdom, is so important. Having that reconciled relationship is so critical to moving forward in this life, because on our own, trusting only our own instincts, we'd be hopelessly lost.

Learn who you are, what God designed you to be, the role God intended for you to fulfill, and embrace it. You'll need God's help, but even wanting to change is signs that God is already working in your heart on your behalf. If you do not resist that work and your eyes will be opened to the truth.