The book of Ecclesiastes has left its mark on history. Shakespeare referenced Ecclesiastes in the opening line of Sonnet 59. Abraham Lincoln quoted Ecclesiastes 1:4 in his address to the reconvening Congress on December 1, 1862. In Tolstoy‘s Confession, he talks about how it affected his life. The title of Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, was taken from Ecclesiastes 1:5. Herman Melville said it’s the “truest of all books.” The testimony could continue. Few books of the biblical canon have left such a widespread mark on notable figures in history.
Ecclesiastes irresistibly grabs image-bearers from across every spiritual-religious-philosophical tribe and seizes attention like no other book. When you read it, you’re thinking, “That’s exactly what life under the sun looks like. I was trying to explain it, and I was tongue-tied.” Its message is timeless. It gathers the atheist, Buddhist, secularist, agnostic, and believer, and takes us all to a timeless school together. For that reason, it’s a book that must be preached.
But it can be tricky. Walt Kaiser rightly observed, “No book of the Bible has been so maligned and yet so misunderstood as the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes.” It’s doubtful that any book has experienced such a wide disparity of interpretation as Ecclesiastes. How do we handle passages like, “I hated life” (Eccl 2:18), the fate of man and beast is the same (Eccl 3:19), “But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed” (Eccl 4:3), and “Better the miscarriage than he” (Eccl 6:3)? Those don’t sound very Philippians-like. How should we preach those? You can guarantee that congregations are gasping for the oxygen that Ecclesiastes provides when we rightly handle such passages.
By God’s grace, I recently finished my doctoral dissertation on Ecclesiastes. My advisors suggested giving some suggestions on preaching the book. Here are seven of them, along with recommended resources.
Read and Reread Ecclesiastes
First, read the book at least a few times before you consult commentaries. This is an obvious one. When I begin a new series in a book, I’ve been tempted to crack the commentaries first. But best to not. When it comes to getting to know Ecclesiastes, nothing beats reading it.
It’s like visiting vs. reading reviews about a great new restaurant in your town. You can read the culinary commentators all you want. But, until your tastebuds swim in the offerings, it’s hard to know firsthand.
It’s the same with Ecclesiastes. Set the commentators aside for a bit. Dive in. Taste the tastes, see the sights, and feel it out for yourself. As the beloved Dr. James Rosscup used to say, “The Bible can shed a lot of light on the commentaries.”
Remember the Nature of Wisdom
When preaching Ecclesiastes, remember the nature of biblical wisdom literature. When it comes to the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, expositors ought to keep at least four things in mind.
First, if Proverbs is undergraduate wisdom, Ecclesiastes is graduate-level. Proverbs lays out life’s general predictabilities, Ecclesiastes life’s aching perplexities.
Second, wisdom literature beckons us to embrace a high view of God; God as the sovereign King; the inscrutably sovereign Lord of the universe. “Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps” (Ps 135:6).
Third, wisdom is not a code to share sovereignty with God so that we can unlock the idyllic life. The Bible shepherds us to know what wisdom can and cannot do. Wisdom cannot make us more sovereign over a Genesis 3 world, but it can make us more skillfully rested in it. Wisdom teaches us that those who are not sovereign cannot steer he who is. Wisdom tells us that the exercise of wisdom will never oblige God to our wish-list. God’s sovereignty is untamable by man. “Consider the work of God, for who is able to straighten what He has bent? In the day of prosperity be happy, but in the day of adversity consider— God has made the one as well as the other so that man will not discover anything that will be after him” (Eccl 7:13-14).
Wisdom is not a tool to make man more sovereign, but to make him more humble; a more skillful worshiper of God in a backward and broken world.
Fourth, wisdom is OK with disturbing you. It’s fine with the appearance of a mess; it rebels against the tidy rules of ideological feng shui. “Better is the miscarriage” (Eccl 6:3). The wisdom of Ecclesiastes isn’t worried that it may seem to clash with Philippians. It’s fine with disturbances to idyllic Christian norms. It’s OK with the darker hues and minor keys of life. It tells us that things are often backwards from what they should be. “I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all” (Eccl 9:11). So, interpreters should avoid attempting to philippianize Ecclesiastes.
Respect Ecclesiastes’ Unity
Third, when preaching Ecclesiastes, consider the coherence of the book. Some views suggest that the book is a smattering of cynical sayings; a mishmash of contradictions and conflicting views. It’s probably best to rethink that. As you read the book, ask, “Are there textual and thematic parts in place to suggest that Ecclesiastes is a concise unit? Is it like a taken-apart car with the pistons, heads, wiring, and manifold scattered across a yard? Or could it be a well-ordered sermon from Solomon himself?” It could be, and it is.
Others suggest that there are multiple authors lobbing their opinions into the book. But just as we do well to see the coherence of the book, we should see the coherence of a single human author. Taken from a surrendered hermeneutic, a single human author, Solomon, makes the most sense.
Keep an eye out for the next post containing the final four principles for preaching Ecclesiastes.
The post Seven Principles for Preaching Ecclesiastes (Part 1) appeared first on The Cripplegate.
