Wisdom from Above

In 2003, Mirriam-Webster officially added the word "doomscroll" to its dictionary. The definition of doomscroll is "to spend excessive time online scrolling through news or other content that makes one feel sad, anxious, angry, etc."¹https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doomscroll

News headlines are seldom bursting with good news, right? And the more we scroll on our phones, reading about all of the stuff going on around the world, the deeper our sense of doom can grow. Just so you know, I wrote this introduction before violent images of gruesome murders flashed across our screens this week.

"Doom" does not feel like an exaggeration after this week, and studies have shown a connection between news intake and mental health. The more we know about what's going on around the world, the worse we feel.

I wonder what Qoheleth would say about doomscrolling?

If you weren't with us last week, "Qoheleth" is a title for the main speaker in the book of Ecclesiastes. It's a Hebrew word, rendered as "The Preacher" or "The Teacher" in most of our English translations. And it's a little uncertain whether this is a title for the actual Solomon, son of David, or whether "Qoheleth" is a bit of a historical fiction who is supposed to make us think about Solomon some times, but not others.

In the first couple of chapters here, we're definitely supposed to think about Qoheleth in connection to Solomon. Verses 12 & 13 of our passage today say, “I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 1:12–13, ESV)

1 Kings 3 relates how, early on in his reign, the Lord appeared to Solomon, king over Israel in Jerusalem, and told him to ask for whatever he wanted God to give him. And Solomon asked for an understanding mind. And the Lord said to him, “behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you” (1 Kings 3:12, ESV)

A bit later we read that “God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all other men” (1 Kings 4:29–31, ESV)

That sounds pretty great, doesn't it? I mean, what must it have been like to be that wise, to be a literal know-it-all?

Well, Qoheleth tells us in our passage today. And his first major statement to us is that, much like doomscrolling today, all of his wisdom and knowledge just brought him sorrow. In the end, he actually found wisdom to be meaningless because he found life to be meaningless.

1. Wisdom Is Meaningless Because Life is Meaningless

Listen to how Qoheleth starts to explain this in verses 13-14: “And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:13–14, ESV)

Qoheleth had great wisdom and he put it to work searching out everything that's done under heaven. This wasn't just a passive search. He "applied his heart," the very centre of who he was, to using all his wisdom to figure out all that went on on God's green earth.

And what was the conclusion of his study?

“It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with" (v. 13b).

Some people think that this "unhappy business" refers to Qoheleth's quest itself, as if he's saying "this process of trying to figure out life was an unhappy business." But there's some key reasons I'll share in my notes for why it's better to understand the "unhappy business that God has given to the children of man" to refer, not to Qoheleth's quest for wisdom, but to the things he discovered by his quest for wisdom: namely, all that is done under heaven.²What is the "unhappy business"? The word "it" could refer either to Qoheleth's quest to understand everything done under heaven (v. 13a), or "all that is done under heaven" (v. 14). Against several commentators, I'm convinced that the second is the best interpretation, for these reasons:
- God did not specifically give Qoheleth this task—he applied his own heart to it.
- 1:13 is paralleled by 3:10, where man's work is clearly in reference.
- The second interpretation fits the motif of the Gen. 3 curse, as explained in the message
- Most arguments to the contrary in the commentaries I've read have either been based on fallacies (i.e. Fox, who incorrectly asserts that "neither events nor human deeds… are 'given' to man by God" [Fox, 1989, p. 175], or Greidanus, who over-presses the parallelism and acknowledges no development between vv. 12-15 & 16-18 [Greidanus, 2010, p. 60]) or assertions with no supporting evidence.

Qoheleth surveys all that people do under heaven, all that is done under the sun, and says, in summary of it all, "This is an unhappy business."

This word "unhappy" is very interesting. It's actually a much stronger word than just "unhappy," often translated as "evil" in the Old Testament. But sometimes the word is used, not to speak about moral evil, but about the trouble or calamity or bad situation that God sovereignly allows or even brings to people.

