verse 10: “A rebuke goes deeper into one who has understanding Than a hundred blows into a fool.”
One of the funnier cartoons my family has enjoyed watching recently is The Penguins of Madagascar, the offshoot series about the commando penguins from the movie Madagascar. It follows the adventures of Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private, as they battle menaces at the zoo (real or otherwise). One episode I recall had to do with their combating an invasion of mean hornets, who were threatening to sting the children coming to the zoo. The penguins were having trouble trying to fight a menace who outnumbered them, despite their small size, and who could sting them. They discovered that Mort, a fellow zoo resident, was oblivious to pain; Kowalski the science officer determine that Mort, who was always eternally optimistic and happy-go-lucky, seem to generate an aura that made him ignorant to pain. Of course, the penguins managed to duplicate this effect, and for a while were blissfully oblivious to the pain that the hornets were inflicting on them; this was accompanied by the madcap comedy of them repelling the hornets’ attack (with the help of Mort), and getting their common sense back intact!
No matter how many times the hornets stung them, it didn’t have any effect…sort of similar to raining “a hundred blows into a fool”. The wise person will understand the well-intentioned criticism or rebuke; they will look deep into their own ways, and take the rebuke and apply it. Yet a fool will be oblivious.
We are not perfect, but Christians know The One who is. Listen to God’s still small voice today, as Elijah did in 1 Kings 19, and pay heed to His wisdom.
Something to think about.
Combing The Word 