Intro: [gentle music] Welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel is a nonprofit dedicated to the idea that every part of the Bible, Old Testament and New, is about Jesus, and this podcast is our experiment to publicly test that belief. Every episode, hosts David Bowden and Seth Stewart work through a biblical text to see how it helps us see and savor Jesus. Let's jump in.
David: [upbeat music] All right, everyone, welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. We are glad you're here with us in our penultimate Ecclesiastes episode.
Seth: Penultimate Ecclesiasticus.
David: [laughs] Which is-
Seth: Sounds like a spell from Harry Potter.
David: It is. Is it?
Seth: It's not.
David: Yeah, it's not.
Seth: It's just something I made up [laughs]
David: Oh, okay
Seth: ... in this moment. Penultimate-
David: I mean, I... It sounds nice
Seth: ... Ecclesiasticus.
David: Penultimate. That's, that could be it.
Seth: Ecclesiasticus. Anyway.
David: [laughs]
Seth: Um-
David: Well, how are you, Seth?
Seth: Oh, two fistfuls of hevel is, like, all I can say. [laughs]
David: That's how you feel today?
Seth: That's how I feel. Uh, we're selling our house, uh, and moving to a house in Oklahoma City, and I've... I, I, I texted you about this, but it was-
David: Yep
Seth: ... so exhausting. I spent hours finding all these old passwords, calling customer service hotlines, talking to robocalls, like, trying to figure out a way to stop a mortgage payment going to a bank account I've closed, to no avail.
David: [laughs]
Seth: And then to be told, "No, no, it'll be fine, it's not gonna go through," to wake up this morning to realize that it went through anyway. No matter how much work I did, it never got resolved, and no matter-
David: Hevel
Seth: ... how little I did, it also didn't got, get resolved, and now I'm overdrawn on my account. And I'm like, I, [laughs] I, I literally live that verse that we talked about last time-
David: [laughs]
Seth: ... where it talked about the fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh, and now-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... so I did nothing, and my-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... bank account overdrew. And then I had two handfuls of toil, and I went after the robocalls with all my might, and that didn't produce anything. Better would have been a quiet evening at home, knowing I might have to pay an overdraft fee, and let it be at that. And I took comfort-
David: That would've been the wisdom
Seth: ... that would've been the wisdom of Qohelet [laughs] in my life last night.
David: [laughs]
Seth: But I did not listen to it. [laughs]
David: Oh, I love that.
Seth: So-
David: Just bringing it into reality
Seth: Just bringing it into full light-
David: Oh, that's so good
Seth: ... in my life. Yeah.
David: Oh, my goodness. Okay, so help, uh, help, help us, um, kinda recap where we were last week, um, and get us into where we are today, Seth.
Seth: Yes. So last week, we went through ch- from chapter th- three to chapter six.
David: Right.
Seth: And we really talked about what it meant to live in a world of unmet expectations.
David: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Seth: What is the wisdom of Qohelet, the wisdom of God, in a world that never lives up to what we hope it ca- could be for us?
David: Right. Right.
Seth: And that's kind of like... It's a pretty prominent theme throughout the entire-
David: It is, yeah
Seth: ... book of Cl- Ecclesiastes, but there's actually a pretty hard break between that theme, like the unmet expectations of the world, like the autobiography, like the living, "I tried pleasure and wine and morality, and it all just fell apart under me," that kinda takes place in the first half of the book, and in the second half of the book, we kinda shift fo- focus, foci a little bit-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... to not so much about, like, the unmet expectations of life, but asking these op- open-ended questions about-
David: Mm
Seth: ... what is good and what comes next.
David: That's helpful.
Seth: And-
David: Yes
Seth: ... and, like you could probably expect, he kinda set, sets out, like, it's hard to know what's good, and what comes next is unknowable.
David: Yeah. [laughs]
Seth: Like, he does, like, he does the, the Qohelet turn, where it's like, "Well, what is good? Well, what is good is constantly frustrated. Well, what comes next? Nobody can know because we all die."
David: [laughs]
Seth: Like, um, like, he does that thing, but through that, w- asking the questions, inviting us into the hevel of what is good and what comes next, I think he's also pointing us forward to the way, um, we live wisely in this life and can hope in the Messiah, hope in Jesus as well.
David: Okay.
Seth: So.
David: That's a helpful synopsis. Thank you.
Seth: There you go. You're, you're very welcome.
David: Um, so, I mean, at the top of chapter seven, which is where we are-
Seth: Mm-hmm
David: ... we get more of these proverbs, right, which we talked a lot about last week. Um-
Seth: Yes
David: ... these little-
Seth: Like, it's a whole section of them, like, a, almost a half chapter.
David: Yeah, and, and they're, they're proverbs in style, right?
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: They are, they are contrasting, um, what seems to be a way of wisdom and a way of folly-
Seth: Mm-hmm
David: ... and, um, providing kind of, um, uh, antithetical parallel advice, which is a fancy way of saying, like, uh, there's two options before you. One's good and one's bad, and I'm gonna say them in ways that kinda sound similar, you know? It's, it's-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... Hebrew antithetical parallelism is what this is.
Seth: Yep, yep. And so-
David: Um-
Seth: Yeah, that's right.
David: Yeah. So I, I... it's like, uh, a good name is better than precious ointment-
Seth: And-
David: ... and the day of death, um, better than the day of birth. That's actually not antithetical parallelism. Let's see.
Seth: It's... Yeah, so they're not all antithetical.
David: Uh, no.
