In Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:26, as we learned in the previous post, the Teacher tries out seven different roles, each one an attempt to find the meaning of life. So far, he has tried the Philosopher, and found it comes up empty. Now the Teacher takes on the role of the Student. Look at what he says about this role in Ecclesiastes 1:16-18.
The Student attempts to find meaning in life by acquiring wisdom and knowledge.
How many of you are students? I am a student, having just started the dissertation phase of doctoral studies. While the Student role is definitely related to those who like traditional academics, like the people who tear their hair out trying to get masters degrees and doctorates, many people are students in other ways. You don’t have to go to school or have college degrees to be a student. This is the reader, whether that is the newspaper, or articles online, or magazines, or blog posts or books of all kinds. But there are other kinds of students who have a thirst to learn in different ways, such as the travelers, finding new places, or the person who watches documentaries, or listens to podcasts.
But in this role, the Teacher says, the pursuit of the student is endless and fruitless. There’s always more to learn! As the phrase goes, “the more you learn, the more you realize what you don’t know.”
Dorsey says that the role of the Student “only makes a person more painfully aware than ever of his or her abysmal ignorance to the point of life.”
So the Teacher said that he tried out the third role, the Party Animal, which he describes in Ecclesiastes 2:1-2.
The Party Animal attempts to find meaning in life by just having fun! How many of you would admit to being the party animal???
This could certainly be the person who loves to throw actual parties or go dancing at the club. But it is also the thrill seeker. The sports enthusiast, the one who loves entertainment of all kinds. Movies, TV shows, the great outdoors. This is the comedian, the jokester and the prankster. I watched a video this week of the magician David Blaine who tied himself to 50 huge helium balloons that carried him up over 20,000 feet. He had to use a special breathing technique to make it through the high altitudes where oxygen is dangerously thin. This is the person who seeks to see how far they can push their body, like those crazy marathon runners.
The Teacher concludes that for the Party Animal, fun and laughter provide no meaning to life either, because after the party is over nothing has been gained.
So the Teacher continues, and he takes on the role of the Alcoholic. Read Ecclesiastes 2:3.
This person attempts to escape the pain through wine. Dorsey translates this verse like this, “I tried dulling my senses with wine and embracing folly, until I thought, ‘What good does this do during a person’s fleeting days?’ ”.
So there is no doubt that alcoholics are in view here. But it is not just alcohol. In our day we might expand that a bit and call this role the Addict, because there are many ways that we try to dull our sense and escape and try to find meaning in the world. Addiction comes in many shapes and sizes, doesn’t it? TV shows, movies, sci-fi, fantasy, porn, exercise, dieting, nicotine, drugs, sex, shopping, you name it.
This, too, the Teacher discovers is a dead end: the nagging question of the meaning of life cannot be silenced with wine or any other source of addiction. There is an emptiness deep within that cannot be filled.
But what of a more productive method? The Teacher, in the final three roles, definitely makes a turn toward roles that seem very positive, but they, too, have a dark side.
Ed Ames a provocative song in 1968 and it just might resonate with you today. Take a look:
In case you didn’t catch it clearly, here is the chorus:
If the soul is darkened by a fear it cannot name If the mind is baffled when the rules don’t fit the game Who will answer? Who will answer? Who will answer?
The song is asking, “How do we find meaning in life?” In a world that is filled with so much pain and trouble and dark, difficult questions, how do we find meaning? But the song stops short of an answer. The song just asks the question. Who will answer?
That question is exactly what the Teacher in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes is asking. Last week we studied chapter 1, verses 1-11, and the Teacher started off with the phrase “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless.” Not an encouraging beginning to a book of ancient wisdom. But as I wrote here, the Teacher almost certainly did not intend to tell us that life is meaningless. Instead, he is describing how life is fleeting. So that leaves us with a question: what is the meaning of life?
