Month: October 2023

Wisdom Smarts. Ecclesiastes 1:12-18

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If ignorance is bliss, wisdom can sometimes be painful.  Often wisdom smarts, it hurts, it makes us say, “I wish you hadn’t told me that.”  It is like a confused father trying to figure out why the sink won’t drain, only for his son to announce: “I put marbles in it!” Despite finding the answer, the father thinks, “I wish you hadn’t told me that.” Knowledge often brings grief with it.  As we continue our journey through the book of Ecclesiastes the writer of Ecclesiastes observes that adding wisdom usually adds pain. The writer makes this observation in the context of observing and testing out the things of life to see what benefit they have apart from God.

Last post I began this series in the book of Ecclesiastes. For those not familiar with this Old Testament book, it is found right after the book of Proverbs. (Click here for a helpful video overview from the Bible project).  Ecclesiastes addresses the human condition with all its limitations and frustrations. Despite Ecclesiastes being a part of the wisdom tradition, the writer expresses the frustration that finding wisdom often means finding sorrow. Today’s post covers Ecclesiastes 1:12-18:

12 I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. 16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 (ESV)

In verse 13 the writer tells us about his “life experiment” of observing and testing out the things of life to see what benefit they have apart from God: “I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven.” In the rest of the book, the writer reports on his findings from this life experiment. He explains what he learned through the wisdom of observation and experimentation concerning life on earth apart from God. His general conclusion, which is repeated throughout the book is in v. 14: “I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind.” Without God the things of this life are “vanity” (Hevel in Hebrew) and understanding that vanity is the path of wisdom. Hevel/vanity does not refer to “conceit” but to the fleeting quality of life. The things of life are fleeting like vapor or smoke. Previously (1:9) the writer observed that there was nothing really new under the sun. In these verses the writer observes some things about wisdom itself–the very wisdom he is using to observe and experiment on life. He notes in verse 16: “I said to myself, ‘Behold, I have magnified and increased wisdom more than all who were over Jerusalem before me; and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.‘”  The writer got all the wisdom he could. A modern quip is that some drink deeply at the fount of knowledge, but others just gargle. Well, the writer of Ecclesiastes drank deeply. 

As a part of the wisdom literature, one would expect Ecclesiastes to say that achieving such wisdom was wonderful. Instead, the writer’s assessment of having attained great wisdom: “I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after wind.” Apart from God, all the wisdom in the world is futile.  The writer suggests 3 reasons why.

 1) You may know something, but not be able to do anything about it. This problem is alluded to in verse 15: “What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted.” You may know how to count money, but what good does it do, if you don’t have any money to count?  You may know all about diseases so you can live longer through prevention, but all that wisdom can not stop the eventuality of death itself. Living wisely is to be preferred, but apart from God all that learning and wisdom ends when you do. Ecclesiastes acknowledges the disconnect between knowing something and actually being able to do something significant with that knowledge. Often times wisdom gives you enough understanding to realize that there are some things you can’t do anything about.  This truth is expressed in the famous “serenity prayer”: God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

 2)The second reason that wisdom apart from God is futile: true wisdom will teach you that the more you know–the more you don’t know. After being in school of one kind or another for almost 25 years I understand now, better than ever before, that there is so much I don’t know. There is a wisdom in understanding human smallness, and how the world is so much bigger than what our little minds can get around.  These limitations should not keep us from trying to figure things out, rather we should realize that just because our minds can’t understand something doesn’t mean it is not true. In fact the more we understand the world, the more we see all the things that are beyond our capacity to know. Even the most wise people in the world are totally ignorant in some things. You can be an expert in nuclear physics but still be clueless about how people work. Without God, this human limitation makes wisdom seem like chasing after wind. I’ll always not know more than I do know. However, when God is involved, not being able to understand everything is reassuring–the world is bigger and more wonderful than my little mind. Without God, the limitation of human knowledge is frustratingly futile. 

3) The final reason that the writer gives for the vanity of wisdom is found in verse 18: “Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.” Adding understanding adds pain. As the writer of Ecclesiastes observed life, he discovered the other side of the modern proverb, “Ignorance is bliss.” That proverb is somewhat misleading because that blissful ignorance often is temporary. Despite our ignorance, the reality is still there and eventually it will have to be dealt with.  I may be happily driving along ignorant of the fact that my car is slowly leaking oil, but that bliss won’t last too long. The increasing pain from the increasing mechanic’s bill will correspond to my increased wisdom of car care. Then, once I have the wisdom, I now have the responsibility to use that knowledge and check and change the oil. All that responsibility can be a painful choir, so one way or another adding understanding adds pain. 

Even in God’s economy, when you increase in wisdom, you increase the pains of responsibility.  Those pains can be a blessing when done for love of God and love of people.  Conversely those pains can be the weight of a neglected responsibility bearing down upon you.  The more privileges and resources we have, the more responsibility we have to use those things wisely. With that blessing of wisdom (or any other thing) is the “grief” of being responsible for that blessing. In Luke 12:48, Jesus said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”  Every person is responsible for what they have. If you have great wisdom, you have a great responsibility- a greater “pain”.  James 3:1 points out that those with knowledge will be held accountable for that knowledge: “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.”  

