The Wounding Archer

For Thursday, October 11, 2007
Proverbs 26:10

Like an archer who wounds everyone
is one who hires a passing fool or drunkard.

When we take risks we must first count the cost, not only for ourselves but others. It may seem humorous at the time to give a fool or drunkard a job to do; it may seem compassionate. But we must consider how others will be affected.

There are those better equipped for the work who lose jobs because because of an impulse to hire a fools. There are the fellow workers whose work is now made more difficult because the fool not only cannot carry his load but interferes with them. There are the recipients of the fool's work - customers, passersby who are endangered, and others whose welfare is endangered.

The circumstances here are far different from those in Jesus' parable about the man who hires laborers at different times of the day and pays them all the same wage. Some might call that owner a fool to part with his money so easily, but he alone incurrs a risk. It is his money to do with as he pleases. But one ought not to use his money to place risks in the lives of others.

The bottomline is that we are to carefully consider the consequences of our actions, especially those actions that seem like a compassionate thing to do. Misguided compassion produces the opposite of its intent. The fool is not made wiser, the drunkard is not reformed, and those who are innocent and well-deserving are harmed. Do good works, but count the cost for others and act with discernment.