Through the rest of chapter 1 and all of chapter 2, the Teacher plays seven different roles, seven people who each seek the meaning of life in their own way. As we meet these seven kinds of people, I want you to know that I am indebted to my Old Testament professor, David Dorsey, for his explanation of this section. Also, as we meet the seven seekers of meaning, what we will find is that this section of Ecclesiastes is almost like an ancient personality test. Some of you have taken the Disc profile or the Enneagram or the Taylor-Johnson temperament analysis. Well, think of this as the Ecclesiastes Profile, and see if you are like any of these seven.
First, the Teacher takes on the role of the Philosopher. Read Ecclesiastes 1:12-15.
The Teacher says that the Philosopher is the person who attempts to find meaning in life by discovering the big picture. In Verse 13, he “explored by wisdom all that is done under heaven.” That’s a pretty big picture.
This person doesn’t have to be a classically trained philosopher. Instead it might be the person who has the personality of a philosopher. This person is a questioner, a person who is quick to examine below the surface of an issue, wondering if there is more to the story. It might be the person who gets interested in conspiracy theories. It might be the person who just wants to know “Why?” or “How?” Philosophers are the curious ones, the ones who don’t like it when a situation or rationale doesn’t make sense. The philosophers among us want to a world that fits together. So they ask even more questions:
How can God always have existed with no beginning? How did the universe come into being? Do we have free will or is everything determined, and we just have the illusion of free will? Why is there so much evil and pain in the world? Couldn’t God have created a world free of all that hard stuff, or at least a lot less? Why did Jesus have to die? Was there not a better way to save the world? And on and on the questions go. In recent months the philosophers among us are asking, “Where is Jesus in the craziness that is 2020?”
In the end, the Teacher tells us that he found the role of the philosopher to be an impossible task, a heavy burden. The big picture, the philosopher realizes, cannot be discovered. There are so many unanswered questions. But maybe you are not the philosopher. Check back tomorrow as we see what role the Teacher tries out next!
Around ten years ago, I’d been pastor for a couple years, and we had a series of months where someone from our congregation died every month. In a couple of those months, two people died in the same month. A total of 8 people passed away in that stretch, and I did all the funerals and interacted with a lot of grieving family members. I wasn’t prepared for it. It rocked me emotionally, and the result was that I couldn’t stop thinking about death. I remember watching the NFL that fall, thinking, “Look at those healthy athletes…they’ll all die.” When I was driving, I was thinking, “I could have an accident anytime…and die.” I started seeing death everywhere, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I didn’t like it. I tried to avoid it.
It didn’t matter, quite frankly, at that point, that I had the hope of eternal life, because death was totally freaking me out. Basically I was embodying what the teacher says here in Ecclesiastes 1:1-11, and I was scared. But along with the Teacher, I came to realize that staring the reality of death in the face is exactly what we need to do. Rather than be scared of it, rather than try to avoid it, we hold the truth of death and the fleetingness of life close, and we add hope. We add hope that says with the Apostle Paul in Philippians 1, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” We can live hopefully in the face of death.
With Paul, we bring a Christian perspective to this passage, something that would have been genuinely new to the Teacher in Ecclesiastes. The Christian view, rooted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, says that there is a hope of both abundant life in the here and now, and well as eternal life after death. We are a people of hope, who live in hope.
From a Christian perspective, therefore, these verses should remind us of the need for our hearts to be turned towards Kingdom things. Life on earth is fleeting. Time will pass quickly. As I write this in summer 2020, I cannot believe our oldest is married, and he and his wife already celebrated their first anniversary. Our baby girl is about to start high school. In October we will start our 19th year here at Faith Church! Time passes. Life is fleeting.
Because life is fleeting, let’s ask ourselves: what are our lives focused on? What we do with our thoughts, our time, our efforts? Let them be Kingdom focused. There is hope and not despair when we focus our lives on the things of Christ. Don’t let fear, despair and hopelessness hold you back. I think many of us do that. Instead, keep your eyes and your hearts on the things of the Kingdom, not on the things of this earth. That is where the good stuff is. Keep your hearts focused on the things of God. Ask yourself, What does God care about? How can you care about those things more? What do you need to remove that gets in the way? What thoughts about yourself? Your surroundings? Your worth?
