“The proud and arrogant person—“Mocker” is his name— behaves with insolent fury.”
I heard a joke the other day:
Guy entering bank: “Put up your hands this is a mockery.”
Bank employee: “Don’t you mean a robbery?”
Guy: mockingly “Don’t you mean a robbery”
Probably translates better when actually told. It made me laugh pretty hard. This verse is not fun at all. The word Solomon uses in this verse is also the word for scorner. That better defines this arrogant person. They are looking for respect but only get contempt from those they encounter. Leaders can be vulnerable to being this person. They believe their own press and soon think they are better than those they lead. This is a trap. They desperately want respect but instead they get disdain. In Solomon’s day this scorned person thought of themselves as freethinkers. They also took pride in being skeptics, too smart to accept truth by faith. There are those people today as well. They proudly talk down the “simple minded” who find comfort in their “make believe” God. At least that’s how they like to frame those of us who follow Christ. They are the sad ones who live in secret fear that we may be right and their comfortable and arrogant skepticism may be empty. They belittle and mock as a wall of self defense founded in that fear. Today walk in confidence and pray for the skeptics and scorners in your journey. #BeTheEdge
“Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.” Philippians 3:19 NIV
