JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on Biblical Theology. What do we do with the Book of Ecclesiastes? Are these the words of a pessimist? How can a book like this bring help to the followers of Jesus? Today, Jason and Tom talk about this remarkable book, and the great help the Preacher’s perspective brings to God’s people.

TK: Welcome to GearTalk, I’m Tom. I have Jason with me. Good morning, Jason.

JD: Good morning, Tom. Good to be back.

TK: Today we are talking about—well, we’ve been, we’re kind of setting up a series on things Solomon wrote—and we’re talking about the Book of Ecclesiastes. We introduced this last week. Jason, I think for a lot of us, if we read maybe notes in a study Bible, we’re sometimes going to see words that we don’t have a category for. We don’t use them in any context. We maybe don’t even know how to pronounce them. So there’s two before we start, and if we can—I know we touched on them last week—but I’m going to pronounce them the way they appear when I read them in English. And if you, if you can just say, “Yep, this, well, this is actually how we might pronounce it,” or what it means and what to do with it. How does that sound?

JD: Sounds good.

TK: Alright, so frequently,when we’re encountering Ecclesiastes, we’ll read something that looks like—when I read it in English—it looks like Qoheleth. What is that and how do we pronounce it?

JD: Well, you just pronounced it. Qoheleth is the title, a vocational title of the main speaker in this book of Ecclesiastes. Sometimes it’s rendered the Preacher as in the ESV. In the NIV, he’s called the Teacher. But this term Qoheleth, it’s from the verb qahal, and it’s in a participial form, a feminine participle, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a feminine person. Vocational titles are usually grammatically feminine, and so we have this one who assembles. That’s very literally, qahal is the term to assemble or to gather, and it’s the term that stands behind our word for the church, the gathering. In Greek, it’s rendered ekklesia, which is where we get the term “Ecclesiastes” from. It goes from Greek into Latin into English, but—so the term Qoheleth, or sometimes Qohelet, is the title for the main voice who’s giving us all this poetic wisdom. The sage in this book whom I want to argue is not a pessimist, but a realist and godly wise man. Qoheleth. The Preacher, the Teacher.

TK: And could you imagine if someone’s using this in their preaching and teaching, being able to faithfully teach through this book and never having to use Qoheleth as a name?

JD: Yes, absolutely. I think using the language of the Preacher or the Teacher is absolutely fine. But it can help our people to know that part of his title is that he’s one who gathers. It’s that he’s actually one who—like, what does a teacher do? He doesn’t only show up ready to teach, he has to have the people present. Otherwise it’s not teaching. And so part of his role was actually to be an assembler of those who are ready to learn. And—but whether we call them the Assembler, or the Preacher, or the Teacher, I think all of those are fine. And I don’t think in our preaching, we would ever have to use this term, Qoheleth. Just explain what it means, and then use the main term that’s ever found in your—that’s found in the English translation from which you’re preaching.

TK: Okay, second term that we might see, and the way it’s spelled out, we talked about it last week, but it’s spelled out and it looks like hebel, H-E-B-E-L in the English transliteration. So, get us there, how do we pronounce this, and what would you argue this word means?

JD: So, hebel, and without a line under the—actually with, sorry—the B sound is a soft B. So, it sounds like a V, and so it’d be pronounced—sometimes it’s even spelled H-E-V-E-L—and, but hebel by—at the base meaning—it just means a vapor, breath, breeze. It’s—but then the question becomes, and that’s the term that stands behind the main heading, the main motto in the book, in the ESV, it’s “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Or in the NIV, “Meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless.” It’s this term, and it’s repeated over and over again. At base, it means breath or vapor, but the question becomes, Tom—oh, and I’ll just add this, it is the name for Adam and Eve’s son who was murdered by Cain. His name was, we call it, Abel, but in Hebrew, it’s just Hevel. Hevel. That’s his name. And I think that’s actually standing behind this book, that part of the purpose of this book—and even repeating it in this Life Under the Sun, in this Cursed Age—is wrestling with, like, if we just pause and consider, how are we to understand Abel’s life? Was it vain? Was it meaningless? Or is it just a life we can’t understand? Why God would take him out so quickly, allow him to die so unexpectedly? Or is it that his life was so fleeting? And those are three different, sorry, four different possibilities for how people actually interpret this book. When we say that this—everything is a vapor, everything is a breath, do we mean it in the sense that it’s actually empty? There’s not much to it, namely vain. Or do we mean it’s actually empty in the sense of pointless? Or do we mean that it’s like a vapor that’s fleeting? It’s here and then it’s gone. So that “Temporary, temporary, all is temporary.” Or do we mean that it’s a vapor or a breath in a way that it can’t be grasped? Like it has no content, I go to to reach out for it and I can’t get a hold of it. In what way does the Preacher in this book intend us to understand that everything is like Able? Everything is a vapor. What does he mean when he says it? And it could mean something more negative, emptiness, pointlessness.