As you head into this next week, maybe take some time and think about what will outlast you and what you want your physical time on this earth to be about? Who or what can you invest in that will make a difference for the Kingdom of God? That is where the good stuff is. That is where hope is alive.
I’ve seen a lot of hope this summer, even in the middle of a year in crisis. People serving in the summer lunch club. People sharing vegetables from their gardens. People gathering on Zoom, in parks, or in a variety of ways, to encourage one another during the pandemic. People reaching out to those who are hurting, making meals, sending cards, calling one another on the phone. People advocating for justice and truth on their social media accounts, going to rallies, doing book studies online.
I turn on the TV, and I feel the hope drain out of my life, but when I sit back and think about it, there are so many ways we can latch on to and amplify the hope we have in Jesus. Life is short. That’s the truth. And in the days we’re given, let’s keep our eyes and actions focused on Jesus and the mission of his Kingdom.
Remember Chadwick Boseman, the actor who died at age 43? He is an example of hope. Not only did he make movies like Black Panther and others that focused on hope, but he did it while he was battling cancer, including multiple surgeries and rounds of chemo. But it wasn’t just the movies. Boseman, at the same time, visited St. Jude’s hospital to bring gifts and encourage children battling with cancer.
That is what hope looks like, while embracing the hard truth that life is short. That is how to battle fear and live hopefully. How will you battle fear and live hopefully?
Do you feel weary? Tired? Like life is wearing your down?
As we continue our study of Ecclesiastes 1:1-11, which is about how life is fleeting, read verses 8-9. In verse 8, the Teacher says life is “wearisome.” That word can be translated as “striving,” meaning that life is often a unending of process of striving. We have periods of rest and relaxation, some of us moreso, some less so, but for most people there are always dishes to do, laundry, yard work, employment, cleaning, meetings, money to be made, bills to paid, and on and on, and it never stops. This wearisome, striving reality of life causes the Teacher to write a line which has become famous, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
When I read this, I wondered if the Teacher would change his mind if he could spend some time in 2020. I know there are numerous inventions that are astounding, from the contact lenses I wear in my eyes every day, tiny little slivers of plastic that give me perfect vision, to nuclear reactions, where hidden power inside pieces of radioactive metals is unleashed to generate amazing levels of energy. But the there is another invention that I think will go down as the greatest revolution in the modern era.
We were with friends a few weeks ago having a campfire in their backyard, and all of sudden their daughter noticed a very unique site in the sky. It was what looked like a line of shooting stars in a perfectly straight formation traveling across the sky, one right after the other. They just kept coming. 20, 30, 40 of them. If you see one meteor, that is awesome. But this was something else. You know what it was? A Starlink train.
Not a train you ride in, but a succession of small satellites that are being launched in groups of 40 or 50, with the intent that SpaceX will create a network of satellites over the globe, providing high-speed internet access for everyone on the planet who wants to pay for it. Global connection. Every month or so SpaceX launches more, and before the satellites reach their regular orbit, if you’re at the right place at the right time, you can spot them. A couple months ago a Starlink train just happened to be flying over Lancaster right at the time of our campfire.
The idea of sending little satellites into orbit is itself wild enough that I think the Teacher would be impressed, but to think that those satellites could provide internet communication to the whole globe? Not to mention everything that is available on the internet, from data, live TV, games, news, pictures, and email, and on and on. It is astounding.
I would say to the Teacher, “Now come on, Teacher, that is something new, right? That really blows your mind, doesn’t it? That changes things, right?” I might try to prove my point even more by saying, “Teacher, when you lived in the world 2500 years ago, things rarely changed. Centuries would go by with very little technological advancement. So you have to admit that in the world of 2020, and especially with the internet, this is something new.”
I think the Teacher might think about the Star Link Train awhile and say, as he does in verses 10-11, “It isn’t new. It has existed long before our time, we just didn’t know about it before. And we knew that there were going to be things that were appeared new to future generations, but you know what, those things won’t be new forever, and they too will be forgotten by even later generations.”