Seth: Some build off one another.
David: Right.
Seth: And so let's just... Actually, I think one of the most important little sections, or one of my favorite sections in Ecclesiastes, is in these next six verses. So let me just-
David: Really?
Seth: I think... I love these.
David: Oh, man. Okay.
Seth: You don't like these?
David: Oh, well, it's not that. I can't, I can't say I don't like them. They're in the Bible. [laughs]
Seth: [laughs]
David: I just, they're not my favorite part of Ecclesiastes, that's for sure.
Seth: Um, so let me just read them.
David: Okay, read them.
Seth: "A good name-"
David: Read them to us
Seth: ... "is better than precious perfume, and the day of death, likewise, is better than the day of birth. It's better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart." So it's better to contemplate death and to visit funeral homes than to eat great meals. "Sorrow," verse three, "is better than laughter, and by, for by sadness of face, the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." I think these are fascinating passages.
David: Mm.
Seth: And I really love them, one, because I've met a lot of peopleWho seem awesome and really great and hands-on, but they haven't suffered yet.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I've noticed, like, what that does in how they relate to other people, how they lead other organizations or their small group, or, like, just other, like, their wife or their spouse. Like, a man or a woman who has not yet suffered, like, doesn't relate the same way to the world.
David: Mm.
Seth: And so I think part of what Ecclesiast- uh, Qohelet's getting at here is there is a benefit to contemplating the one thing we can know for sure-
David: Mm
Seth: ... which is death and suffering.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so that's one of actually the ways that I've thought about this portion of Ecclesiastes, is like I think what he's getting at in a lot of this, like we just don't know a lot.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Like, we can never know, uh, enough to control the f- future. We can never know the day that we'll die. We don't know what comes after death. We can't control the weather. We don't know how, like, our world works.
David: Mm.
Seth: And he says, "Well, one thing that you can know for certain is death."
David: Mm.
Seth: "And if you look into it a little more deeply, you can understand a lot about life." Um, and I think that's-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... I think that's wise. [laughs] I-
David: That's helpful. Well, I, I think it also is an interesting, like, um, off-ramp out of Ecclesiastes into real life, where you're like, you're, you're, you've finished chapter 6 of Ecclesiastes and you're like, "This is depressing."
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: Like, you know, man and beast go to the same end. Who knows if the, if one spirit goes up and one goes down, and everything is pointless, and all these unmet expectations. And man, I just feel like I'm mourning, and like everything is death and entropy.
Seth: Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David: Like, what wisdom is there in that? And he's like, "Okay, hold on. Let me show you. Here's a series of proverbs where I will show you that, like, there's wisdom in mourning and wisdom in contemplating death. It actually makes you a wiser person-
Seth: Yes
David: ... to live a well-informed about hevel mournful life than it does to live a flighty, happy, disconnected life of whimsy."
Seth: Yes.
David: Yeah.
Seth: That's exactly-
David: That's very interesting
Seth: ... that's exactly right. And he picks up this theme a few different times about, like, the importance, um, um, of death. Uh, he, I think the next section where he picks it up is in chapter 9-
David: Okay
Seth: ... uh, verse 4. Uh, and he c- and he said... Oh, I'll just start in 3. "This is an evil, uh, in all that is done under the sun. The same event happens to us all. Also, the hearts of ch- the children of men are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts [laughs] while they live, and after that they go to the dead."
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: "But he who is joined with all the living has hope, because a living dog is better than a dead lion."
David: Right. [laughs]
Seth: And what I think he means there is, like, a humble, lowly, uh, living person is better than a brash, brazen, dead person.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And he tells us why, "Because the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing."
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: So there's a... So it's better to be living and contemplate death than to be dead and be unable to contemplate death.
David: Mm.
Seth: That's what he's saying. And I think this is a beautiful picture of the gospel.
David: Okay.
Seth: Like, I think this is a... [laughs] Because in-
David: Yeah, walk me through this. [laughs]
Seth: In Christ, we have life in him.
David: Uh-huh.
Seth: But that life is purchased through his death. And in order to be a part of Christ's life, what does Jesus say? We must die. We must be included and be baptized into his death. And what's the, um, the problem with the spiritually dead? They don't know that they're dead.
David: Oh.
Seth: They, they don't know that it is worse to not know that they are dead than be humble and contemplate death as their way to life.
David: Mm.
Seth: And here in Ecclesiastes, he takes it on a more meta level. Like, it's wise to live as if death is the only certainty. There's a wisdom that comes about you. It's wise to consider that. But also in that wisdom is very life, which is what Paul says, "The wisdom of God is Christ crucified."
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: And I think because ultimately why does wisdom, like focusing on death, give us, like, a better quality of life? It's because Jesus Christ himself is pure wisdom incarnate, and he died in order to give us life.
David: Mm. That's good. Yeah, and I... It's, it's interesting, too, that, um... It's an interesting way to think about, like, how, especially as a ministry that constantly wants people to focus on the death of Jesus on the cross-
Seth: Mm-hmm
David: ... um, that I know Christians, especially I would say Reformed Christians-
Seth: Mm-hmm
David: ... are regularly criticized for focusing on all the bloody death, you know, sad stuff of the gospel. You know, why focus on that?
Seth: Yeah.
David: And it's like, well, I mean, there's lots of reasons we could give, you know-
Seth: Right
David: ... out of the gospels themselves, but it seems like Qohelet is telling us that there's wisdom in meditating on the place of death and the mourning of the loss of life. And in the gospel, we see that that is consummately true. Because as we reflect on and live in the mourning of Jesus's death on the cross, we see true wisdom.