TK: Vanity, the way we’d use that, yep.

JD: Or it could mean something more potentially neutral, where it would be enigmatic, hard to grasp, a mystery, or fleeting, something that is here and then gone. And I want to propose that even as we’re entering into today’s podcast, that we look at Ecclesiastes 11 and look at verses seven and eight. Verse eight in Ecclesiastes 11 ends with the statement, “All that comes is a vapor, is vanity” in my ESV. And in what way is all that comes this breath? What does he mean? Does he mean pointless? Does he mean empty of meaning? Does he mean fleeting? And I think this passage helps us see a number of things that what the author means by this word, hebel—namely vapor or breath—what he means by it is not meaningless, is not pointless, is not futile. What he means is not even temporary, but something else. So let me just read these verses, Tom, as we enter in to wanting to get our minds around the wisdom of this sage. “Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.” Sweetness and pleasantness, Tom, are not words of emptiness and pointlessness. There is meaning here, there is content. “Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.” I’m going to come back to this verse, I hope, at the end of our podcast. But my point at this moment is simply to say, this is not a life without meaning. This is not a life without essence, joy, substance. No, there is a sweetness that can come when you encounter light. There is a pleasantness that can come when you have eyes to see the sun. Now, in my ESV, it says, “so,” but I don’t think that’s a good conjunction at all, because this is the conjunction “for” or “because.” And later in the podcast, I want to unpack the logic, but I’m just going to read it now as I think it should be read. “Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.” Why? “For, if a person lives many years, he ought to rejoice in them all. But let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vapor.” Now, he says the days of darkness are many. That’s not fleeting. That’s not temporary. That’s many, many dark days. Days when we can’t see the sun. Days when we hope for light and it’s not visible. But there is a sweetness to seeing light. Not only because it means the darkness has passed, but it readies us for future days that will be many when the darkness will persist. The fact that there is darkness, that’s a statement of meaning. This is not fleeting. This is not empty. No, it’s many dark days. And yet, it says the person who lives many years—those aren’t fleeting years, those are many years—ought to rejoice in all of them. And we’re going to consider the logic of that passage later, but my point is that whatever he means when he says, “All that comes is a vapor,” it can’t mean meaningless. No, his life is filled with meaning. His life is not vain and empty. No, there’s substance to it. And this life is not fleeting, temporary. So don’t even worry about the pain because it’s just gonna pass. No, it’s many days of darkness. And so what else could this term mean? When he says, “All that comes is breath, all that comes is vapor.” And as I said last week, I’m gonna propose that what he’s talking about is the mysterious reality of God’s providence. All that comes is beyond what we are able to grasp, mentally, physically, in our soul. We don’t understand all of God’s ways. So even as we’re entering in here, one of the verses that is on my mind, one of the passages is at the end of Romans 11, “Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable are his ways!” We can’t fully evaluate them. We can’t dig into the depths of all that God is doing. For every one thing that we understand, God is doing a thousand things more, both through the joys and the pains of this life. “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? Who has given a gift to him that he owes us back, that he should be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things, to him be glory forever.” I think that that’s the theology that stands behind the backdrop of this book. And so I want us to enter in with this mindset that everywhere the ESV says “vanity,” everywhere the NIV says “meaningless,” I say no, that’s not what this Preacher means by vapor or breath. What he means is I can’t fully grasp all of God’s ways, and God intends it to be that way for a purpose. And I want to get inside of this sage’s wisdom to understand what is that purpose of God so that in a world that doesn’t always make sense, I know how to live, in a way that pleases God and that works for my joy. That’s where I think the Preacher is going, and that’s where I want to lead us today.