And I will sit there, silenced by the truth of it. The internet will be forgotten by future generations. Something else will take its place. Or Jesus will return and none of it will matter. Therefore, the teacher’s point remains. It is very similar to the axiom, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Just what is it that stays the same in the midst of all the change?
The fact that life is fleeting. We’re born, we live, we die.
In order to have a healthy view of life, the Teacher is telling us the truth that we need to see all of life as fleeting. Temporary. Brief. A breath. So how is that not depressing? First of all, it is not depressing because it is reality. Truth is liberating. We can be free to live hopefully in the here and now because we do not have to grope for an impossible future that is not within our grasp.
But there’s more! The truth that life is fleeting is not depressing for the Christian, and we’ll talk about that more in the next post tomorrow.
Let’s take a moment and face the truth that our lives are fleeting. In our study this week on the beginning of Ecclesiastes (starting here), a book of ancient wisdom, we learned that life is fleeting. The reality is that most of us, if not all of us, will not have our memories preserved very long after we are gone. Take your own families for example. How far back can you go? Let’s try it right now. Do you know the names of grandparents? I bet you do. But let’s make it one step harder: do you know the names of your great-grandparents? Furthermore, do you remember meeting and talking with your great-grandparents?
Of eight possible great-grandparents, I know the name of only one. My maternal grandmother’s dad. We called him Pappy. His name was Bert Lewis, and he was a coal miner from Wales, England, who immigrated to Baltimore, literally on a boat to the Statue of Liberty when my grandmother was a little girl. So I am one quarter Welsh, English. I love that fact. It’s why we gave our daughter a Welsh spelling of her name. I’ve never been to Wales, but I would love to visit someday, as I have family over there whom I’ve never met. Of my great-grandparents, Pappy is not only the only one whose name I remember, but as a little boy I also got to spend time with him. He eventually moved to Lancaster after my grandparents relocated here in the 1960s when my grandfather became a professor at Lancaster Bible College. In the late 70s and early 80s, I remember visiting him at his retirement home nearby. My mom and grandma would bring me, my siblings, and maybe some cousins to play bingo with Pappy and the other residents living. As I was typing this, another memory hit me: of Pappy in his small room at the retirement, taking out his false teeth and freaking us kids out. Finally, I remember his funeral a bit. That’s all. I have no other memories of any other great-grandparents. I once did a family tree that went back a couple generations further, having received info from other relatives. But I couldn’t tell you their names or much about them, except that pretty much all of them were from or had heritages from Western Europe. And if I’m honest, my memories of my own grandparents, all of whom have passed away, are starting to fade. That is exactly what the writer of Ecclesiastes is getting at.
Through the years of our lives, we are engaged in a process that is fleeting. We are born, we grow up as children, we spend a lot of time in school learning, we play, we eat, we sleep, we get jobs, and we spend inordinate amounts of time, energy and emotion at these jobs. Why? To make money. To put food on the table. To pay the bills. And we work day in, day out, week after week, month after month, for 40+ years, and for what? What do we have to show for it? Usually, not much. Memories in the minds of family members. Names on a family tree poster that might be collecting dust in a closet, or just as well might be used as firestarter. I love projects like Ancestry.com that seek to build a global family tree. But for the vast majority of people, we simply cannot memorialize the past in such a way that we will never be forgotten.
That is the Teacher’s point! Let’s face this head on. We will work hard, live our life and be forgotten. You might hear that and think, “Geesh, Joel, this is really depressing. I want my life to matter.”
Ah! Okay. I didn’t say that our lives don’t matter. And the Teacher didn’t say that our lives don’t matter. What we read is simply the truth, the hard truth, that our lives are fleeting. And we need to own this fact, if we are to face life in the proper way. We need to see that our lives are fleeting, in fact, if we want our lives to matter. We should not read this passage as saying that just because people will eventually be forgotten that their lives don’t matter.