In Isaiah 45:7, God says, “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.” That word "calamity" is the same word as the one in our passage here. Similiarly, Amos 3:6 says, “Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?” "Disaster" is that same word.

Now why God uses calamity and disaster as a part of His sovereign plan is something we've talked about before and won't have time for this morning. But what we do want to ask this morning is, in what way has God given an unhappy or "bad" situation to the people of earth?

The best answer, as far as I can find, is in Genesis chapter 3. “And to Adam he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return’” (Genesis 3:17–19).

This is the great curse that God brought on the earth in response to Adam's sin. Adam will work, he will fight against the ground his whole life, and the ground will win, eventually assimilating Adam into itself as Adam's body gets turned into the soil he fought to get food from his whole life.

That's our situation after Eden. A losing battle against death that repeats itself again and again. And that's the situation Qoheleth is reflecting on. He's reflecting on the fall, on the curse, life under heaven out of Eden.

We get a pretty strong confirmation of this in Romans 8:20. In this passage, Paul is reflecting on the curse of Genesis 3, and he writes that “the creation was subjected to futility" (Romans 8:20), by God.

Paul's writing in Greek, and that word for "futility" is the same word used for "vanity" in the Greek Old Testament version of Ecclesiastes. It seems like Paul is echoing Ecclesiastes and saying, yes, the whole creation is locked in this pattern of futility, of meaninglessness, of temporariness, of never getting ahead, and it all goes back to God's curse on our sin in Eden.

In verse 21 Paul describes the same idea with the phrase "bondage to corruption." Things in this world fall apart as fast as we can put them together. Our bodies are falling apart as fast as they stay alive. The very oxygen we breathe that gives us life is the very thing that is killing us.

Did you realize that? That's why "antioxidants" are advertised so much, because the extra oxygen in our bodies, called "free radicals," is largely responsible for the cellular damage we call "aging." The very atmosphere we breathe is slowly killing us. Nothing lasts.

Everywhere you look, all there is to see on this earth is temporary and futile. Everything is falling apart, nothing lasts, and we'll never catch up or hold on to anything for very long.

I have experienced this reality in so many ways in my life, but perhaps none more dramatically than when I took a sabbatical two summers ago. I've been busy my entire adult life, always having way more I need to do and want to do than I have time to do. My list of incomplete tasks is always way bigger than the list of completed tasks.

And so when I had the chance to be off work for three whole months, I thought, "Finally! This is my chance to get caught up! This is my chance to do all those things that I never have time to do and finally get ahead. And then I'll be able to rest."

And guess what happened? Instead of getting ahead, I got further behind. Because each project that I went to work on opened up new cans of worms. You go to clean the garage, and along the way notice that a tool is broken, and so you fix that tool, which makes you realize that this other thing needs to be done, and by the end of the day, instead of crossing one item off of your list, you've added five more to it. And even though I did get some key things done, I ended my sabbatical with more on my list then when I started. I got further behind, not further ahead.

I renovated my bathroom last summer, and guess what? It's already needing repair in a few places. Nothing lasts.

Moms, you know this. You go to put away laundry, and then you notice something else needs to be put away first, and on the way to putting that away you come across something else, and a hours have gone by and you haven't even put away the laundry, and the kitchen you had all cleaned up last night is a complete mess again.

The farmer goes to start up his combine, and a part breaks, and on his way into town to get that part his truck gets a flat tire, and as he fixes the flat tire he pulls a muscle in his back, and now he's injured and he didn't even get the combine out of the garage.

And Qoheleth looked at all of this and says, “And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:13–14).

In verse 15 he reflects on how there are things in this world that are crooked that can never be made straight. Things are broken that can never be fixed. There is a great deficit in this world, far greater than we can even count. There is so much more we don't have than anything we do.

And this is what Qoheleth sees with all of his great wisdom. A cursed earth, broken and unfixable, empty and un-fillable, filled with people pointlessly pursuing the wind.

