Ecclesiastes

General Christian Theology
lesterb
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by lesterb »

As much as anything else, Ecclesiastes is for people who have their doubts about God but can’t stop thinking about Him...

The author of Ecclesiastes had his doubts, too, and these have enabled him to speak to skeptics as well as believers down through the centuries. One thing that Ecclesiastes doesn’t try to do is give us all the answers. Some books are like that: they admit their limitations. Back in the eighteenth century, Dr Samuel Johnson wrote a monumental dictionary. When he was finished with his lexical masterpiece, the prodigious Dr Johnson had a definition for nearly every word in the English language. Yet not for a moment did he think that he knew all the answers. In the preface to his dictionary he echoed Ecclesiastes: ‘I saw that one enquiry only gave occasion to another, that book referred to book, that to search was not always to find, and to find was not always to be informed; and that thus to pursue perfection was … to chase the sun.’

Dr Johnson was alluding to Ecclesiastes, whose author found that looking for the meaning of life was like chasing the wind. This desperate image helps us understand Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is not the kind of book that we keep reading until we reach the end and get the answer, like a mystery. Instead, it is a book in which we keep struggling with the problems of life and, as we struggle, we learn to trust God with the questions even when we do not have all the answers. This is how the whole Christian life works: it is not just about what we get at the end, but also about the people we become along the way. Discipleship is a journey, not just a destination.


Ryken, Phil. Why Everything Matters: The Gospel in Ecclesiastes, Christian Focus Publications. Kindle Edition, 2015.
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lesterb
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by lesterb »

Here's another interesting section from the same book.
Ecclesiastes also helps us to be honest about the troubles of life. Perhaps this explains why the great American novelist Herman Melville called Ecclesiastes ‘the truest of all books’. More than anything else in the Bible, it captures the futility and frustration of a fallen world: the drudgery of work, the emptiness of foolish pleasure and the mind-numbing tedium of everyday life. Think of Ecclesiastes as the only book of the Bible we know was written on a Monday morning, probably by a philosophy major. Reading it helps us to be honest with God about our problems— even those of us who trust in God’s goodness. One scholar thus describes Ecclesiastes as ‘a kind of back door’ that allows believers to have the sad and skeptical thoughts that they would never allow to enter the front door of their faith.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by Bootstrap »

I like these last two quotes.
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Is it biblical? Is it Christlike? Is it loving? Is it true? How can I find out?
lesterb
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by lesterb »

One more thought:

I don't think we need to be judgmental of Solomon when we study this book. The main reason that I felt like I did, was the history of Solomon's end given in the Bible. But I can also see, as Ryken states ...
As usual, reading Ecclesiastes quickly makes us feel even worse about life than we did before. At first the Preacher’s honesty may seem refreshing, but the more we study his book, the more depressed we become.

This actually means that the writer is achieving his purpose. Remember that he is showing us the world from a merely earthly perspective— the best thinking that human beings can do on their own. 16 Qoheleth believes in God, of course, and mentions Him by name (see verse 13), but he made his spiritual quest essentially without God’s help. The Preacher did not pray or consult Scripture. Instead, he was off and running on his own quest for meaning without stopping to consider the majesty of God. He was probing ‘into the depth of matters by his unaided and unenlightened reason apart from any disclosures of truth that God has granted.’ 17

If we take a secular perspective and try to understand the world on our own terms rather than on God’s terms, we will never escape Ecclesiastes 1. Study all the philosophy, research all the religion and pursue all the personal improvement that you please— it will still end in frustration. Human reason can only take us so far. All our learning is empty without God.

Thank God that there is a God, and that He does not leave us in despair! The Solomon of Ecclesiastes shows us the Savior we need. Qoheleth didn’t know it yet, but at the end of all our questing God will be waiting for us in the Person of His own Son.
I think this is a good perspective. We don't need to demonize Solomon, or make him a saint. He was an ordinary person facing the emptiness of life as viewed from "under the sun." He was more brilliant than most of us, which enabled him to take a broader look at the emptiness of life without God, than most of us could.

