You can’t fix stupid

You can’t fix stupid, but you have to love it.

According to a WIKI page I found while researching another topic, “The Dunning-Kruger effect occurs when incompetent people not only don’t realize their incompetence, but consider themselves much more competent than others. Basically, they are too stupid to know they are fools.”

Justin Kruger and David Dunning set out to test their hypothesis. They proposed that, for a given ability, incompetent people:
* Tends to overestimate his own skill level.
* Failing to recognize genuine ability in others.
* Not recognizing the extreme of their insufficiency.
*Acknowledge and recognize their own previous lack of ability, if they can be trained to improve substantially.

It turns out that subsequent experiments support these findings. So now we have official evidence for what most of us already know to be true. People are stupid. Be honest now. Tell me, do you NOT know someone who meets this criteria?

The challenge for me is that nowhere in the Bible does it encourage us to strive for anything less than excellent. And, when you think about it, asking for, demanding, or encouraging (depending on your style) anything less than excellence is NOT doing them any favors. So, from a biblical perspective, how are we supposed to deal with people who seem to exhibit the Dunning-Kruger effect with astonishing regularity?

This is a major problem because these people can not only be annoying and irritating, but they can also be a huge waste of time and energy. Who are we talking about? Let’s start by establishing who these people are.

Proverbs 18:2 – “Fools take no pleasure in understanding, but delight in airing their own opinions.”

Proverbs 1:7 – “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Proverbs 26:1-11 – “Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, honor does not suit the fool. Like the fluttering sparrow or the swooping swallow, the undeserved curse does not cease. Whip for the horse , bridle for the donkey, and rod for the backs of fools. Do not answer a fool according to his foolishness, lest you yourself be like him. Answer a fool according to his foolishness, or he will be wise in his own eyes. “Send a message from the hands of a fool is like cutting off your feet or drinking poison. Like the useless legs of a lame is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. As tying a stone in a sling is giving honor to a fool. Like a bramble in the hand of a drunkard is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. As an archer who wounds at random is the one who engages a fool or any passerby. Like a dog that returns to its vomit, whereby fools repeat the folly of it.”

Proverbs 13:20 – “Walk with the wise and become wise, for the companion of fools suffers evil.”

Psalm 1:1 – “Blessed is he who does not walk like wicked men, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of mockers.”

There are many other verses that talk about associating with slanderers, gossips, disgruntled people, immoral or hot-tempered people, even brothers and sisters in the Lord who do stupid things.

Next, let’s leave the topic of “mercy before judgment” aside. Many Christian leaders and churches promote a false doctrine that suggests that we should constantly embrace both the world and our fellow Christians with a lifetime pass on their behavior cloaked in “mercy.” God doesn’t do this. If he did, there wouldn’t be stories like Sodom and Gomorrah, Jonah and the Whale, the Great Flood, and the list goes on and on. God’s character requires consequences for sinful and stupid behavior. This is how He put together the universe. If the cloak of mercy were applied to all human behavior, we would not have any laws dictated by God; instead, we would be constantly embroiled in some hair-raising festival of carnal love. Did Jesus give Satan a pass on his behavior? Saul (soon to be Paul) did not receive permission from God to persecute other Christians.

The biblical roots of the word “mercy” – all go back to the concept of “love”. Putting “mercy” in the context of “love” has far-reaching considerations. God tried to save people before sending a firestorm. Jonah survived the whale. God gave people around 100 years to watch Noah build an ark. Saul was blinded and became a great servant of God. THIS is how mercy fits into judgment and love.

From Entrepreneurial Faith: Launching Bold Initiatives to Expand God’s Kingdom by Walt Kallestad, Kirbyjon Caldwell, and Paul Sorensen: “In church, it’s hard, because we don’t want to hurt anyone. We’ve bought into a myth. We’ve concluded that because God made everyone wonderful , we have to let people direct the music, for example, who have no talent and little musical ability, we really allow this to continue because we don’t want to get into the difficult zone of evaluation, which can lead to disappointment, but in the long run term leads to people being placed where their gifts can be most fully exercised Assessment can help identify someone who is talented, but may not be in the position they are currently in. Evaluate your staff It allows him to make some moves that will put everyone in positions where God can use their strengths in the best possible way.”

The authors speak to church leaders and urge them to have the courage to be honest in their assessment of the people they work with. We would all be so much better off doing the same with all of our relationships, honestly and courageously evaluating them and then taking corrective, biblical action. Putting mercy here in the context of love; it is much more loving to compassionately reach out to the choir member who always sings off key and talk about it instead of letting him falsely believe he is a wonderful addition to the choir. Now that, to me, is stupid.

Biblical principles can be applied to the stupid.

John 13:34 – “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, so love one another.”

Matthew 10:14 – “If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, leave that house or that city and shake the dust from your feet.”

1 Corinthians 13 – “If I speak with human or angelic tongues, but have no love, I become like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but I have no love, I am nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not envious, it is not boastful, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not selfish, it is not easily angered. ,keeps no record of wrongs.Love delights not in evil but rejoices in the truth.Always protects,always trusts,always hopes,always perseveres.Love never fails.But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues shall be silent: where there is knowledge, it shall pass away. For partly we know and partly prophesy, but when the fullness comes, what is partly saying appears When I was a child, I spoke as a child, thought as a child, reasoned as a child. I became a man, I left behind the paths of childhood. Because now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; Then we’ll meet face to face. Now I know in part; then I will fully know, as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Matthew 6:14-16 – “For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Luke 8:11-15 – “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. Those who are by the way are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and removes the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those who are on the rocky are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of trial they fall away. the one who fell among thorns represents those who hear, but on their way they are drowned by the worries, riches and pleasures of life, and do not mature, but the seed in good soil represents those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, the retain, and with perseverance produce a harvest”.

The plan for dealing with stupidity comes straight from the Bible.

Since there are so many verses in the Bible that speak to the principles I am presenting here, I encourage you to do your own study. If I just consider the above verses, it seems very possible that part of the reason God puts or allows stupid people into my life is just to see how I will treat them.

It is clear that I am here to love them. I must do my best to move them towards the God Realm.

It is equally clear that I need to forgive them when they do stupid things. We all do stupid things – and Jesus forgives us.

I must try to plant seeds in their lives, but I must also find fertile ground with this precious time I have on earth, and if “stupid” doesn’t make it, despite my best efforts, after a certain period of time. , I should shake the dust off my sandals and move on, in search of more fertile ground.

Fools and stupid people should not be my closest relations, by any stretch of biblical interpretation. I don’t have to go out with them.

If I am going to practice love and model the heart of Jesus, I am going to speak the truth in love. It seems to me that many of us like the idea of ​​the “love” part of this, but are uncomfortable with the “truth” part. Just look at the heart of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.

It might be worth considering that another reason God put “stupids” in your life is so you can actually tell them. If you don’t, who will?