Seth: Yeah.
David: That it's through death that we get life.
Seth: That's right. And I think Co-
David: That's interesting
Seth: ... and I think Qohelet sees it just in the way that life normally plays out, like-
David: Totally. He's not making this connection himself right now.
Seth: No, but-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... the average person who has suffered great loss-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... is normally more compassionate.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And what does he say here? F- uh, verse 3 of chapter 7, "By sadness of face the heart is made glad."
David: Mm.
Seth: I was listening to somebody, her name's, uh, uh... She, um, I-She lost, I think, like four kids.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Um, and just like really, really sad story. Uh, but she, you know, she's an author, speaker, writes about grief, like-
David: Mm
Seth: ... pretty frequently. Um, and she said that one of the, the fascinating thing about ministering, speaking to people that have lost, like, loved ones, is that as their sorrow deepens, so does their capacity for joy.
David: Yes.
Seth: Like, some of the happiest people that you'll know, the joy- most joy-filled people that you'll know, are normally the people that have lost a lot.
David: Mm.
Seth: And she said, "I think that's because they know how low they can go, and so the middle of the road feels that much more of a gift."
David: Yeah.
Seth: And the highs feel even higher. And so you just notice joy pouring out of them because they know how deep the bottom can get.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I was like, man, that's straight from the Book of Ecclesiastes. Like, that is a wise observation of what happens to people who suffer, and I think she's right.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I think Qohelet's right, and I think that's-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... baked into the gospel itself.
David: It is, and I think that Paul, um, makes the same argument in Romans 8, using the opposite emphasis-
Seth: Okay
David: ... but it's the same point. He talks about how he does- he doesn't even think that the suffering in this present world is worth comparing, right, to the inheritance that we will get in heaven. It's gonna be so good that by comparison, the bad isn't as bad as I thought it was. It's the same point, that as-
Seth: That is right. You're right
David: ... the depths go down, the heights go up.
Seth: Yes.
David: That as we also reflect on the heights going up, we're able to not ignore the depths that we, you know, currently have to trod through, but we're able to-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... and we are able to walk through them.
Seth: I think that's super helpful for understanding what Qohelet means in so much of his book. I think we, like, talked about, like, this middle way between nihilism-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... and pessimism really, really often, and I think that's, if you were to distill a nugget of truth from Qohelet, I think what you're getting at might be it. Like, a middle way sounds... I don't like the way that sound. The middle way just sounds, like, really, like, um, like-
David: Like a compromise?
Seth: Like a compromise. Like, I don't think that's what he means. I think, like, when you contemplate the depths of suffering and hevel and smokiness and futility of the world, and at the same time contemplate the givenness of life and the goodness of God's judgments-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... when you enter into life, the sufferings w- you cannot compare to the eternal weight of glory-
David: Right
Seth: ... that you will receive-
David: Mm
Seth: ... in heaven. And the great rewards will c- can be enjoyed, not as ends that you-
David: Ends themselves
Seth: ... must have-
David: Yeah. Mm-hmm
Seth: ... at all costs.
David: Oh, right, right, right.
Seth: But as good gifts from the Lord. Like-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... like, I think that con- type of contentment is, like, what the book, the wisdom of the Book of Ecclesiastes is teaching over and over and over again. [gentle music]
David: Okay, so, uh, one of the next verses that come up, kind of to cap off this, uh, proverb section in, uh, the early parts of chapter seven, is this line in verse 13. "Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what He has made crooked?" What does that mean? [laughs]
Seth: I, I, whenever I, I... The first thing I kept thinking is like, "What, what, what's God making crooked? Why is he, like, bending all the-
David: Why is, why-
Seth: ... straight lines?"
David: Yeah, does God, does God make things crooked? What-
Seth: I think what he means, I think what he means is, like, who can undo the curse?
David: Yes.
Seth: Who can undo-
David: Because where did the cur- where did the curse come from? It came from God.
Seth: It came... Yeah. God-
David: [laughs]
Seth: ... cursed Adam and Eve because-
David: Yes
Seth: ... of their disobedience, because of their lack of wisdom. [laughs] Like-
David: Yes, because they-
Seth: ... because of their lack of wisdom.
David: [laughs] Right.
Seth: Because they wanted to define good and evil for themselves, because they wanted to grab something that looked solid but wasn't.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Uh, God curses them to a life of hevel.
David: Yes.
Seth: And so consider the work of God. Who can undo the hevel of this life?
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Who can undo the futility of this life? Who can un- undo the, the enigmatic quality of this life? Who can undo the curse?
David: Yeah.
Seth: And the, the implied answer is no one.
David: No one, yeah. I think there's also some, like, retroactive comments that he's making about all these proverbs that came before-
Seth: Okay
David: ... where he's like, "It's better to do this than this," you know?
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: Um, you know, it's better to, uh... Where's the one about the crackling pot? That one's hilarious.
Seth: I like that one. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools. [laughs]
David: Right.
Seth: This also is vanity. [laughs]
David: And so he's, you know, comparing that to, like, being mournful. You know, the wise are mournful and quiet. You know, fools just get together and laugh and end up bursting into this fire that consumes. Um, anyway, uh, and, and so-
Seth: I just imagined the hyenas-
David: [laughs]
Seth: ... from The Lion King.
David: The hyenas.
