Ecclesiastes

Happy Saturday! This blog post is a little different to things I might normally share so bare with me, I hope you enjoy reading!

A good friend of mine recently recommended I listen to Tim Mackie's Podcasts called Exploring my Strange Bible. I'm so glad I did because he discusses themes and meanings in real depth but so clearly, which is particularly good for people like me who can find reading the Bible quite challenging! Over the last few week's I have been listening to his series on Ecclesiastes and have loved it, so much so that I've listened to each episode about three times and each time I heard something new. I thought I'd summarise what I've taken from exploring this book in the old testament, mainly for my benefit to come back to. Obviously, a lot of what I will write has been inspired by Tim Mackie's Podcasts so I'd really recommend giving them a listen. I'm also hoping by the end of this post I can spell Ecclesiastes without thinking about it… Thank the Lord for spell checker!

Honestly, before I read Ecclesiastes I didn’t know a lot about it. And when I first picked it up it seemed like a very negative book… see the quote below, Ecclesiastes 1.1 :

1 The words of the Teacher,^[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

² “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”

The speaker has a very depressing outlook on life, and it can be quite hard to read. However, having listened to Tim Mackie’s podcasts and read into the book in more depth it’s purpose is much clearer. The book helps us to reflect on our life 'under the sun' as it is referred to and see that our toil and actions are meaningless without God being the centre.

The word meaningless is used a lot in this book, and the original Hebrew word is 'hevel'. This word is used to mean a number of things but it's literal Hebrew meaning is ‘smoke’ or ‘vapour’. We can see smoke, but the moment we try to grasp at it it’s gone. It is fleeting and temporary. We might experience beauty and goodness in life and just when we are enjoying it tragedy hits and that joy is gone. Another way this word is used is to refer to an enigma or paradox. See Ecclesiastes 8.14 below:

¹⁴ There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.

There are perhaps events on earth that for us as humans are beyond our understanding. Some things just don’t make sense. The word hevel was used to help us see that actually life isn’t meaningless, we just can’t grasp what that meaning is. This brings me onto what Tim Mackie calls “The Myth of Religious Fulfilment”. As Christians we believe follow God for a reason, so that life is enhanced and ultimately we get something out of it. We believe life will be better and we might face less problems. 

As part of this life we are very aware when things go wrong. We know what our expectations are when these expectations aren’t our reality, when perhaps life has gone somewhere we’d really have hoped it wouldn’t go. At some points in our life we might question really why are we following Jesus? This wasn’t the plan. When prayers aren’t answered it becomes difficult to believe in God. But what if God isn’t the problem? What if really, we’re the problem. This is where the Myth of Religious Fulfilment comes in because really, despite us following God and living Jesus filled, life doesn’t always go to our plan. This is our understanding of justice. If we do something, we ought to get a certain result. Does it always work like that? No not always, but why? It’s beyond our human understanding. It’s hevel.

We can see contradiction in the Bible. Mackie speaks of the three wisdom books in the Bible; Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. He references this verse Proverbs 3.5:

5Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

6in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight. ^a

7Do not be wise in your own eyes;

fear the Lord and shun evil.

8This will bring health to your body

and nourishment to your bones.

This sounds great! If I follow Jesus I’ll have straight paths and strong bones. This is the Myth of Religious fulfilment. It’s very easy to take the book of Proverbs as a book of promises, and then we are disappointed when perhaps these promises don’t become our reality. But the reality is that it is a book of proverbs, not promises. Generally, if we live life according to Jesus we might be more happy and content than those who perhaps are seeking to lie or steal. But it doesn’t always work like that. Proverbs 13.9:

13 The light of the righteous shines brightly,

but the lamp of the wicked is snuffed out.

Again, does this always happen? Not at all. Take a little look at Job. Chapter 9.20:

20 Though I am righteous, my mouth will condemn me;
Though I am guiltless, He will declare me guilty.

Job was a righteous man who experience huge amounts of suffering - that’s a post for another day, but it demonstrates this unjust pattern of life. It seems as though justice is real according to Proverbs but we can see there is contradiction within the book of Job. These inconsistencies drive us to have doubts and questions which we cannot answer due to our human limitations.  By bringing these questions humbly to the father we can have an honest relationship with God.

Religious fulfilment reverses teaching in the bible. We’re so set on working out God’s plan for our lives and inviting him into our dreams and visions. When these don’t work out we are frustrated. Really the bible tells us that God has a story of redemption and a plan to save his people, this is where we have a role. We want God to be working for our benefit but really we need to be working for God’s benefit. For his glory, not ours.

We forget that God has promised life for us. We live as though these 70 years are all we have. We’re constantly striving for more and for deep levels of contentment. Is this level of contentment actually possible? Meg Jay references Charles de Montesquieu in her book, ‘The Defining Decade’ and I think this message is SO important:

"If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are."

We strive for this prime level of happiness which is impossible for us to reach. The moment we reflect on this and accept that we can’t tick that box, that’s then we start to enjoy life. 

The author of Ecclesiastes concludes with this in ch 12v 6-8:

6 Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; 7 then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. 8 “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!

From listening to these podcasts and reading Ecclesiastes, I believe that the message of this book tells us that our pursuit of all earthly things to find meaning in life amount to nothing unless they are done so to bring glory to God. These things might even be good things but unless they are pursued for God’s sake they have no eternal value. A ‘chasing after the wind’ as the writer puts it. It teaches us to accept this life of hevel and that patterns in our life are out of our control. Ecclesiastes teaches us to live joyfully by placing God at the centre of our life and activities, by being honest with our human capabilities, and embracing the wonder of existence from God. I believe it teaches us to embrace and enjoy the little things in life friends, family, good food or days when the weathers great. When that happens we can enjoy life as we experience it, rather than looking at what we might think it ought to be. When we have complete trust and hope in God that one day he will clear away the world’s hevel and bring justice to our world, it inspires us to enjoy life in the every day and helps us to accept that we cannot understand life’s mysteries.  

Phew... we made it. I've tried to summarise the main points that I took from the podcasts into one blog post, which hasn't been easy! I'd defiantly recommend giving them a listen as Tim Mackie explains it all a little slower, and perhaps a little clearer than I've tried to do here. Honestly I think I've scratched the surface with this book because every time I read it I find something new.

This post was a little different to normal so I hope you've enjoyed reading, thank you for stopping by!

Emily xx


https://bibleproject.com/explore/ecclesiastes/


https://podtail.com/en/podcast/exploring-my-strange-bible/ecclesiastes-part-1-hevel/