In last week's sermon I mentioned four keys I had found helpful in understanding the message of Ecclesiastes. I will be referring back to these periodically in our sermon series, so I thought it would be helpful to list them in print for easier access.
1. Ecclesiastes is Complicated
Ecclesiastes resists any attempt at simplification. It is not linear or systematic. Little is black and white in Ecclesiastes. There is no consensus on the structure of Ecclesiastes or if it even has one. At no point can you devise a short summary of the message of Ecclesiastes. However, I think this is actually a strength rather than a weakness. Ecclesiastes is seeking to answer no less than the meaning of life and life, the universe, and everything is really complicated. Ecclesiastes is grappling with these ultimate questions in an honest way and when we look at the world it is complex. We are meant to engage in a journey along with the Preacher in Ecclesiastes and to feel and experience his journey along with him. It would be dishonest if it were made simple and we should not expect easy, packaged answers.
2. Ecclesiastes is Contradictory
Ecclesiastes is often contradictory. I discovered that many commentators have minimized the contradictions in the text to make Ecclesiastes more manageable. More negative passages of the book are glossed over to make the message more palatable. Others take the opposite approach and emphasize the negative parts attempting to build the case that Ecclesiastes is trying to show bad the world is when God is removed from the equation. I think both of these approaches are flawed because the positive and negative points are too intertwined. We have to be willing to embrace the tensions inherent in the text if we are to properly grapple with the argument of this book.
3. Ecclesiastes is Wisdom Literature
Ecclesiastes is part of a bigger genre of literature called Wisdom literature. Examples of Wisdom literature in the Bible include Job, Proverbs, Lamentations, Song of Songs, and many of the Psalms. Wisdom literature is also found throughout the literature of the Ancient Near East.
Like any genre such as science fiction or romantic comedy, we have to understand the rules and conventions of the genre to understand what the author is trying to tell us. Wisdom literature centers on observation. The writer makes observations about the world, discovering order a mid the chaos and then instructs others how to live in harmony with that order. The focus is very much on the here and now and practical advice. Wisdom literature does not focus on events and history but on universal truths. In this way it is very different from much of the rest of the Old Testament.
The Old Testament is a mostly a story involving God's intervention in the world, particularly God's historical redemptive acts. By contrast Wisdom literature is not a narrative and is the closest thing we find in the Old Testament to theology. Wisdom literature is interested in repeating patterns rather than historical events. It seeks to be ahistorical and I think this is one reason why Ecclesiastes seems relatable to modern readers.
Many Christians are bothered by Ecclesiastes because it lacks the strong theme of redemption that is found throughout the rest of the Bible. However, this should not be surprising as Wisdom literature places the emphasis on God the Creator rather than God the Redeemer. We find evidence for this emphasis in the heavy use of words and concepts from the book of Genesis by the author of Ecclesiastes. Genesis tells the the story of the fall. Ecclesiastes will explore the consequences of the fall and tell us how to live in the fallen world. In this way, Ecclesiastes is a very this worldly and practical book. In many ways Ecclesiastes can serve as a counter balance to a church whose teaching has increasingly focused on escaping this world and therefore has difficulty being relevant.
4. Revelation is Progressive
God did not deliver Christianity fully formed. Christianity developed as part of a narrative that takes place throughout a long period of history. As events unfolded and God acted, more and more details about God's purposes and plans were revealed. The Bible moves from the story of creation, to the fall, to the emergence of sin into the world, to the history of Israel, to the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and to the second coming. At each point we learn more and more about the character of God and His plan for redemption.
Jesus tells us that many prophets and righteous people longed to experience what the disciples experienced. The Old Testament believers looked to God in faith, as the book of Hebrews tells us, but the content of that faith was not as well defined as it is for us. Most Old Testament believers thought that God was in a special relationship with them and God would one day act to save them from their oppressors. What this would look like and the consequences of God's actions were not known. So when we read Ecclesiastes we find that the author has some concept of a future judgment but is unsure of what will happen after death. The doctrine of resurrection was something that had not yet been revealed to the writer of Ecclesiastes. This does not mean that the author contradicts scripture as some suppose. It only means the writer comes at an earlier point in redemptive history.
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