One of the things that happens as you get older is you get wiser based on the number of experiences more senior people have had compared with kids (those under 40). I listen to interviews given by hot sports stars in their 20s, and I hear a lot of effort to sound wise but not much wisdom. That isn’t a critical statement; it is just how it is. When you get older, you get wiser; at least, that is how it should work.

My Dad would regularly say, “Just because you get older doesn’t mean you necessarily get wiser; there are a lot of old fools running around.”

When young people talk foolishly, it is often funny, especially if they think they are talking wise. But when you hear older adults talking foolishness, it is sad because they have had enough years to have become wise if they had been learners instead of know-it-alls.

The book of Proverbs in the Bible uses the word “scoffer” for those who think they know it all. It says that scoffers never become wise because when you think you already are wise, you stop learning from others, from experience, and from books.

One of the regular warnings from my father was, “Don’t be a know-it-all.”

Some of the truths about being a “know-it-all” or a scoffer;

1. When you are a scoffer, everybody knows it but you.

2. When you are a scoffer your brain freezes, that is, it goes into a “no-learn mode.”

Proverbs 1:22: “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing, And fools hate knowledge?

3. Scoffers have way more problems and trials than most because they keep making the same stupid choices and decisions.

Proverbs 19:29 Judgments are prepared for scoffers, And blows for the back of fools.

4. Scoffers are almost always in debt up to their eyebrows because it takes wisdom and self-control to stay out of debt.

5. Scoffers often have anger problems, they can’t be taught or reasoned with so they just get angry.

6. Scoffers work hard to give the appearance of wisdom.

7. Scoffers can’t become wise.

Proverbs 14:6 A scoffer seeks wisdom and finds none, But knowledge is easy to one who has understanding.

8. Scoffers are impossible to correct or teach.

Proverbs 13:1 A wise son accepts his father’s discipline, But a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.

9. Scoffers cause a lot of conflict in relationships and in the groups they are part of.

Proverbs 22:10 Drive out the scoffer, and contention will go out, Even strife and dishonor will cease.