And if that's all that wisdom gets you, then what's the point of wisdom? That's the kind of question that Qoheleth starts to ask in verses 16-18, where he doesn't so much reflect on what his wisdom got him, but on his wisdom itself.

Verse 16: “I said in my heart, ‘I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge’” (Ecclesiastes 1:16).

Qoheleth had become surpassingly wise. So what does he do next? Verse 17: “And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly." He wants to understand wisdom itself, as well as its opposite, madness and folly.

But what does he conclude? "I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind." Not only does wisdom see other people striving after wind, but the pursuit of wisdom itself is just more striving after wind.

Why? Verse 18: “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow” (Ecclesiastes 1:18).

He's reflecting here on what we saw in verses 13-15: all that wisdom can see is futility. Therefore, the more wisdom you have, the more frustration or grief you have. The more you know, the more sorrow you have, because the only things you can know under the sun are things that are futile. All you can do is doomscroll.

And so, wisdom itself is just more vanity. More chasing after the wind.

2. Wisdom Has Some Benefit

Now, this isn't all that Qoheleth has to say about wisdom. Throughout Ecclesiastes, we do hear some statements that seem to speak about the value or benefit of wisdom.

7:12 describes it this way: “Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. 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” (Ecclesiastes 7:12, ESV).

For those who live under the sun, wisdom has some advantage, some protection. It has a similar function to money. A practical benefit.

In 2:12-14 we hear, “So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For 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. The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness…" (Ecc 2:12-14a).

There is some gain in wisdom—more than in folly. It's not all levelled out. And throughout Ecclesiastes, we see many more statements that unpack this theme of practical wisdom, and why it's better to be wise than foolish.

In fact, parts of Ecclesiastes sound like the book of Proverbs as Qoheleth shares with his readers the helpful wisdom he's gained along the way. And we're going to read and experience some of that in the weeks ahead.

So wisdom does have some benefit to those who live under the sun. It's not like it's totally pointless.

3. Death Makes Wisdom Pointless

But in the end, because of death, even these benefits of wisdom are short lived and ultimately futile. Did you notice how I didn't finish reading verse 14? Let's hear the whole thing together:

“The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them” (Ecclesiastes 2:14).

It's better to be wise than foolish, even though the same event happens to both. What does he mean? What is that event? Let's keep reading. Verse 15: "Then I said in my heart, 'What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?' And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.” (Ecclesiastes 2:14a-17, ESV)

Let's sum up this paragraph with a question: what's the point of being wise, if you're going to die and be forgotten just like the fool?

Because of the curse on our sin, no matter how far ahead you get in this life, you end up under the same dirt as everybody else. For a time, wisdom may have some utility, but death turns it into futility.

And so wisdom is just one more puff of breath—temporary, impossible to grab on to, and ultimately pointless.

Which leads to Qoheleth confesses to hating life itself. Everything he sees under the sun, including wisdom itself, is "grievous" to him. There's that word for bad again. It's all vain, breath, wind-chasing.

Qoheleth Is Right

So, is Qoheleth right about all of this? Should we trust what he says here?

The answer depends on perspective. On our frame of reference. On Qoheleth's frame of reference. Which means, it depends where you're looking.

Qoheleth has told us where he's looking. Back to chapter 1, verse 3: “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:3). And then he went on to reflect on the earth which remained forever, the rising and setting sun, the blowing wind, the streams and the ocean.

Qoheleth is reflecting on life under the sun: the physical world, the material world we can touch and measure and stick in a test tube. And with that world in mind, he's absolutely right. If you limit yourself to life under the sun, all you see is live, die, be forgotten, repeat.

And in so far as that is true, we should take his perspective to heart.

Our world is filled with information, and people who feel the pressure to know that information, or to be the person who dispenses information. We're so impressed by the experts and the wise people who seem to understand so much.

