©Laura Haverkamp
Chapter 7:15-20 (ESV) - In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.
Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
Question to consider: What does it mean to be pragmatic?
Ecclesiastes is definitely not one of those books from which you want to cherry-pick life verses. Proverbs are quotable and succinct, but this book has an overall purpose which must be kept in the forefront of our minds as we go through these passages. Solomon is playing the part of the teacher of the assemblies (Qoheleth). The word, ecclesiastes, is derived from the Greek and denotes the same idea.
The ultimate purpose of Solomon’s teachings was to drive people to the worship of God. To make this point, he continually moves back and forth between a life of wisdom and a life of vanity. In all of the parts where he talks about the characteristics of the wise man, he points the assemblies back to God. In all of the parts where he refers to vanity, he deals with some form of humanist philosophy and demonstrates why it is meaningless.
I’ve always found the television show, Friends, interesting because the characters seem to embody the vain philosophies of Ecclesiastes. Unfortunately, the show glorifies the vanities and makes a mockery of the very thing that Solomon expressed as true wisdom. This book opened with the human philosophy of Intellectualism (Ross Geller) which glorifies academic achievement and knows more than everyone in the room. When found empty, Solomon moved on to Hedonism (Joey Tribbiani) which made pleasure the highest pursuit.
Solomon then moved on to the person driven by their toil who doesn’t care about anything other than winning (Monica Geller). The result of that work brought us into the vain philosophy of those consumed with wealth and status (Rachel Green).
Returning from his foray into wisdom, Solomon comes back to his vain life, and having experienced the good and bad cycles of humanity, dives into Pragmatism (Chandler Bing). The idea is that one should take the practical approach to life when considering our actions.
Because of all the injustice under the sun, the pragmatist observes that the person who only pursues righteous things seems to win an early grave whereas the wicked seem to live to an impressively old age. If someone wants to live long enough to influence the next generation to fear God, the pragmatist argues that it’s okay to set aside your ideals as long as you don’t do anything so wicked that you lose your soul in the process. Someone who holds to this view believes that they’ve lived a pretty good life, and their good deeds outweigh their bad ones.
While they recognize that a person benefits greatly from wisdom, they justify taking moral shortcuts with the adage, "Nobody's perfect." Tomorrow, we’ll dive into Solomon’s reaction to this vanity.
Dear heavenly Father, help us to be like Jeremiah who was faithful to give Your word despite having kings, false prophets, and priests working against him. You promised him that You would protect him like a fortified city against the whole land, and Christ has promised us He will be with us until the end of the age. May this promise shine in us like a light in this dark world. Amen.