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1 Peter 2:15
15 For [hoti] so [houto] is [esti] the will [thelema] of God [theos], that with well doing [agathopoieo] ye may put to silence [phimoo] the ignorance [agnosia] of foolish [aphron] men [anthropos]: KJV-Interlinear
15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. NASB
The word for silence, ‘phimoo,’ means to muzzle, to leave someone with nothing to say, to leave someone with no counter argument.
The word for ignorance, ‘agnosia,’ means self caused lack of knowledge, guilty, self liable, culpable, senseless, someone who has brought themselves to ignorance by means of their own intentional decisions.
The word for foolish, ‘aphron,’ means self caused foolishness, senseless, someone who lacks wisdom, someone who lacks correct orientation of knowledge to life.
In your lifetime, you will meet or come across many such people. They will be wise in their own eyes, and they will put you down in public, if at all possible.
People who are lacking in their spiritual lives, are driven by their sin nature. And, their sin nature drives their lusts, their ego’s, their need for competition, and to come out on top, or to avoid truth if at all possible.
You will see opinions on television, hear them on the radio, read them in publications, you will hear them from people in social or work settings.
And do you rise up to get even? Do you take the battle to them in revenge? Do you do to them what they do to you?
And the answer to these questions, is ‘No.’
You do not become defensive. You do not return gossip for gossip, complaint for complaint, tat for tat and so forth.
What God expects you to do is, well, nothing but continue living your normal daily spiritual life.
Jesus Christ controls history. Not you, and certainly not them.
Evil, which is the pattern of all knowledge that is not of doctrine, struggles for control, and it will never gain control, ever.
Evil has to kick, and scream, and shout, and get attention, and lie, and cheat, and deceive, in order to get its way.
Evil, has listeners. And those listeners are the ignorant, the foolish, the self made fools of life. Evil leads nothing better than fools. And when evil cannot persuade people who have doctrine, then it simply walks away in silence, looking for a new victim. Silence is the failure of evil, and the victory of the spiritually mature.