TK: Perfect. And we talked about this last week. There are certainly—you will see times where people would see the author here as a pessimist, or the Preacher as a pessimist, and you are clearly not arguing that direction.

JD: Correct. He recognizes that this is a broken world. And so by that I mean—I’m saying he’s not a pessimist, he is a realist. This is a hard world, this cursed world we live in. And it’s hard for believers and non-believers alike. And I believe that the sage in this book is a believer who’s living in a very real world, the kind of world where you and I are living in, Tom, where those that we love turn from God, where those that we love get sick and die. Indeed, like the animal dies, the person dies. And it’s hard to understand God. How do we free ourselves from this curse? We are so ignorant about what’s coming next. We wake up thinking all is well, and by the end of the day, there’s tears in our pillow. And that is just real life. We wake up to celebrate our daughter’s birthday, and we find out about one more person, a close friend who just died in a car accident, or just passed away through cancer. That’s a story that I’ve lived, and it’s the real world. It’s when we seek to adopt a child, and we’re not allowed to bring that child home, where the womb gets filled with a baby, and all of a sudden, halfway through pregnancy, that baby dies. This is a hard world to try to understand. How do we keep going ahead? How do we move in faith, trusting in this God? What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to respond? And why is God doing things the way that he is? I think that that’s the world this Preacher is wrestling with. And that’s what makes this book so relevant for believers today.

TK: All right. Well, this really helps, Jason. So take us from this spot then, kind of the spot you’ve started, and take us where we’re going.

JD: All right. Well, just a basic outline of the book. You have the title up front, often called a prologue, in 1:1, where we just find out that these are the words of the Preacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem, and then we have the epilogue, or the conclusion, in 12:9–14. So there’s a frame. There’s the title, and there’s the conclusion, and then we move one step in, and we see this repeated refrain, this motto, “Everything that is, is breath, or vapor.” Everything. And we see that in 1:2, and then at the very end of the book, in 12:8, we see the repetition of that statement. Then we move one tier in, and we see in chapter 1, it opens with a poem, and chapter 12 ends with a poem. So there’s this intentional structure with introduction and conclusion, then the framed refrain, and then a poem with the front end and the back, and then in the middle, from 1:12 all the way to 11:6, we get both this Preacher’s investigations of life and the conclusions he draws from his investigations. That’s how I see the structure of this. So from 1:12–6:9 are his investigations—he’s asking questions—and then from 6:10–11:6, he’s clarifying his conclusions. So we’re going to be looking both …

TK: So you could almost divide the book in half.

JD: Yes, you can, I think, divide the book in chapter 6, in half. We get the statement in 6:9, “This also is breath, this also is vapor and a striving after wind,” or as I said last week, a shepherding of wind. And I use that language very intentionally, and we may bring that out later in this podcast. But then you get these transitional statements, “Whatever has come to be has already been named by God. It’s known what man is and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he,” it sounds like Job. “The more words, the more breath, the more vapor. And what is the advantage to man? For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vapor life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?” Those two questions, Tom, get us, I believe, to the heart of this book. What does it mean that everything is vapor? It means that—first question, who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vapor or breath life? Who knows? What’s the best decision? In the end, it’s so hard to know. Choice after choice, we’re having to make decisions, and we ultimately don’t know what’s best, but we’re trusting the one who does. Second question, who can tell man what will be after him under the sun? We can’t predict what’s going to happen in the next generation, let alone what’s going to happen in the next week. All of a sudden, this morning, I find out there’s Korean forces, North Korean forces, joining arms with the Russians to battle Ukraine. All of a sudden, the heightened world tension has risen, and right at the time when US government can’t focus on anything but the presidential election.

TK: Right.

