Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Fool's New Clothes | The Writings | Ecclesiastes 10

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Do you have eyes to see your own foolishness? Has someone in your life ever exposed it to you? How do Christians grow in wisdom?  In today's episode, Tanya shares how Ecclesiastes 10 encourages us to be near to Jesus, our wise King. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Ecclesiastes 10

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. We've probably all heard the fable about the emperor's new clothes, but in case it's been a while, I'm going to do a short little retail. Remember, the ember is obsessed with fancy clothes, and he wants to have something that no one else has. So two con men come and convince the emperor that they can spin and weave him a wardrobe that is completely unique. it's only visible to the wise and the enlightened. These very fine clothes will be invisible to anyone inept or foolish. So the emperor falls for the con men's cunning, and he hires them to weave him a lavish new suit

to wear in the town parade. Talk about high stakes. So the con men appear to get busy at work. It looks like they're spinning and weaving. Now the narrator observes that no one can actually see any clothes being made, but everyone goes along and pretends anyway because they're afraid that they're going to be exposed as a fool and they think everyone else can actually see the clothes. Now, the emperor is the most nervous and dishonest of all, because he's pretending he can see

something beautiful all along just because he's afraid that he'll be made out for what he really is. Talk about imposter syndrome. Now, on the day of the parade, the conmen make up this big game out of dressing the emperor and his supposed lavish suit, and then he goes through the town and everyone in the town pretends to absolutely love his clothes. They ooh and awe as the naked emperor goes by in his chariot. This just goes on and on until one child blurts out, why is the emperor naked? And then the ripple effect, and then everyone, including the emperor, tells themselves the truth, and the emperor is exposed as the biggest fool of them all, because he's sitting naked in front of the town, and he still has to finish the

parade. The problem with fools is that they are the last to know that they are fools. The problem with us is that we don't want to be foolish. We hear stories like this and we don't want to be the emperor, but we can be so busy and so distracted trying to be unfoolish that we miss the mark. We don't realize we're the biggest fools of all. It's because the Bible tells us that a quest for wisdom, apart from Jesus Christ, will only lead to more foolishness. Our lives will expose us. Our mouths will expose us for what we really are. Proverbs 2719 says, as in water, face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man. In other words, the way we act reflects what's in our hearts.

Our actions reflect who and what we love most. We can try as hard as we want to look different on the outside, but we'll be exposed. Luke 645, an parable about the tree and its fruit describes this as, well. It says the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. We can't truly change our actions without first dealing with our hearts. And of course, leave it to the preacher in Ecclesiastes to make a pretty grim observation about foolishness and wisdom in chapter 10. Like the fable, thank you to Ecclesiastes. It's helpful to say,

in the discomfort that foolishness isn't something we can cover up. From Ecclesiastes chapter 10, verse 1, the preacher says, Dead flies make the perfumers ointment give off a stench. So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. He's saying that the most lovely, well-crafted, good-smelling fragrance is completely undone with the stench of dead flies. The preacher is saying, foolishness can't be masked. Rather, it has to be dealt with.

it will expose us. And the biggest danger is that we will be the last to know. So a little story. Last year, Brandon and I did this three-day hiking trip in Colorado where we had to fly out with our backpacks and everything we needed for three days and three nights inside. Those backpacks were going to be with this for the whole trip. Like I had to carry everything on my back the whole time. So I was really picky about what I packed, just like one change of clothes, chains of socks, all the things, because we weren't really going to change while we were out in the mountains. We were going to change when we got done. So anyway, three days in the mountains, the day we hike out, we have time for lunch,

and then we have to get on an airplane. I had time to change my clothes, deodorant, socks. Here we go. We're flying home. So we fly home on the plane. We're both tired, kind of reading, sleeping. But when we get off the plane, I tell Braden, gosh, the woman next to me was really rude. she didn't look at me or talk to me at all. So I was in the middle seat, Braden was in the window.

And Braden just looked at me and he was like, mom, no joke. It's because you stink. I had changed my clothes. I had changed my deodorant. I thought it was okay. I was apparently the only person that didn't know about my stench. So it is the way with foolishness. Often it's our words that are the quickest to expose us. Ecclesiase. 1012 says, the words of a wise man's mouth went him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him. We're going to look at that verse on both parts of that verse. The preacher in Ecclesiastes loves to use contrast, so let's dig in for a second. This means that speaking wisdom can give us a good reputation. It says the words of a wise man's mouth win him favor. Perhaps people will

esteem us, but a literal translation tells us even more. That word favor is the Hebrew word for grace. So literally it says, the wise person's words are grace. In its essence, it's not that wise words will get us something from others, their favor, but our words will give something to others. God's grace. Graciousness that comes from God's grace. Now, we can't possibly give God's grace if we don't have it, if we haven't received it for ourselves. Sometimes, the wise person doesn't speak at all.

But when she does, there's a lot that she can say that's filled with grace. She can say to God, words of praise and thanksgiving, to others, words of encouraged things that are true, gentle words when things are under control, words of reconciliation, I'm sorry, it was my fault, I take responsibility, please forgive me, affirming words like, I love you, you matter to me. The wise person speaks words of grace because they flow out of the grace received by Jesus Christ. One of the wisest things anyone ever said to me was, If you want to be more like Jesus, draw near to Jesus. If I want to sound more like Jesus, I need to draw near to Jesus.

But this isn't what I choose a lot of the time. I choose to draw near my phone and expose my mind to knowledge I don't need. I choose to make comparison, my friend, and expose my heart to a game I wasn't meant to try to play. I choose to do what feels right and I let my lips say things that other people's don't need to hear. And then I try to cover them up to sound more like Jesus. I'll say I didn't mean that, or use flattery, or use more words to say what I want people to think instead of what I actually meant when my heart was exposed. This is what the preacher describes in the second half of that verse, but the lips of a fool consume him.

the more we talk to cover up what we really meant, the more we bury ourselves in speech that consumes us, foolishness is always exposed. I don't want to be a fool, do you? We need to be willing to humbly admit that our words come from what is inside us, not what other people say or do to us. We need to recognize that our words reveal a moment by moment need for grace and forgiveness from our rescuer Jesus Christ. We need the wisdom to be more concerned about the sin, that lives in us than that which we see in other people. And we need to remember that no one is more patient and loving to us than our Heavenly Father. This is the beginning of wisdom.

We ask God for a heart that loves Him. We ask God to grow us in His wisdom. We recognize this is a gift and a process. We do our part, seeking God first and foremost. We ask God that He will fill us with His love and grace, so that what our words reveal is true and loving.