What the Teacher says in the rest of the passage underscores this. Read his poetry in verses 4-7. The teacher depicts the cyclical nature of the earth: sunrise, sunset, weather comes, weather goes. Or as one poet says, “winter, spring, summer, fall, the seasons never cared at all.” They just keep coming. We live in a cyclical world. Yes, we can learn to build immense concrete dams on rivers and create man-made reservoirs to control flooding. Yes, we have learned travel at high speeds on land, on sea, and in the air…even to the moon, and I personally hope Mars and beyond. Yes, we have learned and are still learning to make vaccines to control disease. But the fact remains, the earth will rotate on its axis every 24 hours, and it will do so just about 365 times on its journey around the sun. Year after year after year.
Why do we have to face the fact that life is fleeting? Check back in to the next post to find out.
Have you ever wondered if you life matters? Have you wrestled with dark, sad thoughts, thinking that you are not important? If so, you’re not alone. Just about everyone has battled those kinds of thoughts at least some time in their lives.
What can be confusing is that there is a book of the Bible that seems to say very boldly that life is meaningless.
In the previous post, I mentioned that some people through the centuries have considered the book of Ecclesiastes to be so depressing and hopeless that it shouldn’t be in the Bible. Ecclesiastes did, however, make it in Bible, but hopelessness is not the message the Teacher is trying to convey. When we read in Ecclesiastes 1 verse 2 that life is meaningless (as the New International Version translates it), it sure sounds like the Teacher is describing a life that has no meaning. A meaningless life is one that could be understood as futile or worthless, a cruel joke that God has played on people. But that is not what the Teacher is saying. In fact, the word “Meaningless” is a bad translation of the word the Teacher uses here. Some translations use the word, “vanity.” Is that any better? “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” All is vain? Is the Teacher talking about vanity like a person who likes to look at themselves too much in the mirror? Is the Teacher talking about people who are too self-focused?
No. We know this because in the word used here is the same word that is translated “breath.” I was super-excited this past week because the temperatures in the morning, at least for a few days, were a bit cooler here in the northeast USA. I’m ready for the humidity and heat of summer to make way for fall because I go running in the mornings, and this summer has been hot! So one morning this past week, it was actually cool enough that I could see my breath. Just for a brief split-second. Then it was gone. Which is exactly what the Teacher is trying to say here.
We could translate this phrase I verse 2 as “Breath, breath, all is breath!” Even in the cold of winter, when our 98.6 degree breath comes out of our lungs, hits the freezing cold air, and crystallizes in a small cloud of air, what happens? It dissipates really fast, right? Maybe it lasts a few seconds. But that’s it. What are some words we used to describe that? Not meaningless. Not vanity. The breath still served a purpose and was important and meaningful.
A much better word to use to translate Ecclesiastes verse 2 is “fleeting.”
“Fleeting, fleeting, all of life is fleeting.” That’s what the teacher says.
What does “fleeting” refer to? How is that different from meaningless? It’s very different, and it gets to the important truth that the Teacher wants us to understand as central to the argument he will make over the course of the book of Ecclesiastes.
Like breath, life is fleeting. And that’s exactly what the Teacher describes in verse 3. It is also where we can see how this is some truth-telling that we might not want to hear. Read verse 3. This is a tough question to answer: In the end, when we die, what do we have to show for it?
See what I mean about Ecclesiastes starting off in-your-face? But we need to think about this. Life is fleeting. We’re born, we live, we die, and what do we have to show for it? How would you answer that question?
Do we need to be people who make a name for ourselves? Do we need to be William Shakespeares, Albert Einsteins, Apostle Pauls, Mother Theresas, or Martin Luther King Juniors to consider our lives meaningful? Do we need to be people that will be known for a long, long time?
Some people might think about the small business they’ve gotten off the ground. Hoping it will last beyond them, and not just shut down when they are gone. That has been front and center during Covid, as some small businesses haven’t made it. Imagine feeling the anguish of investing decades of your life into something and now it is gone. How do you handle that?
Maybe by taking solace in the investment that we make in other people? It is often hard to quantify, but we do impact our children, our family, our friends. Our lives are fleeting, but they are not meaningless. Our lives are fleeting, but they are still important.