Seth: When, like, uh, yeah, whenever, like, uh, Scar is ascending to power and, like, all the hyenas are, like, fall- falling into, like, Hitlerian formation with green fire all around them-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... and they're all laughing at the end, their shadow's on the wall. That's what I'm imagining. [laughs]
David: That's what you imagine.
Seth: That's a good thing to imagine, I think.
David: Yeah. [laughs] That's very good. And so it's interesting that when, when I, when I read, "Who can make straight what He has made crooked," uh, I think it's interesting that I, I think the way of the fool tries to take something broken and say, "No, I could still use this." Like, there's a, like, the broken way of life-
Seth: [sighs]
David: ... I could use to bring me something that I know it can't. Like-
Seth: Yes
David: ... wealth is broken and crooked, but I, I could, I could take it and make it straight.
Seth: But I could figure it out. Yeah.
David: Yeah, I could make it straight, and he's like, "No, th- all these things are broken and bent and don't lead from A to B, and yet what a fool does is he takes what's crooked and tries to make it straight, and he can't."
Seth: Yeah.
David: It's a, it's-
Seth: That's really helpful, actually.
David: Yeah.
Seth: That's really helpful. If the whole world is under a curse, what we always try to do is try to take the cursed world-
David: That's right
Seth: ... and bring about blessing from it-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... live the wise life from it. But, like, you, that's not the way it works.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: You can't undo the curse by grabbing onto the curse. Like, you can't. Like, that's, it's foolishness.
David: Yeah. You can't make sin fulfilling.You just can't. You can try, and everyone does. I try, you try, you know, uh, everyone tries.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Uh, and we just can't make sin fulfilling.
Seth: You can't draw a straight line with a crooked stick.
David: [laughs]
Seth: Like, that's-
David: Right
Seth: ... that's like, that's like-
David: Right
Seth: ... it's like, have you ever tried?
David: Try me.
Seth: Try-
David: Try me.
Seth: Try... Okay.
David: [laughs]
Seth: I'll find a real crooked stick. [laughs]
David: [laughs]
Seth: I want you to draw a straight line. But that's the... And like, and that's why it's foolishness. It's like, oh-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... it's intrinsically unable to happen.
David: Yep.
Seth: It's like, oh, what God has made a square cannot be made a circle.
David: [laughs] Right.
Seth: Like, like, it's like, oh, but no, I can take this square and make it, and it- it'll be a circle for me.
David: Yeah.
Seth: No, it won't.
David: It won't.
Seth: I really, that's really helpful. That's really interesting.
David: Yeah. And so it, there- there's kind of this theme that's then developed throughout this, the rest of this chapter about, um, not only the- the- the line, the firm line between f- fool and wise gets blurred a little bit here. Because in Proverbs it's always like, if you do this, you're the wise person, if you do the opposite of that, you're the foolish person.
Seth: Yeah.
David: But then he, he basically goes on to say that we're all crooked and all, none of us can be made perfectly straight. So in verse 20 he says, "Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins."
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: He's like, at the end of the day, even the wisest, most righteous person on earth sins a little bit.
Seth: Yeah.
David: You know? And like, that's not a shocker to us. We have-
Seth: Well, yeah
David: ... language for that all the time.
Seth: Romans 3:23, like, yeah.
David: Right.
Seth: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
David: Yeah. Or we'll say things like, "Well, I mean, w- I'm only human."
Seth: Oh, yeah, yeah.
David: You know?
Seth: Just, yeah.
David: Like, well, nobi- nobi- nobody's perfect.
Seth: Right.
David: Like, this is not a shocker to us as humans. In fact, I think we endear ourselves to this crookedness a little bit with-
Seth: Mm-hmm
David: ... you know, um, sayings like that. Uh-
Seth: S- yeah
David: ... so, so then he, he, he keeps going in verse 29, "See this alone I found." So this is like his findings from everything that he's talked about. "See this alone I found, that God made man upright." He made him straight, you know, instead of crooked.
Seth: Yep.
David: "God made man upright, but they have sought out their own schemes." And so this is the fall. Like, this is-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... fall language. God created man in his own image, but they sought out wisdom apart from him at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Seth: They made a scheme-
David: Yep
Seth: ... to satisfy their desires.
David: Yep.
Seth: And to-
David: God made something straight, and we made it crooked. And so we're like, "Well, how can God make something crooked?" It's like, well, he, like, that's- that's the choice that we made was to be-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... crooked, and then God solidified it in the curse. [laughs]
Seth: Yeah, it's like we preferred a crooked line to the straight one.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And God said, "Okay."
David: Okay.
Seth: "You can use that, and you can try to draw a straight line with it for the rest, for, for the entirety of creation-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... until I remake it. And that's gonna be, that's the curse.
David: Yes.
Seth: That's the curse.
David: That's right.
Seth: What God has made crooked cannot be made straight.
David: Yeah. And so I think what he's doing here is he's pushing against Proverbs yet again, right? Because he, he, he leans in and agrees with Proverbs on the folly stuff. He's like, "Yeah, folly's death, and it's pointless, and it's unwise."
Seth: Yeah.
David: "And, you know, there's, there's a better way than folly." He's like, "But watch out, because I know you're going to think that you can pursue all the blessings and everything through wisdom, but no one is perfect, so you can't receive perfect blessings and the straight path because you can't be perfectly wise."
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so it's like, well, dang it then, does Proverbs break? Like, if-
Seth: Right
David: ... if no one can achieve this, then how am I ever supposed to be happy and content?
Seth: And it's like really, it's all, it's really, really clear in Proverbs that when you attach yourself to folly, you die.
