"Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise – why destroy yourself? The man who fears God will avoid all extremes." - Eccl 7:16, 18)
Can we be “too good” or “too wise”. Solomon clearly thinks so. How do we know when we’ve crossed the line? I think it’s when we believe we have “arrived” at goodness or wisdom. The day we wake up and think, “I am a really good person because I do x and don’t do y”, is the day we have started to become overrighteous, and probably self-righteous. That’s when it begins to rub off on others as the unattractive, holier-than-thou behavior that people cite as a primary reason they don’t go to church or are turned off by Christianity. The same attributes hold true for wisdom – who can tolerate the academic who sits in his office or at parties and carries on and on about how if people or the world would just do things the way he would prescribe, everything would be fine.
The common thread on both of these, and where self-destruction comes in, is that when we reach this point in our goodness, wisdom, or other characteristics, it becomes about us, and not about God. Our mind begins to attribute the blessings in our life as being earned through our rightousness or our wisdom. We begin to lose sight of mercy and grace and slide into a theology of works or Gnosticism. Better the man who recognizes and remains humble because he remains aware of his sin and ignorance, than the fool who naively thinks he’s got it figured out. Recognition of our shortcomings keeps us clinging to and focused on God.
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We start judging others. We compare what car they drive, what clothes they wear, how their kids act, how they act. In the end we are all the same. We are all sinners. We all are bums. It is only by the grace of God that we are not going to hell. So, if that is the case, which it is, how in the world can we look at others and say they are lower than I am or I am higher than they are?
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