JD: And we don’t know what’s going to come next week, but we know who holds next week in his hands, and that this book is getting to that core issue. So, that is, everything in this world is an enigma. God’s ways are unsearchable. His judgment is inscrutable. He’s not asking us for counsel. He’s calling us to trust, to fear. And that’s where this book is going to lead us at its core. All of the questions that the Preacher raises lead him to say, “We don’t know what’s going to be tomorrow. God has left us ignorant on so much. It’s even a struggle to know what decisions to make. And yet, this I tell you, fear God. Fear God. It’s the beginning of wisdom.” So Tom, if we could open our Bibles to chapter 2, this is where I want us to start. And it really, I’ve got a three part outline today, the need for realism. This is the Preacher’s call. Be realistic about reality. Number two, he’s going to give us a rationale for that kind of thinking. Why should we approach life in a realistic way? What benefit is that going to be toward us? The right rationale. And then, in the end, the proper response in the midst of this world. So this is a world view book, and this is going to be a world view podcast as we consider the Preacher’s message.

TK: That’s—I think this is terrific, really helpful. Before we get there, why would he, as—so, we talked last week, we said this is Solomon, likely. Why is he choosing this title and not choosing Solomon?

JD: I’m not absolutely certain about that, Tom, but I think there’s enough signals for us to know that it’s him. And it elevate—one possibility is that it turns our attention off the man and focuses more on the role.

TK: That’s what I was thinking.

JD: That Solomon’s own life is a mess. And he’s now coming, though, as the God-appointed leader of Israel, to assemble those who are ready to learn to gain from his own wisdom.

TK: That’s good.

JD: And so it focuses more on him as the assembler on the task of laying out wisdom for people so that we maybe don’t get distracted by, “but isn’t this Solomon?” So we enter in to chapter 2. He says something in verse 11 that I want to use. Right after he’s identified how great his kingship was and how he sought to find purpose in so many things. He says in Verse 11, “I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was enigma.” A shepherding of wind. He couldn’t grasp what he was seeking. And there was nothing to be gained under the sun. Now this is a striking statement. Nothing to be gained under the sun. The qualifier is under the sun. It doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be gained, but it means in this world there’s nothing to be gained. If there’s anything to be gained, then it has to be related to a different world, not this world under the sun. And that’s where he goes in the very next verses. “So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. What can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.” Now this is striking. There’s nothing to be gained under the sun, but there is gain in light. There’s nothing to be gained under the sun, but there’s more gain in wisdom than in folly. The very fact that there is more of anything—more gain in one thing than in another—clarifies we are talking about a meaningful world, not a meaningless world. There’s measures of gain, but under the sun, no gain. But if there’s still gain in wisdom, and there’s gain in light, then that gain must be related to a world other than the world under the sun, that you and I can actually participate in even as we live in this cursed world. That we can have gain, but it’s a gain that reaches beyond this cursed world to, I would propose, the next. That is the vision of the Preacher. He then says, “The wise person has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.” So under the sun, there are certain individuals called the wise who can see light. But the fool is always in darkness, even though he’s living in the same world. Now, both the fool and the wise, he’s going to go on immediately and say, “I perceive the same event happens to both of them. They’re both going to die.” That’s part of central to under the sun theology. It’s that death is reigning in this world, and the life of Abel is the chief example of that. He is living in the age of death. “On the very day you eat of it, you will die.” Adam and Eve’s sin brought destruction into the created sphere, and the culmination of that destruction is death. And it’s something that comes to believer and non-believer alike. And it’s something that infects and affects everything that we might pursue. Job, title, wealth, big library—and that library could be books, it could be videos, it could be music—a large wardrobe, a fancy car, all of it? No gain, no ultimate gain. Why? Because it’s going to rust, it’s going to break down, it’s going to come to an end. And so it raises the question, what’s the point? What’s the point? And he says there is more gain in wisdom than there is in folly. There is more gain in light than in darkness. I turn now, Tom, to chapter 7.

TK: Can I stop you before you? You used a word there. When we talked about striving after wind, and you said shepherding.

JD: Yes.

TK: So can you just tell us, was that intentional? Or what’s your thought there?