David: Oh, right, yeah.
Seth: And then it's really clear in Proverbs when you attach yourself to wisdom, you have life. And like, it's, they're two straight lines.
David: Yes.
Seth: Folly, death, wisdom, life, period.
David: Mm.
Seth: And so he's saying, "Okay, yeah, sure. Folly, death. But also wisdom normally leads to death as well." [laughs]
David: Yeah. [laughs] And I think that's the, I guess, w- it, it, it's a weird way to say it, but I guess that's the genius of this section, is that he paints you into a corner where you have to agree with him all the way, that it's like, yeah, it is better to be wise. Okay, good, well, then that's the way to go. And he's like-
Seth: Mm-hmm
David: ... "Uh-huh, but you're crooked too."
Seth: Right.
David: Then you're like, "Dang it, I think you're right." So-
Seth: Right. So what do I do?
David: What's... We all die? Is that the whole... And that's where he goes next. We'll get there in a second. He goes to death next, because that's the end of both the fool and the wise. But we have to-
Seth: It's-
David: We have to-
Seth: Peop-
David: ... finish this thought
Seth: ... we have to finish this thought.
David: Yeah.
Seth: But I also wanna strengthen your point.
David: Okay.
Seth: So if you go back to Ecclesiastes 7:14, he says this, "And I found something more bitter than death, the woman whose heart is snares and nets and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her."
David: Hmm.
Seth: So the reason why that connects, the reason why that strengthens your point is because all throughout the Book of Proverbs-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... folly-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... and wisdom, but folly in particular, are described, is described as a woman ensnaring its victims into a pleasure that never satisfies.
David: Right.
Seth: Into a, a way of life that always leads to death. And so I, I think again, it's... And wisdom is also compared to a, as a woman.
David: Yes.
Seth: And at the end of this section, Ecclesiastes 9, the antidote to trapping yourself with a woman whose hands are chains is a woman that you live your, oh, your wife, that you live your life with, with joy and contentment.
David: Right, right.
Seth: And so that, that same parallel is, he even here in the Book of Ecclesiastes. But let's complete the thought. So this is connecting us to this fact that we are, um-
David: Not perfect
Seth: ... I forgot. Not perfect. We are not perfect.
David: We're all, we're all intrinsically crooked, and we cannot make ourselves straight. We-
Seth: And we've trapped ourselves with this-
David: Yep
Seth: ... lady Folly, and we can't escape from her.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And I mean, if you think about this from the auto- autobiographical standpoint of Qohelet, it's like he spent his life trying to pursue folly and wisdom to see which one could possibly bring him what he's looking for, and he's found out that at the end of the day, he can't even use wisdom as the path to life, which is-
Seth: ... really disappointing-
David: Right
Seth: ... 'cause no one's perfect and God made us upright, but we have sought out our own schemes. And so what are we to do when we live in a world of crookedness and it's full of crooked people and there's no one who can fix it? Like [laughs] that's what he's left us with here.
David: Yes.
Seth: What hope is there?
David: And he even compounds the problem in 8, 8, because we go back, like what's the end of wisdom? Life.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: What's the end of folly? Death. He says, "No man has power to retain his spirit," or like to keep his spirit on the earth, "or power over the day of death."
Seth: Mm.
David: It's like the fact that wisdom doesn't work is proven by the fact that we all die.
Seth: Yes.
David: If you could be wise enough and achieve life, that means no one would ever die.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: So why... So obviously it's not working.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Obviously, you can never be wise enough-
Seth: That's right
David: ... to live.
Seth: We, we came into this life with one hand on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We come into this life cursed and crooked, and we have no way to be wise enough to crawl out of that condition to the tree of life.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: To say it all in Eden language.
David: Yeah, yeah. That's good.
Seth: Yeah. And so-
David: What is the solution, David?
Seth: Yeah. [laughs]
David: [laughs]
Seth: I mean, this is like primed. Every-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... everyone listening is like, if you've been listening long enough, you know exactly where this is going. It's just like we're all sinful.
David: Surely there... [laughs] Yeah.
Seth: We're all sinful.
David: We're all sinful.
Seth: We're all crooked. No one is perfect, and we all, um, we all die, so we need someone who-
David: We're all enslaved to Lady Folly.
Seth: Yeah.
David: So what-
Seth: So we need someone who is wise enough, uh, whom God has made upright, who is not crooked, who is completely perfect, in order to live the perfectly wise life, in order to beat death and actually gain life.
David: Right. [laughs]
Seth: So-
David: Who could it be?
Seth: Who could it be, except maybe Jesus?
David: Yes.
Seth: J- so again, Jesus is wisdom incarnate.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Why? Because he never sins.
David: Yes.
Seth: And because he never sins and he acts perfectly wisely, even when he's enslaved or ensnared by Lady Folly, when she's, he's enslaved by death-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... it cannot hold him-
David: Right
Seth: ... because wisdom is more-
David: [laughs]
Seth: ... powerful than folly.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Wisdom is more powerful than foolishness. So when the truly wise person enters into a world of foolishness, he breaks free.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Death cannot hold him. The fact that Jesus rose from the dead proves that the wise life is actually the path to wisdom and life.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Does that make sense? Like, uh-
David: Yes
Seth: ... the wise life is what brings, uh, actually does bring us life. Because of Jesus, Proverbs is proven true in one sense.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Like, if, if Ecclesiastes is like a, it's a, a polemic against the misunderstandings of Proverbs, Jesus proves that one day Proverbs will be true.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Life will come to those who live wisely.