And Qoheleth says, all that knowledge and wisdom might get you ahead temporarily, but in the end, its all vapour. It's all meaningless. And for those who don't know God, that's where it stops. To every bestselling author, every masterclass teacher, every internet scholar declaring their vast knowledge to a huge audience, Qoheleth says "vanity." Smoke, vapour. Who cares?

And if you are here today, and you don't know God, and all you know is life under the sun, Qoheleth's message is for you. Everything you know in your head right now is going to disappear once you take your last breath. It's all just a puff of vapour. Chasing after the wind.

Qoheleth is Wrong

But that's not where it ends, right? Because Qoheleth isn't completely right. Because "under the sun" isn't everything that it is.

Qoheleth got as far as he could get using only human tools, human eyes, human ears, human brain, and human wisdom. But true wisdom is something that we can't figure out on our own. We need God to reveal it to us from above.

1 Corinthians 1:21 says that, "in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom." Human wisdom can't get us to where we need to go. But God has broken in to life under the sun with His true wisdom from above (James 3:15-18).

And what He's revealed to us is that live, die, repeat isn't everything that there is. He has revealed to us eternal life.

This is a very key point to understand how the book of Ecclesiastes works. Qoheleth—whether it's Solomon or a later author—wrote at a time when God had not fully revealed the promise of eternal life. This will be even more important in the weeks ahead. For much of Israel's history, all that they knew, and all that they had to hope for, was in this life.

It wasn't until the prophet Daniel that we got the clear statement about resurrection and eternal life. And when Jesus came as the true and better Qoheleth, the true revealer of wisdom from heaven, he taught us fully how eternal life is what makes sense of this temporary life. The promise of what's to come makes sense of the chaos of what we so often experience today.

“And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied’” (Matthew 5:2–6).

See, our experiences today, even the futile ones, aren't a waste, because they find meaning in the eternity ahead of us.

And Jesus didn't just teach these truths, He embodied these truths when He died and rose again. He paid the price for the sin that earned God curse, and He rose from the dead to overturn it and offer eternal life to all who would believe.

And this clear promise of eternal life means that the temporary, vain meaninglessness of our world is itself temporary.

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:20–21).

The world is not just going around in circles endlessly. It's headed somewhere—it's headed to glory, the glory of Christ, and the glory of His people who will share in His glory when He returns.

And that means that everything is no longer meaningless. The jobs we do, the ways we love others, the suffering we endure—these are all seeds that will become fruit in the resurrection.

And we don’t need to wait until we die to experience this. The eternal life of the age to come is ours, today.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

And that means that, when we know Christ, we get to start to live in the glory of the age to come already. Eternal life has already begun. Instead of everything being meaningless, everything becomes meaningful with Jesus as our king.

There's so many ways we could talk about how this applies, but let's go in just one direction: talking about wisdom. With Jesus as our Lord, and His Spirit inside of us, we get to experience a whole new kind of wisdom than Qoheleth knew about.

Consider these words from James 3: “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:13–18).

In the kingdom of Jesus, wisdom is no longer a matter of how much information you know or how many debates you can win. True, heavenly, non-futile wisdom is about hearts which have been shaped to look like Jesus.

You might not think you're very smart. You might not think that people think you're "wise." But by the power of the holy Spirit at work in you, if you know Jesus you are on your way to becoming peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And there's a harvest of righteousness ahead of you.

So don't be impressed or intimidated by the temporary wisdom of the world. Press in to the eternal wisdom of heaven.

And a great way you could do that this week would be to read that passage and pray it back to the Lord, making each phrase a request.

"God, keep me today from bitter jealousy. Deliver me from selfish ambition. Make me pure today. Help me be peaceable with these people in my life I'm really struggling with."

Pray this passage to the Lord, and then praise Him for delivering you from meaninglessness and giving you true heavenly wisdom.

And if you don't know Christ, this could be yours. Would you leave behind the vain wisdom of the world and come to Jesus, who died and rose again to give us Himself, forever?