Journeys of a Former Firebrand

What is most important to you in your life? Is it business success? Is it a thriving family? Is it finding a loving relationship? A new and better job? Being a better person?

How do you answer this question? I mean, this is the meaning of life stuff, right? But the answer isn’t what you may think. It’s much simpler than you may imagine.

To answer this question, let me just say that I truly believe the Book of Ecclesiastes gets a bad rap. Too many dismiss it out of hand as simply a “worldly perspective.” After all, everything is “done under the sun.” How does that pertain to eternity?

Then there’s the part where Solomon declares “All is vanity.” Surely, this shows that Solomon had his eyes set on the wrong things. Wouldn’t you think?

Yet, I propose that Ecclesiastes is better understood as an earthly life lived out with God in mind.  Let me prove it to you. Look at this quotation from Solomon from very early in the book:

¹ There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven— ² A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. ³ A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to build up. ⁴ A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. ⁵ A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. ⁶ A time to search and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. ⁷ A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak. ⁸ A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, NASB95)

Then Solomon follows with this:

⁹ What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils? ¹⁰ I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. ¹¹ He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; ¹³ moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God. ¹⁴ I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him.” (Ecclesiastes 3:9–14, NASB95)

Notice how the earthly existence is contrasted and compared with a godly perspective. An earthly existence is set against the backdrop of eternity. This isn’t the only time Solomon does this. He is simply setting us up for a grand finale.

You see, it isn’t life “under the sun” that is the issue. It’s the way life under the sun is used, lived out as “life under the Son while living under the sun.”

I’m not saying Solomon may not have expressed some of his life mistakes in this book. I believe most of it is biographical. These very well could be the mistakes he made in his own life.

But that isn’t the point. If it is, he failed miserably because he proved so well throughout this book how the temporal fits with the eternal. He showed how earth meets heaven.

How did he do this? That will be the subject of the next post.