David: Yes. Right. That's very good. Yeah, I was trying to think of like a, a metaphor for this, but I can't. So this is the really terrible one that-
Seth: Do it
David: ... popped into my head. It's not good, but maybe somebody else can come up with a better one. But it's like, um, if we were, if, if like, if God made us all like sand, you know?
Seth: Okay.
David: And, and then through sin we become hardened into this concrete cube.
Seth: Okay.
David: Uh, then death is a little, like, prison for a cube, and it's perfectly suited to hold that cube, and there's little bars in place-
Seth: Okay
David: ... and there's a lock, and then you're stuck in there.
Seth: So the sand is-
David: And like based on the nature, but based on the nature of the cage, the concrete block is stuck in there because-
Seth: Okay
David: ... death was the proper punishment and, uh, containment unit for the foolish-
Seth: Okay
David: ... which we all are.
Seth: Okay.
David: But then they tried to put Jesus, who never formed into the concrete block, right?
Seth: [laughs] Yeah, yeah.
David: He's the sand.
Seth: He's still sand.
David: They try to pour sand. They pour sand into this like concrete mold holding unit, and it just all pours out because death cannot hold wisdom. Like-
Seth: That's really... I like that.
David: I'm just trying-
Seth: I like [laughs]
David: ... it's not great.
Seth: It's not great. [laughs]
David: But I do like-
Seth: But I like the idea [laughs]
David: ... you get the, you get the point of what I'm trying to make.
Seth: The idea, yes.
David: Where it's like death was this, this, this containment prison made for the foolish.
Seth: Yes.
David: And it received Jesus, and it could not hold him because it wasn't built for him. He's wise, and so he-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... passes through it, like you said, thus affirming his wisdom.
Seth: Yeah. Yes.
David: Oh, that's cool.
Seth: That's very cool.
David: So the resurrection proves that Jesus is wisdom incarnate, is what you were saying.
Seth: Yes. That's exactly right.
David: Oh, that's so good.
Seth: That's exactly right.
David: Well, okay, that is a cool Jesus connection. Why is that good news for us, I think is, is like the next question.
Seth: Right. 'Cause so, so if we... Let's go back to, like, how some places where we started. What do we do with all the hevel that we see?
David: Mm.
Seth: How do we live in a cursed world? If every line is crooked and we need to draw a straight line, how can we do it? How can we escape death? How can we escape not knowing what to do next? How can we escape our constant discontentment?
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: How can we escape that feeling that nothing ever satisfies us? How can we escape the feeling that everything we see is foolishness and not worth pursuing, that's vanity and smoke? The good news of this passage is that there is somebody who came-
David: Mm
Seth: ... who lived wisdom perfectly, who defeated the death and hevel we see, and then is inviting us into that wisdom life when we-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... like him, die.
David: Mm.
Seth: And when we die with him, when we consider his house of mourning, we are raised up with him and given new life. We are given his wisdom by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is a, this is just a side note, but I'm studying the Book of Joshua right now.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: And even in the Book of Deuteronomy and Exodus, the Holy Spirit is called the spirit of wisdom-
David: Right
Seth: ... over and over and over again. So when Jesus down, gives us his Holy Spirit, we're given the spirit of wisdom to do battle with the discontentment that we, we feel, to do battle with the unmet expectations and properly orient our life in a world of hevel. We're given actual life after death. We're given, um, the answers, or at least satisfactory, like...... answers, even if not complete ones, to the questions we can't seem to answer.
David: Right.
Seth: Does that make s-
David: Yes
Seth: ... like all the-
David: Yeah, it does
Seth: ... all of that.
David: Yeah.
Seth: All that.
David: I think like-
Seth: Yeah. [laughs]
David: I think what you're making me, you're making me think two things. One, you're making me think that the, the simple answer to the question, right, there's this question he asked, "Who can take what God has made crooked and make it straight?"
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: And ans- answer that question.
Seth: No one.
David: Well, yeah, but there is one person.
Seth: Jesus. Jesus.
David: Yeah, God.
Seth: Yeah. [laughs]
David: Who, who could take what God made crooked and make it str- if, if, if there was, like, this, this, like, bow in the heavens made of heavenly metal, and God alone was able to build it, then God alone could make it straight again. And so, like, who can take our crooked lives and make them straight? Jesus.
Seth: Jesus.
David: Only God can.
Seth: Yeah.
David: He can actually align us back, and he does this, right, by, like you said, showing us how to live a life of wisdom. And I was reminded, um, of this verse, a very famous verse, Galatians 20, "I've been crucified with Christ," right? The, like, I went into His death. I, I've been crucified with the Messiah, and it is no longer I who live, but the Messiah who lives in me.
Seth: Mm.
David: And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. And so, like, I, I entered into this death that I can't escape, and then come out of it-
Seth: Mm
David: ... with the wisdom of Christ in me, with the spirit of wisdom in me, and He is the one bending the bow straight again.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Like, He is the one showing me-
Seth: Yeah, yeah, yeah
David: ... don't pursue riches to their own end. That way lies madness. [laughs]
Seth: Right.
David: Instead, give... You know, be generous, and, like, that way lies peace. And, like, He's taking me bit by bit through the act of sanctification, right, making me like Him, making me like holy Christ. As He does that work in me, He's taking all the crooked bends out of my life and out of my heart and making them straight again. Like, that's-
Seth: Right
David: ... just another way to think about sanctification.
