Proverbs 9 presents us with a choice between the life of Lady Wisdom’s house and the death of Madame Folly’s house. I once read this chapter and presented this choice to an audience including some Jr. High girls. I asked one of them, “So, which of the two women’s invitations should you accept? Should you go to Wisdom’s house or Folly’s house?“ You will not be surprised to hear that she quickly answered, “Wisdom’s house, of course.“ We, just like this Jr. High girl, all know the answer to that question. Of course, we choose wisdom’s house! Even little children who come up for the children’s message during worship can quickly identify wisdom’s house as the good house, the right house, the choice to make. The choice is obvious and easy—or at least, so we think.
After all, wisdom calls on us to live the true good life, in our good created world, serving a good and great God. Who wouldn’t want that? On the other hand, Folly calls on us to live our own lives just for ourselves, serving no one except ourselves, fulfilling our basest desires. In the Bible, Folly is all that is wrong, all that is broken, all that is self—serving, and all that is self—destructive. And so I say again that although we might find ourselves oddly drawn to Madame Folly we know the correct choice is Lady Wisdom. Yet, somehow the choice is hard
Perhaps closer examination and drawing a sharper contrast between the two women will help inform our choice. In our text the contrast between Lady Wisdom and Madame Folly is crystal clear. On the one hand, we have Lady Wisdom portrayed in the first 6 verses. She is a woman of stout character. We know this because she has built her house. Any of you who have built a house or have overseen the process know that it takes some strong character to do so. She has hewn out her home’s seven pillars—seven being the Hebrew number of completeness or perfection. Any of you who have ever tried to hew something out of stone know how difficult, and costly, such an endeavor is. But this is what Lady Wisdom has done. She is a person of stout, deep, real character.
On the other hand, notice Madame Folly in the last six verses of Proverbs 9. Madame Folly lacks character. We read first of all that she is LOUD! This doesn’t mean that she uses her outside voice in an inside setting, as teachers like to say. Nor is it a comment on the way she projects her voice. Instead, the Hebrew word conveys a sense of an unruly and out—of—control person. Moreover, Lady Folly is undisciplined. She does whatever comes to mind. Worse yet, she is without knowledge.
Now again, I know that you know and you know that I know that we are supposed to be on the side of Lady Wisdom. But isn’t it sometimes fun to be loud, just a little bit out of control, and to forget about knowledge and wisdom? We even have clichés that help us communicate this desire. We say things like, “Let your hair down a little; loosen up; don’t be so uptight; chill out, or (my personal favorite) don’t have a cow, man! Yes, I know that as a Christian man, a Christian Pastor, and a loving and responsible husband and father, I should remain with Lady Wisdom. But it sometimes looks to me like hanging out with Madame Folly might be more fun. Could it be that the choice between wisdom and folly isn’t quite as obvious and easy as we thought?
Proverbs 9 continues to confront us with a choice as it continues to develop the clear contrast between the two women. Not only is Lady Wisdom a person of stout character, she is also a woman of hard work. We read that she has prepared her meat. She has mixed her wine. She has set her table. She has sent out her maids to call people to the feast in her house. Presumably, her meat is not bologna, her wine is not the cheapest bottle bought at the neighborhood liquor store, and her table is not set with paper plates and plastic forks. No, she has set out the finest china and grandma’s good silver. Her wine is the best that her region has to offer perhaps mixed with spices or water as all the best hostesses of the day did it. And her meat has been carefully prepared and cooked using the finest culinary techniques of her day. Moreover, she has actively sent out the invitations to her feast. She doesn’t just wait around to see who will show up. She takes the initiative. Lady Wisdom is a woman who has put some effort into her feast.
Not so with Madame Folly. If you are looking in the verses about Madame Folly for what she does to prepare her feast, you will not find them. She does nothing. There is no effort. She doesn’t do anything. All we read about her is that she is sitting in her doorway. She doesn’t prepare a feast, she doesn’t send out invitations, she doesn’t even stand up! It’s effortless at Madame Folly’s house—and maybe that’s what is attractive about it. Something that is easy and effortless is appealing, isn’t it?