JD: It truly is intentional, Tom. The many—what I’m going to draw attention to here is something I haven’t seen pointed to by many others. But the root, in Hebrew, as in English—every word has a root. And the root that stands behind this word rendered “striving,” or in the NIV, it’s “chasing after wind”—striving after wind, chasing after wind—the root is the same root for the term “shepherd.” Shepherd, as in to shepherd sheep. So, this term, this phrase, “A shepherding of wind,” is repeated some seven times in this book—or a related phrase. And it raises the question: What does he mean? And it’s the comparison, though, to “All is vapor.” In what way is it vapor? Vapor—a chasing after wind, a striving after wind, or a shepherding of wind. And so we see this phrase repeated, and it’s associated continually with this key word: hebel—vapor, breath. And I think it’s helping to give clarity. In what way are we to understand it? It’s not that it’s meaningless, that is, empty. It’s not that it’s here and gone, fleeting. It’s that I can’t grasp it. It’s like trying to get control—life is like trying to get control of the wind, to guide it where I will, to oversee it. And I can’t oversee it. That’s not my role in this world. God has made me such that I am not the shepherd of my life. But when we come to the end of this book, in chapter 12, it’s the only other place outside of these phrases where this term, this root, shows up again. And it says: “The words of the wise are like goads, like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by One Shepherd.” So I think that this is a very intentional wordplay. Wisdom finds its source in One Shepherd—which I think, at one level, is shorthand for God himself—because he is the One, he is the source of all wisdom. But this phrase, “One Shepherd,” only occurs elsewhere in Scripture in relation to the Messiah, in relation to Jesus. In Ezekiel 34 and in Ezekiel 37, it specifically speaks of how God calls himself the Shepherd. But when he talks about the One Shepherd, this is the one Messianic, royal, Davidic ruler whom he will raise up to oversee the covenant of peace—the everlasting covenant with his restored people. And it’s this title, “One Shepherd,” that Jesus claims in John 10. He is the One Shepherd, and he has sheep that are not of his fold. And in the context, it becomes very significant because he says, “My sheep,” and that would include both ethnic Israelite sheep and Gentile sheep—nations’ sheep. “My sheep hear my voice. I know them. They follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand.” So he’s obviously talking to sheep that are concerned about their protection, that are living in a world where there are enemies all around, where they have no control. And Jesus is saying: “I’m the One Shepherd who’s in charge of all. I am the Shepherd, and if you’re my sheep, you will hear my voice, and I will know you, and you will follow me.” And I think he has the Book of Ecclesiastes in mind. Wisdom finds its source in the One Shepherd. So in a world that doesn’t make sense to us—where, for us, it’s like trying to shepherd wind—I can’t get my hands around it. I can’t grasp it. It’s continually frustrating, and broken, and sad, and grieving. In that world, part of our responsibility is to recognize that we are simply to trust and follow the One Shepherd, who is shepherding all things well from beginning to end. So, that repeated refrain—“All is breath or vapor,” that is, all is enigma, all is a mystery, a shepherding of wind—I think those two phrases are working side by side to give clarity to a central meaning of this book.

TK: That’s really good.