We could end Ecclesiastes with the words, "okay, I've proven to you that life under the sun is empty vanity. Now here is what you can do about it." Then look at the last two chapters. Where we find what Solomon was looking for. Whether he found it for himself or not, isn't really that important. But he was wise enough to know that, if we look at the right place, we CAN find meaning in life. To experience it, we need to look to the NT and Jesus Christ, who was in a sense the second Solomon and dispensed True Wisdom.

Okay. See if I can quit thinking out loud...
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Bootstrap
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by Bootstrap »

lesterb wrote:Okay. See if I can quit thinking out loud...
By all means, keep thinking aloud, these are good thoughts! But if you keep thinking along these lines, we'll find ourselves agreeing 100% about Ecclesiastes.
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lesterb
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by lesterb »

Bootstrap wrote:
lesterb wrote:Okay. See if I can quit thinking out loud...
By all means, keep thinking aloud, these are good thoughts! But if you keep thinking along these lines, we'll find ourselves agreeing 100% about Ecclesiastes.
That's why I was thinking of setting up a review site of some sort. I need to be able to think out loud when I work. And it's real helpful to have that be a conversation, rather just daydreaming. But I'm not sure about the wisdom of continuing this thread.

Maybe some people would find it interesting to watch the development of a book and the thought processes that go into it. But I'm not sure it would be good to be quite that public about it.

Thanks for your feedback.
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lesterb
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by lesterb »

Figure this one out...
‘Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
--Ecc 9:11, George Orwell
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Franklin
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by Franklin »

Was my dinner a new thing under the sun? I could say that my dinner was brought in and out of existence today, as it was prepared and then consumed. Or I could date my dinner by the date in which the recipe was invented, maybe a few hundred years ago. Or I could go deeper and look at the principles of good cooking. These principles, like all principles, are eternal. The deeper one looks, there less there is that is new. And when one looks deep enough, there is truly no new thing under the sun.
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cmbl
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by cmbl »

lesterb wrote:Figure this one out...
‘Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
--Ecc 9:11, George Orwell
I saw that...the race was not to the swift...nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happen to them all.

In the Political Obfuscation Translation from Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language"
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"Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous."
lesterb
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Re: Ecclesiastes

Post by lesterb »

Here's a note I received from a friend of mine, regarding some discussion about Ecclesiastes...
You asked that I define a bit more what I mean about this business of “eastern” versus “western” modes of thinking.

Maybe a graphic way to illustrate the difference between the:
1. Eastern minds that tend to allow for a “Both/And” mindset,
2. and the Western minds that tend to espouse a strictly “Either/Or” mindset

is to post this diagram here (see below, and with a grateful nod to James Fowler).

(This diagram highlights the way that the “Both/And” mindset and the “Either/Or” mindset view the Bible. But those 2 mindsets view almost all other aspects of life in differing ways too, not just the Bible. I am only posting this diagram as only one example of the results of the difference in those two thinking patterns.)

To interpret this diagram, notice that the “Both/And” mindset falls between the two vertical bars, and allows for both Divine Action as it relates to the Bible, AND Human Action as it relates to the Bible.

On the other hand, the extremism on the right and the extremism on the left of those vertical bars are the result of the “Either/Or” mindset that is typical to western ways of thinking.

My contention is that us westerners have a harder time avoiding extremes in conceptual matters… because we tend to think in “Either/Or” terms only. We have to try to think in a “Both/And” manner, and we do try that in order to achieve what we often call “balance.” But it remains that we have to try to think that way.

The easterner, on the other hand, finds it more natural to think in a way that presupposes that two apparently opposing truths can be both true… at the same time! “How can that be,” we westerners ask. Instinctively (to us), this seems too “mystical” and fairy-tale-ish, if not just plain crazy.

Now, back to the book of Ecclesiastes: Isn’t this book full of the “Both/And” mindset?
It is true that it is good that a man enjoy his work, AND it is true that his work is vanity and vexation of spirit.
It is true that sorrow is better than laughter, AND it is true that there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice
Etc., etc.

The truth of Ecclesiastes consistently retains the dignity of defying intellectual reductionism to a strict “Either/Or” dialectic.
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