Now, I am sure that many of you enjoy a good formal dinner or perhaps you enjoy preparing such meals. Who wouldn’t want to be the hostess or a guest at the feast that Wisdom has prepared? But all that effort and formality can be a little grating at times. Some of you will remember that Queen Elizabeth, the queen of England, visited the United States several months ago. She had several formal occasions with President and Mrs. Bush. Although they got along very well, you may remember that President Bush wasn’t happy about having to dress in formal “white—tie“ attire for his dinner with the queen, but Mrs. Bush made him. It seems that he is a more casual, effortless kind of guy. Don’t you sometimes just want to be effortless, casual, not worried about which fork is the salad fork? Isn’t the careless, simple and casual nature of Madame Folly appealing?
There is yet another clear distinction between Lady Wisdom and Madame Folly. Notice that once you arrive at Lady Wisdom’s house, she has a lot of instructions for you. She is a commanding woman with specific instructions for what you must do. She commands you to COME in. She commands, EAT my food. DRINK the wine I have mixed. Then she says, LEAVE—LEAVE your simple ways and you will live. Finally, she commands, WALK in the way of understanding. In just two short verses she has how many commands? Come, eat, drink, leave, and walk—five rules, instructions or commands just piled up, one on top of the other. Lady Wisdom is a woman of stout character, hard work, and she has rules. If you are going to feast at her house, you will need to obey.
Not so with Madame Folly. Notice what she says to those who have shuffled into her house. She doesn’t have any instructions, no commands, not a single rule. Instead, she offers intrigue and tantalizing suggestions. “Stolen water is sweet,“ she purrs. “Food eaten in secret is delicious,“ she whispers. True, she has no wine and yes, she has no fancy meat prepared. But she offers a chance to live dangerously, to live on the wild side, to drink what is stolen and to eat what is secret. She is a tempting woman of mystery and intrigue.
Now I ask you again, why would any of us find ourselves drawn to the house of Folly given this contrast? I mean, we know that Wisdom only gives us her rules so that we can walk in the way of goodness and life. She wants us to leave our simple ways and live! Why would we want something different? Maybe, just maybe, it’s because we kind of like simple and easy. Could that be?
If you are perfectly honest with yourself, you know the appeal and the draw of that which makes no demands, is effortless, and casual. I meet and talk with individuals every week who tell me that the Christian faith has too many rules, that it is too stuffy and formal, that it demands that we leave things behind; and they don’t like it. Well, here’s a secret, I don’t either. Truthfully, I would just as soon be casual, to hang loose, to go my own way. Madame Folly has appeal because she is easy and simple and she doesn’t make me leave anything. I think that many of you, just like me, don’t like rules because you think that you can still get by without them. You and I believe that we can stay simple and still live. We can, as a twisted modern proverb says, have our cake and eat it too. Or can we?
Note what is behind the door of Madame Folly. There is no table. No feast has been prepared behind Folly’s door. There certainly is no cake. The last verse of Proverbs 9 tells us what is there. The dead are there. If you are a guest at Folly’s house you are in the depths of the grave. There is no way to live in Madame Folly’s house. You can not have your cake and eat it too. You can not remain simple and live.
You and I, you see, are stuck if we choose Folly’s house. How can we escape this fate? Since the draw to Folly’s house is so strong, how can we stay away?
Truthfully, before we can answer that question, we have another problem. The invitation that both Folly and Wisdom give to us is identical. “Let all who are simple come in here,“ they both say. Both Folly and Wisdom make this invitation to those who lack judgment. The truth is that all of us are simple and lacking judgment. We all alike stand on the outside of these two houses. How can we make the right choice since we are simple and lacking judgment? No one has wisdom until they visit Wisdom’s house. So we are stuck on the outside looking in. What are we to do?
