The Judicial Folly of a Ready Answer Text: Proverbs 18:13
Introduction: The Age of the Half-Heard Tweet
We live in an age that has perfected the art of the hot take. Our entire digital civilization is built on the foundation of instantaneous reaction. A headline flashes across a screen, a fifteen-second video clip is uploaded, a rumor starts to circulate, and within moments, millions of people have not only formed an opinion but have broadcast it to the world with all the dogmatic certainty of a papal bull. They have judged, sentenced, and executed a man in their hearts before the actual story has even had time to put its boots on. This is the spirit of our age: quick to speak, quick to anger, and deaf as a post to the actual matter at hand.
But this is not a new problem. It is an ancient folly, a sin with gray hair, and the book of Proverbs diagnoses it with devastating precision. The technology has changed, but the nature of the fool has not. The fool with a Twitter account is the same fool who used to shout his opinions in the city gate, just with a much wider reach. He is a fool because his own opinions are the loudest and most interesting thing in the room to him. He doesn't listen to understand; he listens for a brief opening, a pause for breath, so that he can unload what he was already planning to say anyway.
The wisdom of God, as is its custom, runs directly counter to the spirit of the age. God's wisdom is not hasty. It is patient. It is careful. It demands that we do something that has become profoundly counter-cultural: shut our mouths and open our ears. This proverb is not just good advice for avoiding social blunders. It is a foundational principle of justice, a cornerstone of wisdom, and a diagnostic tool for revealing the pride that lies at the root of all foolishness.
What Solomon describes here is a kind of judicial folly. It is the man who appoints himself judge, jury, and executioner without ever bothering to hear the evidence. And in doing so, he covers himself not with glory, but with shame. He thinks he is appearing wise and decisive, but God says he is revealing himself to be a fool.
The Text
He who responds with a word before he hears, It is folly and shame to him.
(Proverbs 18:13 LSB)
The Diagnosis: Folly and Shame
The proverb is structured as a simple cause-and-effect statement. There is an action, and there are two inevitable consequences. The action is answering before hearing. The consequences are folly and shame.
"He who responds with a word before he hears..." (Proverbs 18:13a)
Let's break down the action. The verb is "responds" or "answers." This is a man who is in a dialogue, a dispute, or a discussion. A matter has been brought to him, or he has inserted himself into one. He is not just idly chatting; he is rendering a verdict. He is giving his take, his judgment, his answer. But the timing is all wrong. He does it "before he hears."
This means he interrupts. He cuts the other person off mid-sentence because he thinks he already knows what they are going to say. It means he hears the first part of a story, the accusation, but doesn't stick around to hear the defense. As another proverb says, "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him" (Proverbs 18:17). The fool only listens to the first speaker. He has no patience for the cross-examination.
At its root, this is a sin of profound arrogance. Why does a man answer before he hears? Because he believes his own thoughts are more important than the information he is about to receive. He has an over-inflated confidence in his own intuition, his own intellect, his own insight. He is not seeking truth; he is seeking to impose his pre-existing conclusions on the situation. A fool, as the Proverb says just a few verses earlier, "has no delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind" (Proverbs 18:2). His goal is not to learn, but to broadcast. His mouth is not a tool for receiving wisdom, but a megaphone for his own heart.
And what are the results of this prideful haste? The text gives us two: folly and shame.
"...It is folly and shame to him." (Proverbs 18:13b)
First, it is folly. The word for folly here points to a thick-headed stupidity. It's the kind of foolishness that makes a man a laughingstock. His answer is foolish because it is, by definition, uninformed. He is firing his rifle before he has identified the target. The answer might be brilliant in a vacuum, but it is foolish because it does not connect with the reality of the situation. He answers a question that wasn't asked. He solves a problem that doesn't exist. He defends a position that wasn't attacked. He is swinging at shadows, and everyone who has actually been listening knows it.
Second, it is shame. This is public disgrace. The man who thought he would look wise by having a quick answer ends up looking like an idiot. He has to retract his words. He has to apologize. He is exposed as a rash, arrogant man who cannot be trusted with important matters. He has demonstrated that he is not a wise counselor, not a just judge, not a faithful friend. His haste has brought him the very thing he was trying to avoid: dishonor. The path to honor is humility, and humility is quiet. "Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, but humility goes before honor" (Proverbs 18:12). This fool, in his haughtiness, rushes headlong into his own destruction, which in this case is a pile of public shame.
The Principle of Righteous Judgment
This proverb is not just about conversational etiquette. It establishes a fundamental principle of biblical justice. God is a God who hears before He judges. Consider the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. God says to Abraham, "I will go down now and see if they have done entirely according to the outcry which has come to Me; and if not, I will know" (Genesis 18:21). God, who is omniscient and already knew everything, nevertheless models for us the principle of due process. He investigates before He sentences.
This principle is codified in the Mosaic Law. "You shall not spread a false report... You shall not follow a crowd in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice" (Exodus 23:1-2). Justice requires facts. It requires evidence. It requires that all parties be heard. Nicodemus, standing against the rush to judgment by the Pharisees, appeals to this very principle: "Does our law judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing?" (John 7:51). The answer, of course, was no. Their haste to condemn Jesus was a violation of the very law they claimed to uphold. They were answering before they heard, and it was folly and shame to them.
This is why we must be so careful, particularly in the church. When a dispute arises between brethren, when an accusation is made, the world's impulse is to pick a side immediately based on emotion, loyalty, or incomplete information. But the biblical impulse, the wise impulse, is to be slow. It is to insist on hearing both sides. It is to gather facts. It is to refuse to pass judgment on the basis of a rumor or a one-sided story. To do otherwise is to participate in the fool's folly and to share in his shame.
The Gospel for Fools
Now, as with all the wisdom of Proverbs, this points us to our deep need for the Gospel. For who among us has not been this fool? Who hasn't interrupted a spouse, jumped to a conclusion about a child, or formed a harsh judgment about a brother based on a snippet of information? We have all answered before hearing. We have all rushed to judgment. We have all been puffed up with the pride that assumes we know it all. We have all earned the wages of this sin: folly and shame.
Our natural state is that of the fool who loves to hear himself talk. Our hearts are broadcasting stations for our own fallen opinions. We are, by nature, deaf to the wisdom of God and quick to speak our own rebellion.
But the good news is that God, in His mercy, deals with us according to a different principle. He came to us in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. And what did Christ do? He was the ultimate listener. He "made Himself of no reputation... coming in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:7). He came to hear the cry of His people. He listened to the pleas of the leper, the blind man, and the prostitute. He was the one who was "quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger" (James 1:19).
And on the cross, He endured the ultimate injustice. He was judged without a fair hearing. He was condemned on the basis of false testimony. The world, in its folly, answered before it heard Him, and it screamed, "Crucify!" He took upon Himself the folly and the shame that we deserved for our rash and foolish words. He bore the disgrace so that we could be clothed in the honor of His righteousness.
When God saves us, He performs a sort of spiritual ear surgery. He "opens the ears of the deaf." He gives us a new heart that, for the first time, has a "delight in understanding." He silences our proud, foolish mouths with His grace, and He teaches us to listen. He teaches us to listen first to His Word, to hear His verdict on us before we pronounce our own. And then, as we are filled with His Spirit, He teaches us to listen to one another. He replaces the pride that must speak with the humility that can hear. He turns fools into wise men, and He covers our shame with His glory.