Did you hear that news that actor Chadwick Boseman passed away on Friday? The star of Black Panther, and many other films, had secretly been battling colon cancer for years, and on Friday, at the age of 43 he passed away, shocking many. I tell you this because I saw a news report about Boseman’s passing, and the reporter said something that is often said about people who die young: “A life taken, too soon.”
Too soon. In ages past, if a person lived to 43 years, they were considered old. But in our day, we would agree with the news reporter that 43 is young, a tragedy because the person didn’t make it anywhere close to the CDC average life expectancy of Americans. You know what the average life expectancy is? 78.6 years.
As I think about that, though, I wish life expectancy was way higher! Not just 80 years. I remember my dad’s 40th birthday party, and the “over the hill” signs my uncle brought to decorate. 40 seemed so impossibly old that day from my perspective as a 15 year old. Today, I am 45 years. I have a married son who, by the way, celebrated his first anniversary already last month. Life now seems shorter and shorter. And while I agree that Boseman was young at 43, I’m starting to feel 80 is young too.
And that brings me to Ecclesiastes, a book that tells us the truth we might not want to hear.
I’ve been thinking about truth-telling lately. Actually I’ve been thinking about off and on since my sabbatical, and even before. What initiated this focus on truth-telling during my sabbatical was the EC Church’s Pastoral Assessment Center (PAC). Rewind three years ago to my sabbatical, and that year was the first time that Michelle served at PAC. What we have seen over the past three years serving at PAC is the need for telling people the truth. PAC is one big effort in truth telling. People come to PAC because they wonder if they should become pastors, and we evaluate them. Clearly some should not be pastors, and they need to hear the truth about why. Even the ones who should be pastors have areas in their lives they could learn about.
But let me bring this home a bit more. There are times when I really struggle with truth telling. Well, not all truth telling, just the truth telling that involves speaking truths that I believe will bring about conflict or disagreement. Truth telling that is something other than telling the person they are doing a great job.
When I preach, write (whether that is a church-wide email or a blog post) or am involved in large group meetings, I don’t struggle with truth-telling. In those settings, I feel a buffer between myself and the audience, a buffer that results in me feeling freedom to speak pretty much everything I believe needs to be spoken. It is a buffer of impersonality. What I mean is that my sermons or my church emails are not directed to any one person, but as much as possible I try to relate them to everyone. Of course sometimes people come up to me after a sermon saying “I needed to hear that,” but when I work on my sermons, I purposefully intend them to be broadly applicable to as many as possible. To accomplish that, sometimes I have to use applications for specific groups: the parents, the students, the employees, the men, the social media users, the sports enthusiasts, etc. But even then, I am thinking in terms of a group, and not individuals. As a result, I feel a sense of freedom to share what I believe needs to be shared.
So when do I struggle with truth-telling?
In my office, meeting with individuals or over coffee with a couple people, I can really, really struggle to tell a difficult or possibly confrontational the truth. I get nervous, I start shaking, my voice doesn’t work right, and I often can say far, far less than what I do believe needs to be said. Why? Because it is very personal. I am talking to one specific person about that person’s life and choices and viewpoints, and I believe that person needs some corrective. But I don’t tell the person nearly as much as I think, because it doesn’t feel safe. I get very afraid that I will offend them, and the person will be angry and hurt. Even if I have had a conversation with Michelle about the situation, and I try to psyche myself up to tell the truth; even if I go over the words in my mind, I will often leave significant portions of it unsaid. Maybe you know what I mean.
Well, get ready, because we are about the study a book that is an in-your-face truth-telling book: Ecclesiastes. Turn with me in your Bibles or Bible app to the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, and get ready for some hard truth.
Read Verse 1, and you don’t see the word Ecclesiastes there. It’s not a name of a person or group or city or nation. So what does it mean? It is a title, not just of the book, but also of the person we just read about.
We read, “The words of the Teacher.” Ecclesiastes means “leader or speaker of the assembly,” and so in English it is translated “The Teacher” or “Preacher” in most Bibles.