Well, let’s return to the description of Lady Wisdom. Wisdom has prepared everything for her guests. Her feast is a free gift, graciously given to all who come. All you need to do is to receive what she has prepared for you. Do you see what this means? It means that to enter the feast that Lady Wisdom has prepared, you simply need to receive her gracious provision. Yes, she is a stout woman, and woman of effort and a woman of rules, but she is willing to take us in and feed us before we have met her standards. She has the stoutness of character, she has done the hard work, and she has followed the requirements that open the door and feast of her house to us. To be sure, once we are in her house and feasting at her table she will transform us and equip us to live new lives following her ways. But she saves us first! And this is just what Christ does for us today.
Lady Wisdom and her feast is an Old Testament foreshadowing of the gracious feast of Christ. As the Apostle Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 1, Christ has become the wisdom of God for us. He is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. All we need to do is to receive him. When the author of Proverbs wrote, he could only paint a rough picture of what this “Wisdom“ looked like. But today, living as we do with the full Bible before us, we know that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of Proverb’s Lady Wisdom. Christ is Wisdom in the flesh.
Christ, then, is the reason, the tipping point that keeps us from Folly’s house. For while it is true that Folly looks attractive to me, easy to me, and a choice that might bring true freedom; I know that she leaves me desperately alone, on my own, without grace and without hope. I can not make it alone, can you?
To live in the house of Wisdom is to be willing to receive what the Father graciously provides in his Son. His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, has prepared for us the feast of his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. He pours the Holy Spirit out on us so that we are filled with his gifts and can live with His righteousness. He gives us everything. What does Folly have to offer?
Folly is a do it yourself project. It is a make it up as you go opportunity. Folly provides and offers complete independence. I don’t know about you, but I like making it up as I go some times. But when you walk through her door you find no table, no cupboards, no food. Steal some water, scrounge up some food if you can find it, but you are on your own. The house of Folly is empty of life, for only the dead are there.
I will confess to you today that the pull of Folly is strong with me. I suspect that it is with some of you too. But Folly leaves me broken down, hungry, thirsty in the depth of my own sinful grave. Does that happen to you? Perhaps you convince yourself that you will have just one beer this time. You think that just one beer won’t set off your alcoholism again. But one beer leads to three, which leads to a six pack which ends up in a week long binge. This is where folly brings you. Or maybe for you it is the lure of another man—the co—worker who seems so caring, so loving, so willing. Three months later your affair of folly has left you with a broken marriage and a broken family. This is the result of folly.
I do not know how Folly pulls you in. I do not know just what temptation attracts you. But I know that each of us has those areas in our lives that we don’t want to turn over to God: Areas of sin, anger, shame, or self—righteousness. It is those areas of our lives where Folly is at work. What I know and what I am sure you know is that folly leaves me broken, empty and void of all life.
But Wisdom, in the form of Jesus Christ, takes me in, cleans me up, feeds me, and sets my feet on the way of life. Has that happened to you? Perhaps you found what your money couldn’t buy when you went to church and the members there showed you the way of salvation through Christ. Or maybe, you have tried every religion and belief system under the sun, only to find that you failed to find life in any of them. Then you heard the Lord’s call and you came to Christ discovering that it wasn’t up to you to find life, but that he had already found it for you. Christ took you in. That’s the appeal of Wisdom’s house.
Yes, the way of Wisdom, the way of Christ will make some requirements of you. You will need to leave your independent way of sin and death behind. Wisdom in Christ Jesus tells you how to walk and live. But, if you accept the gracious promise of God’s wisdom in Christ Jesus, he will show you the way of life. So, the choice is yours. What will it be: An eternal feast at the Lord’s table of wisdom through Jesus Christ, or the death behind Folly’s door? Choose wisely.
Paul DeVries
Rev. Paul DeVries, most commonly referred to as “Pastor Paul”, is the Sr. Pastor of Brookside Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is married to Diane (nee Vanden Akker) and the father of four children. He graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary in 1989 and served for 12 years as the pastor of Unity Christian Reformed Church in Prospect Park, New Jersey. As a pastor his first love and greatest joy comes in the honor of bringing God’‘s Word to his congregation on a weekly basis through his preaching. He enjoys reading, camping with his family, watching his children’‘s sporting events, and working on home improvement projects - inside and outside his home.
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