You don’t have to know everything to follow wisdom and avoid folly, but you have to know where to start. If you trust and follow Jesus, he promises, in fact he delights to lead the simplest person into profound wisdom. Jesus himself, as he reveals himself in Scripture, comes with spectacular packaging. And in our world, he isn’t hard to find. He doesn’t hide or make himself scarce, and he offers the real deal in a world of counterfeits.
The woman Folly is loud; she is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house; she takes a seat on the highest places of the town. –
Junk mail has gotten savvier. There’s one method that gets me every time. It’s when I get a plain white envelope with my name and address in generic typeset, and it has perforated, tear-off edges. This could definitely be a reimbursement check—I’ve gotten them exactly like that. What choice do I have? I go through the work of tearing off three sides in order to open it and find…junk.
What’s brilliant is that it’s actually the letter’s non-flashiness and even the extra hassle of tearing it open that draws you in. The company has mastered the appearance of a letter that offers you great benefit, while in reality they’re offering a deceptive ruse to get your business. That is the picture of Lady Folly in this proverb.
We have to understand Lady Folly in the context of this chapter. Ten verses earlier we get a portrait of Lady Wisdom. She also “has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town (9:3).”