Seth: It's really-
David: And sanctifi- yeah, sanctification is God taking the crooked and making it straight.
Seth: That's really good, and I think it strengthens... So go to Ecclesiastes 9. So this is the marriage that you're supposed to enjoy-
David: Yes
Seth: ... as a... Go eat your bread with joy. If you, you, ultimately-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... you cannot eat your food with joy without God.
David: Right.
Seth: You will always eat your bread to some... crookedly.
David: Yeah.
Seth: You will always eat it to fill an appetite that will never be satisfied. You'll always eat it because it's from Whole Foods, and that proves you're a better person.
David: [laughs]
Seth: Like, like, you'll, or you'll eat it because, oh, no, no, it's actually from, it's actually from Aldi, and I'm more frugal than those people who go over there and waste their money. Like, the food we buy will actually never be a joyful exercise.
David: Mm.
Seth: The bread, the most basic thing we have, will never be full joy because it will always be proving some other point.
David: Right.
Seth: We're always gonna be trying to self-justify ourselves.
David: Yep.
Seth: Only with wisdom can we eat our bread with joy.
David: Hmm.
Seth: Can we, can we love our wife?
David: Yep.
Seth: Can we truly and best love our wife? Which is, he goes on to say. That's, I, I think that's the wisdom here. And besides that-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... verse 7, "Go eat your bread with joy." It's the first time this, like-
David: He, he's commanding it
Seth: ... he's commanding it.
David: He's not saying there's nothing better than to. This is, this is the only time he's not making the concession, uh, to go and eat with joy. He's making the commandment to go and eat with joy.
Seth: Yes.
David: Yeah.
Seth: I, I mean, I would probably say, like, I, again, like, I don't know if it's ever a concession, but-
David: Right
Seth: ... here, it's definitely a command.
David: Yes.
Seth: "Go and eat your bread with joy."
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: This is what it means to live a life of wisdom. Uh, this is the-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... this is the end result of a life of wisdom. This is the-
David: Yep.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so there's one last thing we have to talk about with this crookedness of the world, and that is, um, great, so God can ra- can take, can kill my old crooked self and raise up a new straight one and, uh, sanctify me, taking out all the crooked bends, and I can live a life of wisdom. Great. Um, famine still exists.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: And that's hevel. Like, you know, uh, premature death and stillbirth and, um, hurricanes and depression and anxiety and despots and dictators, all these things still exist.
Seth: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
David: There's still, there's still problems of justice in the world. In the places I looked for justice, there's still, um, there's still wickedness. Like, the world is still crooked, even if I have been made straight, right?
Seth: Yes.
David: So, like, there has to be hope not just for us as individuals, but for complete recreation of that which is crooked, and that's what Jesus offers as well, right?
Seth: That's exactly right. Because not only does Jesus make us straight right now, He will remake the entire world-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... in the end. The world of hevel, w- the world of smoke, the world of breathlessness, will one day become absolutely solid, and every, and that, [laughs] like, and we will be made perfect. The world will be made perfect, and we can enjoy it with God, perfect wisdom, forever.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Like, we'll never, like, experience the unwisdom of injustice.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Right? Like, we'll-
David: Right
Seth: ... we'll see wise justice played out perfectly-
David: Mm
Seth: ... everywhere.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... I think that happens now, too. Like, that doesn't just happen when Jesus comes. It will fully and finally, but it begins right now as we live a wise life-
David: Right
Seth: ... inside of a world of hevel. Um-
David: Yes. We can cre- we can create little pockets of wisdom or, as we've said before, little pockets of Eden where we live and do justice and act wisely and mourn with those who mourn. We create little pockets of the new heaven, the new Earth right here, right now.
Seth: That's exactly right, and I think that's why in verse 9, verse 10, he says, "Whatever your hand finds to do, doDo it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol to where you're going.
David: Mm.
Seth: Like, once you die, like, there is a, a really hard break between, between the eternity and now.
David: Yeah. Right.
Seth: So work hard now.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: And I think what, I think maybe what we normally assume is that all the work that we do now just dissolves. Like, once we die-
David: Mm
Seth: ... it doesn't, doesn't matter anymore. And Qohelet brings up that point often enough. Like, once you die-
David: Gissomeness [laughs]
Seth: ... it all goes away. Except in Christ, in Jesus, our work and our toil lasts beyond ourselves.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: I think we talked about it last week, right?
David: We did, yeah.
Seth: Where how, like, everything that's built on the foundation of Christ, everything that's built on the foundation of wisdom will pass through a fire.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: And whatever's built on that foundation will remain. So what we build in wisdom now, what we cultivate in, um, wisdom will remain th- into the next life.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Um, and I think that's really powerful. It's like-
David: It is
Seth: ... it gives me motivation to continue to work hard at the things I'm working hard at-
David: Yes
Seth: ... without putting ultimate hope in them.
David: Right. I, I love the image of, um, like, the, the, we, we get this eschatological end times view of, um, the new heavens and the new Earth in Isaiah, and all the kings of the earth are bringing their greatest creations-
Seth: Yes
David: ... uh, to, um, the King of Israel. And, um, they're, they, they, they bring them in, and, like, you have ships from Tarshish, and they were, like, the best ships in the world. You have the, the best wood, the best lumber in the world coming from Lebanon, from the, from the cedars of Lebanon. And, a- you know, and Andy Crouch in his book Culture Making says, you know, like, that will also happen with us. Like-
Seth: Mm
David: ... we as humans will create things in this life, and the best of the best of those creations will be with us in a sanctified form, a purified passed-through-the-fire form in heaven. Like-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... he's like, he, he talks about, like, it was written a while back, but he's like, "I think the iPod is gonna be in heaven." [laughs]
Seth: [laughs]
David: You know, this was a while back. Uh, or the Mini Cooper, you know?