 The added pain of wisdom can be either a negative or a positive. The pain can be on the path to destruction, or the pain may be a “growing pain”. Apart from God, even growing pains ultimately die off, which is why wisdom is described as vanity and chasing after the wind.  With God, the added pain of added wisdom can be an avenue of growth. One example of “growing pains”  is when we increase understanding of a certain person or situation. That knowledge can increase our own pain.  When you enter a hurting person’s world with a real desire to understand them and their situation, you will feel their hurts. You will bear their burdens.  As Christians, we have that mandate to bear one another’s burdens, which will increase our own pain.

Of course it is easier to keep people at an arm’s length.  Although we won’t understand them or their situation as well, we won’t get hurt either. We know that increased understanding increases our own pain, so we selfishly choose the pain free path – which brings stagnation. As Christians we must accept that increasing wisdom increases pain, but that is the path our Savior took. We are called to this path of pain/wisdom because we are not just working towards a vain understanding and growth that is bound to the earth, but we are striving towards an eternal wisdom that God makes possible.  In so doing, we become more like the one who is eternally wise, the one who bore our sorrows and our afflictions and our pains, Jesus Christ. 

With God, the increased pain of gaining wisdom is the path of growth and transformation. Without God, the increased pain of wisdom is futility. Like the writer of Ecclesiastes, do we discern that apart from God even wisdom is futile.  The more we understand, the more we come face to face with the futility and absurdity of life without God. But don’t let that pain destroy you, let it compel you to seek out God who is the only one who can redeem the futility of life and wisdom.  The writer of Ecclesiastes is so painfully blunt because the wisdom of life is a painful truth that we must deal with. But the good news is that the pains of increased wisdom can be growing pains- good pains when God is involved. 

Sermons in Ecclesiastes: 1:1-11

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 Since my pastoral work dominates my time these days, I thought I would depart from the academic content for a time and move into the more practical/devotional. Over the next several posts, I will share a sermon series in the book of Ecclesiastes. For those not familiar with this Old Testament book, it is found right after the book of Proverbs. (Click here for a helpful video overview from the Bible project).  As you read along in the biblical text, you will encounter some provocative reading because Ecclesiastes addresses the human condition with all its limitations and frustrations. In light of the recent Covid 19 crisis, the war in Ukraine, and natural disasters, the truths of Ecclesiastes really hit home. Much of life is out of control; life is precarious. In addressing the futility and toil of humanity, Ecclesiastes doesn’t do so with easy platitudes and fluffy religion. Instead of explaining away the frustrations of life, Ecclesiastes states the human condition and shakes us up so that we will live wisely and not just live in a comfortable stupor.  

 The book of Ecclesiastes holds a special place in my heart because God used it to shake up my life.  When I was in college and sailing along in life, the words of this book shook me up, and continued to whisper to me, until I totally reassessed my life.

The book of Ecclesiastes is a part of the “wisdom literature” of the Old Testament. The Wisdom books also include Proverbs and Job. They look at life from a human perspective and how life plays out in this fallen world; they guide readers towards attaining a deep wisdom for living.  Much of the wisdom literature is traditionally attributed to King Solomon because of his legacy as being the wisest king of Israel. Ecclesiastes is no different, and verse 1 seems to allude to Solomon: “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.” Despite the tradition, the book is technically anonymous since there were many kings who were a “son of David”. Moreover, verse 1 and the last few verses of the book also talk about “the preacher” in the third person. We hear 2 voices in the book, the preacher (maybe Solomon or another person)– who is a critic of simplistic religious formulations, and the author – who interprets the preachers word so that we are pushed toward God and not fatalism.

Read and contemplate Ecclesiastes 1:1-11.

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. 8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. 11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

(ESV)

 “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher,  “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”  This same saying is found in chapter 12 verse 8. It both marks off the teaching of the preacher and proclaims his main message or conclusion. The author then applies that conclusion to urge his listeners to live in the now and seek God.  This is good guidance for us in these troubled times when the futility of life presses all around us.

“Vanity” here is not “vain” as in someone who is always looking in the mirror or that person who is so vain that they think this song is about them. “Vanity” here (hevel) can also be translated “Futility”. “Vanity” is one of the key words in this book, so it is important to understand what the writer means. The writer clarifies his meaning through a metaphor he often uses with the word “vanity”: “All is vanity and chasing after the wind.” Chasing after the wind is an absurd mental picture isn’t it? Chasing after the wind/mist/smoke is just chasing air, which you can’t catch it. Wind is just air moving and, in case you haven’t noticed, you already have air in your hand. A dog chasing after its own tail paints a similar picture of foolishness. Why does the dog want to catch its tail, and if it does, what does that change? The tail was attached to its body all along.

