Sometimes the Bible is confusing

Take Proverbs 26:4-5 ⁴ Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. ⁵ Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. (NIV) At first read these two verses seem to contradict each other. In verse 4 is says to not answer a fool according to his folly and in verse 5 it says to answer a fool according to his folly. What do you do when you come across something like this? Well, there are several things that you can do. The first thing I would recommend is to pray about it. God has given us the gift of His Holy Spirit living in our hearts. God can and will illuminate the meaning of a passage as we ask Him to do so.

The second thing I would suggest is to read the passage through in a few other versions. www.biblegateway.com allows you to look at many of the versions out there for free. It we applied this to the above passage we see this from the NASB translation.  “⁴Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will also be like him. ⁵ Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he not be wise in his own eyes.” In this translation verse 5 becomes much clearer. It doesn’t contradict the earlier verse. In fact it tells us to answer a fool as his folly deserves. Don’t answer according to his folly but give him what he deserves which may not be the answer he was looking for at all, but with the goal of making sure he realizes his own foolishness.

Another thing you can do when you have trouble understanding a verse or passage is to do some research. There are many sites on the internet that allow you to look at commentaries that examine the meaning of the passage. Places like net.bible.org or www.biblegateway.com . You can also do an internet search on the passage. I would put a caution here when searching. Not all of the pages you come across will be helpful or correct. You should always go back to a trusted source. One program I use often is called Bible Explorer 4. It allows you to download many commentaries and other study helps to your computer.

The last suggestion I have is to ask others. There are many people in our church who have vast amounts of knowledge of the Bible from years of study. Use them as a resource. Ask your house church leader or pastor. Seek out the answer. Don’t let the hard questions or things you don’t understand stop you from learning more about God. Seek out answers to your questions so that you can better understand God’s grace to you.