Seth: Yeah.
David: He's like j- he's kinda being a little tongue in cheek there.
Seth: Right.
David: But, like, heaven is not this place that, um, is somehow devoid and lost of all the human ingenuity that we have, um-
Seth: Mm-hmm
David: ... that we've been able to create throughout, um, our, our-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... many, many lifetimes. The, like, God is-
Seth: It-
David: ... is making something that will be sanctified and renewed that we will enjoy forever-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... with him. And he, he doesn't say, "Behold, I'm, like, uh, we're starting over," or, "Behold, I'm getting rid of everything." He said, "Behold, I make all things new."
Seth: Yeah.
David: And we'll have old things that have been renewed.
Seth: Yeah. I'm thinking of two things right now. I'm thinking of a metaphor that might not work, and I'm thinking of a, uh, Tolkien. [laughs] The metaphor that might not work, um, is, um, I'm thinking, like, heaven has its own distinct architecture. So like, maybe, like, hyper-modernist, like, super futuristic type style.
David: [laughs]
Seth: Angles, huge windows, kinda like, you know, like the mid-cen- Like, kinda like I'm imagining The Incredibles, like, the mansion in Incredibles 3.
David: Oh, yes, yes.
Seth: Like, that kinda thing. Like, that's heaven's architecture.
David: Incredibles 2.
Seth: Incredibles 2? I don't know.
David: Wasn't that a 3?
Seth: It's a 2, whatever.
David: Ugh.
Seth: I think it's 2. It's the last-
David: Learn to Disney, bro
Seth: ... the last one. [laughs] They all have trilogies now. It's like it's hard to keep up.
David: Finding Dory only has two. Finding Nemo-
Seth: Uh, fine. Okay. Um-
David: [laughs]
Seth: There is a, a wisdomly architecture to everything that's built in heaven.
David: Okay.
Seth: And on the Earth, and it's, like, straight lines, because straight lines, what c- what, God makes things straight. And on the Earth, normally our architecture is crooked. It's wobbly. It's ramshackle. It's falling apart. But there are some things on the Earth that have that heavenly architecture to them. They stand out against the-
David: Right
Seth: ... crooked, falling over bits of building that we normally try to make for ourselves. And so when the fire comes, when Jesus returns, all that's crooked and lopsided falls away, and everything that conforms to that wisdomly architecture of heaven remains-
David: Right
Seth: ... and is, brings in. I was like, that's a cool picture. I like that idea.
David: Yes. Wisdomly architecture.
Seth: Wisdomly architecture.
David: Yes.
Seth: And then the other one was Leaf by Niggle. Have you-
David: Uh-huh, yes. Oh yeah, J.R.R. Tolkien's-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... little short story
Seth: ... so he talks about a little, a man. His name was Niggle, right?
David: Niggle, yeah.
Seth: His name was Niggle.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: And he spent his life trying to be an artist.
David: Yep. He-
Seth: And he-
David: ... got infatuated with this vision of a perfect tree, and it was his life's desire to paint that tree to utter perfection.
Seth: And he went through iteration after iteration after iteration after drawing after drawing, and at the end of his life, he dies having painted one leaf.
David: One leaf. [laughs]
Seth: One leaf. [laughs] And when he gets to heaven-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... he's like, he's on a train going-
David: Yeah, I think so
Seth: ... through heaven, and he makes the train stop when he sees his tree.
David: It's his tree.
Seth: And it's not just one leaf. It's the whole tree. It's millions of leaves, and it's dozens of feet tall. It's exactly how he imagined it in his vision.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: Also, that, that's what Qohelet's inviting us into, the new Cre-
David: Yes
Seth: ... what Jesus is inviting us to.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: What Qohelet demands we hope for-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... in a world where nothing lasts beyond this life, is that all of our desires and hopes that were made with wisdom find their completion in heaven, even if they're incomplete on the Earth.
David: Yeah. And I think maybe one of the most solid ways to talk about that using Qohelet's language is that he, he keeps inviting us to feasts and to eat. And, like, one day, we're, we're gonna eat with Jesus forever. And, like, in the same way that Niggle's little leaf turned into a whole perfect tree, the perfect meals we can come up with, you know, will be the one leaf on a tree that is so much more magnificent than we could have ever imagined. And what's served at that meal is not just food, but Isaiah paints this picture of, uh, sitting down to that meal with God, and there's this tray that's brought out, and there's this writhing thing on it, and the little topper's taken off-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... and served to God, and it's death. Like, death is sitting on this silver tray, and it says that he swallowed up death forever.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: So the amuse-bouche at this meal-
Seth: [laughs]
David: The first thing served at this marriage supper of the Lamb, where we will sit down and eat our everlasting Edenic meal with God, will be, um, capped off by God swallowing up death and evil forever, and it will just be gone. Like, this, uh-
Seth: Amen. [laughs]
David: It's, it's fun to think about. I think, and I think, like you said, I think Qohelet demands us to flex our hope in times like this. And so I think it's, I think it's appropriate that we've allowed ourselves to get a little imaginative about heaven here, because, um, you know, if I was a preacher, I would say something like, "Because the only antidote to hevel is heaven." [laughs]
Seth: [laughs]
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