The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who do good.
Psalm 14:1
This is not a condemnation of atheism. Philosophical atheists were far from common in the world during David's time. The world was polytheistic. They believed in many gods. Israel was unique among the nations because they were monotheistic. But everyone believed in the existence of gods.
So, what did David mean? Probably something along the lines of: The fool says in his heart that there is no God in Israel. Israelites would have sung this Psalm, quietly rejoicing that they were not all those fools out there who believed all those silly gods.
Funny enough, the Gentile nations thought that the Israelites were fools. Look at these people wandering around believing in one God when obviously there are so many different forces at play in our lives!
And we do the same thing. We all have gods, and we all think others are fools for not believing in them. We all have things to which we look for significance, approval, or security - and think others who don't value what we do are fools. We are always pouring ourselves out to something - our productivity, our creativity, our pleasure, our relationships, something - looking for them to pour back into us what we cannot provide for ourselves.
The truly ironic thing, then, is that we're all fools. Humans have always had this ability to construct an image of God that somehow loved the things we loved and rejected the things we rejected - a god made in our own image.
Paul talks about this in Romans 3 and says that David's point is universal. There really are only fools. Ancient Jews or Gentiles. Modern men and women. Ancient idolatry or modern idolatry. It's all the same and there really are none who do good. There really are only people in need of God's grace to give us the courage and clarity to be freed from our imaginary view of life where we are the heroes and "they" (whoever they are) are the fools.
Prayer:
Lord, humble my heart today as I am tempted to put myself in the class of the "non-fool" and look down on others who don't measure up to my arbitrary standards. Give me love of others, as you love others. Let me be freed to the generosity of grace instead of the greedy prison of pride, where I have to fight for my own dignity, advancement, and superiority - where I feel self-justified in sitting over and looking down on those that don't think, act, or value as I do. Thank you for loving me, a fool. Thank you for lovingly and humbly revealing yourself to me in Christ so that I can be freed to see you as you are.
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