A prudent person foresees the evil and hides himself;

but the simple pass on, and are punishe

Proverbs 22:3 and 27:12

The naïve fool’s lack of judgment, together with his reluctance to curb his passions, makes him especially vulnerable to the snare of sexual immorality.

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 4, “Without a Clue."

The simple one is ruled by his or her urges. Of all the urges we experience, sex is one of the most powerful and primal. One of the good things God created, it holds profound possibilities both for creation and destruction. Its sinful misuse harbors some of the deadliest dangers known to the individual and to society. Yet the logic of sexual sin is deceptively compelling: How can something that feels so good, both physically and emotionally, ever be truly bad? Thus, sexual temptation is the epitome of the irresistible bait.

The naïve fool’s lack of judgment, together with his reluctance to curb his passions, makes him especially vulnerable to the snare of sexual immorality. The seventh and ninth chapters of Proverbs contain lengthy descriptions of the temptation and seduction of the simple one. Some might say that the story is rendered in stereotypes. I propose that these are archetypes. This is not about the battle of the sexes but about the war with sexual lust. In a larger sense, it is not even merely about sex, any more than the story of the Fall in Genesis 3 is about stealing fruit. It is all about the allure of lawlessness and the danger of living according to passion rather than principle.

Consider the nature of this play. If this was supposed to be a story about social realities, the sexual predator would be male and the victim female. Certainly that is by far the more common scenario in any society. Why, then, does Proverbs put the focus on a far less common situation, the temptation of a young man by a seductress? No, it has nothing to do with sexism or sexual oppression. It is because the story is not about social realities but moral ones. Solomon takes a classic and timeless male sexual fantasy and, as we shall see, plays up all its luscious elements. His graphic poetry is not for prurient purposes, but in order to show simple fools vividly that if their secret dreams were to come true, they would be a nightmare.

The simple one, in his typically naïve pursuit of pleasure, starts out with the itch that must be scratched. When I say naïve, it is in the context of moral character. Our fool is probably not naïve about the facts of sex and the possibilities it holds for pleasurable experience. Neither is he naïve in the sense of innocent ignorance of godly moral standards. He knows the commandments, and he has been taught that sex outside of marriage is wrong. This kind of naïveté is rather a refusal to look ahead and foresee the consequences of breaking God’s commandments.

Copyright © 2015 by Garry D. Nation.  All rights reserved.

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