But who was this teacher? We read that he was Son of David, King in Jerusalem. The Teacher could literally be the Son of David who was King in Jerusalem, Solomon. Because the book never identifies the name of the author, throughout the sermon series I will refer to the writer as the Teacher.
Whoever he was, he was very observant and wise. That’s why Ecclesiastes is categorized as wisdom literature, like Psalms, Proverbs, and a number of other books in the Old Testament. What we are reading, then, is one person’s ancient, down-to-earth wisdom. I say “ancient” because it is a very old book, written hundreds of years before Jesus was alive, and Jesus was alive 2000 years ago. Can this ancient wisdom tell the truth to us, even though we have learned so much through the centuries? Yes, it can.
But don’t we know better the ancients? In many ways, humanity has learned a lot that the ancients didn’t know. This week I was driving down the highway, 65 miles per hour, passing a huge 18 wheeler, wondering what the writer of Ecclesiastes would think if he could experience a modern highway, and maybe spend a few hours with me in 2020. (Sometimes I wonder what my teenage self could think spending a few hours in 2020!) My point is that in recent centuries our world has been changing at a dizzying pace. But just because we know more, it doesn’t mean we know better. Our scientific knowledge, our technological advancements in medicine, communication, and transportation are amazing, but we still need to hear the truth of ancient wisdom, though I’m thinking we might not want to because it starts off very dark. Look at verse 2.
When I read verse 2, the image I get is of Penn Square in the city of Lancaster, as a busy crowd on First Friday is crossing the plaza, walking from corner to crowded corner, enjoying food, music, and art. Right in the middle of the crowd, a street corner preacher has set up a microphone with a portable speaker, yelling over and over, “Meaningless! Meaningless!!! Your lives are meaningless, people! Everything in this world is meaningless!” I wonder how that would go over. He would probably get nasty stares. Probably get some feedback like “Go home! Shut up!” Maybe worse words than that.
Is that what the writer of Ecclesiastes is going for here? I used to think so. In fact, many people have thought so, claiming that this book is one of the most, if not the most, depressing book in the Bible because of the Teacher’s emphasis on declaring that life is meaningless. You wouldn’t think that kind of message should make it into the Bible! Well, it didn’t make it into the Bible. And we’ll talk about that in the next post!
Editor’s Note: This week we welcome Paul Mannino to the blog, and he will be discussing Acts 28. If you want to watch the sermon, it’s posted on Paul’s YouTube Channel here. My wife, Michelle, and I met Paul and his wife, Mary Kate, at the Evangelical Congregational Church’s Pastoral Assessment Center this past January. There they not only got the green light for pastoral ministry, but we began a friendship. After 20 years in local church ministry, the Manninos are pursuing church-planting. I’m excited for you all to hear how Paul communicates God’s Word. If you want to learn more about the Mannino’s ministry, click here to contact them on Facebook.
The last principle we learn from the Apostle Paul in Acts 28 is that sharing the Good News of Jesus is a priority. If we saw people as God sees people, then we would do for people what God wants to do for people. We would see every relationship as an opportunity to share Jesus. I recently started working for Mattress Firm and their mission statement is to “improve lives one relationship at a time.” I laughed while I was going through my training because I thought to myself, “Man, that’s kind of like the mission of the Church.”
One of the ways that’s fleshed out at Mattress Firm is that, when somebody comes into the store, we practice the “up” system. So if they are two sleep experts working, we take turns at who is “up.” But whoever’s “up” it is, we give everything we can to that guest.
Here’s the thing about that. I don’t know on a particular day how many guests I’m going to be able to serve. There could be only one. It could be a bunch. I don’t know. But, instead of thinking it from my perspective, I choose to think about it from the guest’s perspective. Every single up. Every single chance that we have is a chance to be a light to that person and to help them get the best sleep they’ve ever had in their life. If you’ve ever had a bad night’s sleep, you know how important that is.
So that’s what I do. I give them everything I’ve got. I don’t choose, when somebody walk in the door, to say, “This person looks like a good person to sell a bed to.” No, no. I just go for it and try to figure out, “What does this person need?” and help them to get it. That’s the way it is in sales or service, right?
