I think the recent FB scam makes for a good lesson. Posts were going around to the effect that if you don’t paste this on your page, FB will give all your dirty secrets to the government, or something, I don’t recall exactly. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. A little more nefarious were the calls my parents were getting recently, claiming that they owed the IRS money and they had better call now or face the penalty. To the wise these are completely absurd, though they obviously take in a lot of people. The FB scam may just be a networking experiment, while the calls are obviously an attempt to make money. It seems like a lot of trouble unless it worked some of the time. Now I didn’t have to know all the exact details of the situation to know that these were scams. I didn’t have to know the people calling, or where the FB post originated from. In instantly brushing them off as scams I wasn’t saying that they were worthless people or that I hated them or any such thing. But some grasp of wisdom, of the larger picture and the way things work, informed me without all the details. Larger principles could be applied to this specific situation with beneficial results. This is deductive reasoning, as opposed to inductive reasoning, which is taking specific examples and drawing broad conclusions from them. Generally people have a propensity towards one or the other. Amazingly Solomon had both types of reasoning. We see him observing the natural world and the world of men and recording hundreds of maxims and proverbs. On the other hand we see him applying general principles of wisdom to specific situations, as in the famous case of the women fighting over the baby.
Oh, look, free money!
I believe all forms of reasoning have fallen on hard times these days, but deductive reasoning is particularly suspect. People tend not to mind so much when you blow off a FB prank or a telemarketing scam. But when you criticize their ideas deductively, all hell breaks loose. But it really can be the same thing. An overarching understanding of God’s world and how he works with his people here on this earth can cut through a lot of bad philosophy or theology, very quickly. But people caught in these incorrect beliefs tend to take it personally when you write their ideas off quickly. They don’t realize that they have said more than they have said. They are trying to sell you the “you may have already won 10 million dollars” line and they don’t even know it. It’s obvious to you but from their perspective you are just attacking them. Because they think the only way you can know about them or their situation is by listening to or knowing them. But as I have said, the deductive works the other way. Your wisdom about the larger world, people in general and the ways of God can inform you before they do, before your first interview.
This is why an understanding of history is so important. Knowledge of people outside of our own culture and time help us to see the follies of our time for what they are. When similar ideas have succeeded and failed time and again through history, you can be more sure of the outcome when they are attempted again today. But the problem is our modern way of looking at reality. Our nearsightedness is a double hindrance. We moderns are all about empirical evidence. We only trust things that we can take in with our five senses, or rather things a scientist somewhere can say he took in with his expensive government grants, but that is another story. This is the reality of a people who loves science a little too much, bordering on worship. And by this philosophy we despise history, because we weren’t there.
The empirical approach, works pretty well when you are building machines or formulating chemicals. So, moderns thought they could apply this method to humanity and groups of humanity, and so were born the social sciences. But it really hasn’t worked at all. Everything we apply these to, is a disaster, whether it’s Mao managing people in China(million died) or Dr. Spock ruining a whole generation with his child raising techniques (he later recanted, but it was too late). We need to return to the wisdom of Scripture. We can do all the studies in the world about how to raise your kids, or interact with other people, but they will only be as good as they end up discovering what was in the wisdom books of the Old Testament all along. And those books are full of deductive generalizations, waiting to be applied to your specific situations, with no regard for your itty bitty complaints. You may think that you are so unique and special and that you have found a new way of thinking about things, but you haven’t. The wisdom of scripture was there all along. And to anyone who has it, you just look like that email from the “Saudi prince” promising you thousands of dollars.
But it’s not easy it takes practice and experience and listening to the right people. This is how Psalms and Proverbs both start out
“Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night” -Psalm 1:1-2“To know wisdom and instruction,
to understand words of insight,
to receive instruction in wise dealing,
in righteousness, justice, and equity;
to give prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
and the one who understands obtain guidance,
to understand a proverb and a saying,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction” -Proverbs 1:1-7
We can learn from other people’s mistakes, we don’t have to experience everything ourselves. So read and study the Wisdom Books of the Old Testament. Trust them more than your experience or your accumulated knowledge and then apply them to your life. It’s not always simple. Many of the Proverbs follow the Jewish mindset; “on the one hand, but on the other hand”. You can’t just rigidly apply them. Proverbs 14:4 is one of my favorites:
“Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.”
So which one is the Bible telling us to do? Neither, it takes wisdom to weigh and apply the appropriate side. On the one hand, a clean barn is nice, on the other hand, a dirty barn indicates production. Or take 26:4,5
“Answer not a fool according to his folly,
lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own eyes”
I even had a pastor tell me he was violating half of this. How does that work? No, you must use wisdom to know when to speak and when not to speak, there is no command here. It takes fear of the Lord, faithful reading of these books and practice to apply these successfully.
Then spotting the FB scams or the real scams, will grow easier and easier. Fighting the principalities and powers will grow easier and easier. I see two main categories of these deceptive appeals. The appeals to our baser side, lust, sloth, greed, gluttony, etc. These are the get rich quick schemes(Proberbs 13:11, 28:19-20), or the seductive woman in the street (Proverbs 7), which Proverbs warns us about. But just as much folly and perhaps more is caused by trying to do the right thing in the wrong way. Sex is a good thing, but you should pursue the woman of Proberbs 31 and not Proberbs 7. Material wealth is a good thing, if you want it so you can help others, but if you want it for it’s own sake it will bring only death. It’s good that you want to help starving children, but giving your money to every group with a picture that pulls at your heartstrings, might only be helping overweight bureaucrats. So, beware of both the appeals to good and those to our lusts.
Posting things on your FB page is not a legally binding contract, the IRS will only contact you by mail and the wisdom to live on this earth will never contradict the Scripture. When something looks too good to be true or violates the rules God has laid down, it doesn’t matter how cute or emotional the appeal, it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter how nice or well intentioned the person is, they are deceiving you. Don’t be deceived.