JD: So, Tom, we’re going to, we turn to chapter 7. We learn that there’s no gain under the sun, nothing to be gained under the sun, but there is more gain in wisdom. Now we read in verse 11, “Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun.” But it’s only the wise who have eyes in their head to see the sun. But those who see, for them, wisdom is good because it’s accompanying an inheritance, a future. And then it says, “For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.” So the preservation of life in a broken world, in a book that is saying, death comes to the wise, death comes to the fool. In that context, there is a preservation of life that can happen. It reminds me of Jesus saying, “Some of you they will kill, but not a hair of your head will perish. That is the wisdom of this godly sage. The very next verse moves us into the second half of this realistic world. First half, nothing is to be gained in this life, but wisdom provides gain for the future. That’s where our inheritance lies. Second principle of realism, God has made the world crooked, and this making of God makes it impossible for us to fully grasp his purposes. Here’s what we read, Tom, verse 13 and 14. “Consider the work of God. Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity, be joyful. And in the day of adversity, consider, God has made the one as well as the other. So that man may not find out anything that will be after him.” So, two things to draw attention to. First, the absolute sovereignty of God in the theology of the Preacher. “Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what he has made crooked?” This cursed world has been made so by God. As we read in Romans 8, where mataiotes shows up, this Greek translation of the term for hebel, “the creation was subjected to futility. And it was subjected, though, in hope.” So, it’s not Satan who subjects the world to futility in hope, nor is it mankind having the ability to, through their sin, subject the world to futility in hope. No, this is, this passive points to God as the subject. God subjected the world to this context of enigma. Frustration, frustrated mystery. God subjected it to that, but he did so in hope. In 11:5, it says, “You do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones of the womb—in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” And the God who makes everything in this passage, in 7:13–14, is the God who makes prosperity and the God who makes adversity or evil. “In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other, and he’s done so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.” God is creating moment by moment this world in a way that forces us to be faced with a dilemma. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I can think I know, but if I say, “Come, let us go to this town tomorrow,” we should say, “If God permits, we’ll go to this town tomorrow.” Because our very life and breath is held in the hands of God. We should embrace every opportunity to enjoy a Chipotle burrito and celebrate a child or a grandchild’s birthday. In the day of prosperity. Rejoice! But when the car accident or the loss of job or the miscarriage or the cancer come, we should not say this is catching God off guard. No, we should recognize this, too, comes from the hand of our Creator. He is still in charge. He is still on the throne. And because of that, I can have hope. If my pain is not causing God to—his purposes to be thwarted, if his purposes are standing, then I can be certain that in my crying out to him, out of my desperation, that his purposes won’t be thwarted. But if Satan is somehow thwarting the purposes of God in my pain, then how can I be certain that God’s going to be able to help me in my need? The theology of the Preacher is that God is absolutely in charge, and this should cause us to tremble, because it forces us to recognize our smallness. And we, so that it says, “that man may not find out anything that will come after him.” A few—in the very next chapter, in 8:17, he says, “I saw all the work of God,” both the good and the bad, “I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. How much ever man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.” That is the world that we are faced with, the realistic world, that there is gain in wisdom, but not gain in this life. And that God has made the world crooked such that we are left ignorant of the totality of his purposes. We are left small in this world. We are left dependent. We are left radically needy. That is the realistic world. And so then we are faced with the challenge. We can either cry out to him for help, or we can spurn him and go our own way. But regardless, we can’t control what’s happening today or what’s happening tomorrow. And so it raises the question, why would God do it this way? And that leads us to the second point that I want to consider. But I’ll invite you here, Tom. Any reflection?

TK: The thought that I’m making a choice here, how am I going to live under the sun? That phrase—I think you say in an article—you wrote that phrase under the sun appears 29 times in the book. So that idea that I can’t choose the nature of this world, and I can’t stop it from being what it is, that what God designed this life under the sun to be. But even if I reject God, I still lack the ability to shepherd the wind. I cannot say, I’m going to walk my own path. The Preacher is saying, you still lack this ability. You cannot do this. It makes us as dependent—like you said, small creatures say, “I have no other choice than to live in this world that you gave us, but I need something that is more powerful than me to be able to joyfully live in this world. I need a shepherd.”

JD: I need a shepherd. And I need to not be seeking to flee from him but to seek to follow him.

TK: I’m thinking all of us have arranged details in our mind that if only this happens or when this happens, then I will be happy or then I will be able to prosper. Take your pick, whatever your plan was. We arrange all the puzzle pieces the way we want them to be arranged, thinking this time I will get it right. And then something happens that’s different than we thought. Is it possible to walk this life with joy? Is it possible to shepherd this wind in such a way that I can prevent any of those things from happening?

JD: Those are the fundamental questions of the book, and it shows why this Preacher is actually talking about our reality. He is at the end of his life, having had all that the world could offer, and yet recognized it was like shepherding wind for me. I have been forced to make a decision, and now he’s calling the reader to make that decision as well. For this podcast, Tom, I’m going to draw attention to just one more verse, and then we’ll pick up here next week. But I’m going to go back to chapter 3. Right after the Preacher just notes, in this world where God makes everything, he says, “For everything there’s a season, a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build.” There are times to weep, but even in this cursed world, there are times to laugh, “a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, but also a time to sow; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; there is a time for war, and there is a time for peace.” And within his theology, God is the maker of all. And so now we come to verse 14, and he’s reflecting on what God is doing in this world, and he says this, “I perceived that whatever God does,” including making things crooked, “I perceived that whatever God does endures forever.” It’s lasting, meaning you and I can’t change it. Nothing can be added to it. He’s the ultimate mover. He’s the decisive agent in all things. Nothing can be added to it, nor can anything be taken away from it. And then here’s the answer key for us, Tom. At least the start of an answer. Why does God make the world broken such that you and I feel so small and can’t understand why God is doing the things the way that He is? God has done it …

TK: I’m just reading, “God has done it so that people fear before Him.”