In the beginning and the end of Ecclesiastes, the speaker speaks this refrain that emphasizes the precarious nature of life. As we go through the book we will see how the author observed many things about life and came to the conclusion that many of the things that we think are so important are fleeting, that life itself can be futile, and  humans are rather small in the grand scope of time. Understanding these things is the path to wisdom.

The 1st observation that the writer makes about life (found in verses 3-11) is that history repeats itself. Life on this earth is the same old, same old, year after year.  Verse 5 notes that the Sun rises every morning and sets every evening. The wind blows, then blows some more. Verse 7 adds that the rivers flow into the sea, but the sea never gets filled up, and yet the rivers just keep flowing. Whether we like it or not the earth keeps turning and turning.

In verse 8 the writer moves on to humanity. Just like the earth is the same old same old, so it is with humanity. We are not satisfied when we see something; we want to see more. Our ears are never filled; we always want to hear more. That is what human life on earth is like and always will be. 

Things in life, just keep going with no foreseeable end. There is a wearisome repetition to life that reaches towards fulfillment and satisfaction but never seems to arrive. We think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but when we get to the other side, we realize that this is nothing new or different.  Verses 9-10 add, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new?’ It has been already in the ages before us.”

This passage of scripture is so relevant to our current cultural climate. We are a people foolishly obsessed with newness and novelty. We always are striving to get the newest and latest thing. If something is new, we assume it must be better. Yet all the fads and trends that are hailed as new, come and go.  Just when they are almost forgotten, they come back around again hailing themselves as new. Think of bell-bottom pants or the mullet hair cut as examples. Verse 11 states it well, “There is no remembrance of earlier things; And also of the later things which will occur, There will be for them no remembrance Among those who will come later still.” 

When you read history books it is amazing to see the parallels between what happened in the Roman empire and what is happening in America today. History repeats itself because people don’t remember. We think the challenges and issues of our world are so different than at any other time in history, but they are not. Pandemics are not new. There was the Spanish flu of 1918 and the bubonic plagues of the middle ages. The same basic challenges of life existed long ago and will exist again. Every new generation arrogantly thinks they are somehow different, or better, or more challenged, but the continual march of history tends to trample those pretenses.  A recognition of this fact leads to wisdom. This is what the writer of Ecclesiastes is driving at in this section of our scripture. Instead of arrogantly thinking that you are the only one to have ever had this problem or solution, instead of thinking that you or the group you are in is somehow extraordinary – Ecclesiastes says, “Not really. In the grand scope of history, it is all rather ordinary.” My son had a t-shirt that summed this up well– “You are unique, just like everyone else.”   

Many read Ecclesiastes and think, “Man this book is a bummer. All this talk about life being vain.  This section about the same old same old.  I just want to curl up into a fetal position and not do anything.”  If that your impression of Ecclesiastes, you have missed the point. This scripture is not intended to arrest your development and your life – but deepen your life and make it wiser. 

What is the wisdom that we need to incorporate into life, and how do we go about doing that? 1) Newness is not the answer. It is futility to live your life waiting for the next new thing or person to come and change your life, because there is nothing new. Very few things will make much difference in the grand scheme of your life. God- he is eternal, and He is the only one who can make any real eternal difference at all. The only new life available is the new life that God offers through Jesus Christ. Romans 6:4 promises, “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Anything other than God passes like a morning vapor.

     Some may object and say, “Well things are a lot different now than in Solomon’s day. We have airplanes and television. We have been to outer space, we have all sorts of medicines to cure illness. All of those things have changed life as we know it.”  Have they though?  Have they solved the deep problems of humanity? This indictment on nothing new does not mean that every little thing is exactly the same, it simply means in the grand scope of time, any new thing is really just a copy of something that has already been around. It means that any improvements are mere window dressing and don’t go to the heart of the matter. We have invented a vaccine for polio, we landed on the moon, we can talk to someone across the globe over the computer, but our short lives still end. Our memories and our accomplishments are forgotten; so has anything really changed that much? We still have the issues of life, relationships, death and eternity. There is nothing new that will solve these issues.

Certainly there are things in life that make a difference for the better or for worse, but when held up against the backdrop of eternity, it shows its own futility. So stop searching for something or someone of this earth to come and transform your life; that thinking is vanity. We think the grass is so much greener and newer on the other side of the fence. So what do we do? Husbands cheat on their wives thinking they just need something new and find out it didn’t solve the inner issue; it changed life for the worse. People purchase the new car or gadget thinking it will change their lives just like the commercials say – but it doesn’t.  People spend their lives thinking if only I could do this, or if only I could have that, if only this happened, then I would have a meaningful life. The book of Ecclesiastes slaps such notions aside the head and bellows, “No, there is nothing new under the sun that will give you a life of meaning; it is futility.” What we need is something above the sun, the creator of the sun, of life, of meaning, truth, and real wisdom. 

Make the choice today – Stop looking for something under the sun for the answers to life – that is futility. Go to the maker of the sun, the maker of meaning, the maker of all things new. Through Jesus Christ, God will make things new for you – He is the only one able to do that. Will we live in this wisdom that is found only in God, or will we spend our lives vainly seeking out some new answer, which is not really new at all?