JD: So there’s the revealed will of God in making the world like he has. And just to recall, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. And it’s the wise who have eyes in their head with the ability to see the light. And so light in this book is going to—it’s really being used if the fools are all walking under the sun in darkness. What it means is that light is figurative for the goodness of God. Grace is pouring out upon the world, but only the wise are able to see it as grace. Only the wise are able to see that God is in charge. And the beginning step toward being wise is to fear him. If you can fear God, the eyes of your heart are being opened. But what Paul says is a world filled with sin, a world filled with recklessness. Romans chapter 3, it says “there is no fear of God before them.” They don’t fear God. That’s the problem with the world. And in doing so, the eyes of their hearts are dark, and they don’t recognize the amazing grace of God in helping us look small, so that we can recognize that he is big. He is glorified as the great helper. We are fully satisfied as that helper meets us in timely need. He sets up this world so that we are forced on a cyclical pattern of life to look to him, to fear him, to trust him. We are forced to either flee and remain in the darkness and just either put our hole in the ground and suppress the truth, acting like all is well, or that I’m in control of everything, that I have the end of my destiny, or that this life is all that there is, or we’re on the other side, given the opportunity to fear God. “I perceive that whatever God does, he has done it so that people fear before him.” What God has made crooked, no man can make straight. “In the day of prosperity, rejoice. In the day of adversity, know this: God has made the one as well as the other, so that people do not know what’s coming next.” God has done it so that people will fear him. And just as an entrance into the Book of Ecclesiastes, this is step one in the most fundamental aspect of all of human existence. We are small, God is great, and we need to fear him. Not fearing him in a way that calls us to flee, but fearing him in a way that moves us to long for what would happen if we fled. Recognizing him is the only source of help, the only source of hope, the only one who can satisfy us in a broken and cursed world. This is the message of the Preacher in this book, and there’s so much more to consider, but he’s not only portrayed the realistic world we live in, he’s given us his first rationale. Why would God oversee the world the way that he does—this real, beautiful, but broken world—why would he do it? So that we would fear before him. And so I pray that God would help all of our hearts increasingly fear him. Not in a way that moves us to flee, but in a way that forces us to follow a reverential trust that he is in charge and that in Christ he is for us. So that when we see—face a rebellious child, a chemically imbalanced sibling, a miscarriage in a daughter, a loss of job in a father, a debilitating sickness in a grandmother, a failure of a pastor, we say, “Oh God, help us fear you. Where else can we go? You alone hold the words of eternal life. We can’t understand this world that you are making. But where else can we go? You are the only answer. And greater are you than he who is in the world. So we will hope in you in the midst of this curse. We will hope in you in the midst of this brokenness. Though we do not have answers, we will fear God.” And it will move us then to not flee from him. It will move us to follow him. And it will free us, as we’re going to see next week, to find joy. It will free us to find joy even in the cursed world. Grounded in the fact that we have a God who is for us, and who has created a future for all who fear him.

TK: I was talking to a mentor of mine when I was pastoring. And I called him one day, and I described a situation, and things in the church were going bad in this area, just facing a difficulty. And I called him up and I said, “Have you ever faced this before?” And he laughed, not in like a cruel laugh, but yeah, he said about five times. And then he said, “It’s gonna go bad.” And then he just paused and he said, “You’ll make it, it’ll be okay.” And it was weirdly exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. You know, because what I’m looking for kind of is that what’s the perfect wisdom that prevents this sort of thing from ever happening, calling in the midst of a crisis and somebody saying, “Yeah, I faced that. All of them have been deep and hard and you’re gonna make it, it’s gonna be okay. But don’t think the okay-ness is making it go away.” You do have to walk through this, you know, this life under the sun. But able even to see that God had shepherded him through it was hope in that situation.

JD: Amen. That’s a good word.

TK: Well, thanks for listening today. Jason, thanks for sharing. This has been really, really helpful and I look forward to next week.

JD: As do I, Tom. Thanks.

TK: Okay.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. For more resources related to Biblical Theology, visit handstotheplow.org or jasonderouchie.com. Be sure to check out our show notes for links to resources on both sites related to Ecclesiastes.