Why isn’t it that way for followers of Jesus? Why don’t we look at the relationships that we have—the people that we run into, in every single instance—why don’t we seize an opportunity to share Jesus in some way with them? We’re a lot more selective, aren’t we? We pick and choose who seems “right.” We put our own words into what we hope God is doing and say, “Well, I think that God may be moving here, but I don’t feel ‘equipped’ over here.”
What if you treated the people that you interacted with like the “up” system? What if you looked at people and you said, “You know what? I’m going to improve people’s lives one relationship at a time.” I’m going way beyond sleep. I want people to know who Jesus is. And I want people to get a taste of what the rule and reign of Jesus looks like—His kingdom.
We do have to play it by ear to figure out what’s the right approach and the best way to share Jesus with people. I mean it would be weird if somebody came into worship and I said, “Hey Intellibed with an adjustable base. $10,000, ok?” I want to ask someone, when they come into the store, where they are coming from. I want to find out their sleep needs. I want to find out about their lives. I really do want to help them in whatever way they really need help. And, just like with mattresses, sometimes people don’t really know what they need. But, if you ask lots of questions, you can get there. What if we treated every single person with that same level of effort, that same level of dignity, that same level of attention?
My prayer is that God would give us the eyes to see people the way that He sees people. We’re not on our own. I’ll close with Jesus’ words, all the way back from the beginning of the book of Acts. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you…and you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth.”
Editor’s Note: This week we welcome Paul Mannino to the blog, and he will be discussing Acts 28. If you want to watch the sermon, it’s posted on Paul’s YouTube Channel here. My wife, Michelle, and I met Paul and his wife, Mary Kate, at the Evangelical Congregational Church’s Pastoral Assessment Center this past January. There they not only got the green light for pastoral ministry, but we began a friendship. After 20 years in local church ministry, the Manninos are pursuing church-planting. I’m excited for you all to hear how Paul communicates God’s Word. If you want to learn more about the Mannino’s ministry, click here to contact them on Facebook.
Well, are you? A confident and complete Christian? Or do you wonder if you are missing something? Maybe you are missing something and you don’t know it? We’ve been tracing the ministry of the Apostle Paul for many weeks, and while he wasn’t perfect, it could be said that Paul was a confident and complete Christian. Keep reading as we learn what that means.
Paul was on a long journey to Rome, and as we saw in the previous post, he not only made it there, but he also did there what he did everywhere, as we read in the final verses in the book of Acts: “For two whole years Paul stayed in Rome in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!”
So what are we getting here? I think, to put it in a short Twitter-sized way: that whole “we’re going to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth” thing—it’s being fulfilled. It’s happening in this moment. Paul is sharing in the hub of his world—the New York City of his time. He is sharing and proclaiming about the kingdom of God and about Jesus Christ. And he is not holding back.
That’s the end of the story, but that’s not the end of the message because, for us, there are some applications that we can take from this passage. Here is the first one. God is sovereign, and that means that we can be confident in the way that we serve, leaving the results up to God. We can be confident as we speak about Jesus. At the end of the day, God can work through us—through our service and through our words—because He has been at work.
In the story of Acts, you can see how God was working in the lives of Peter and James and Paul and Luke. He can and does work in our lives in the same way. God is sovereign, so we can be confident.
The second point is this. Let’s make sure that our message is complete. In both places where it talks about what Paul is saying, not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles who visited him, it says that he was preaching about Jesus (for sure) but also about the kingdom. The two go hand-in-hand.
The point that I want to make here is that God’s purposes are for the world—His kingdom coming—and not just on an individual, personal basis. When God’s kingdom comes to this earth, the rule and reign of God will set things aright. If we’re followers of Jesus and we pray to God “YOUR kingdom come and YOUR will be done,” then that means we’ve got to be agents of God’s kingdom in this world. We talk about Jesus, and we let people know about Jesus. And we tell people about the life that Jesus can bring. But we also should be SHOWING them the difference that God’s way would make in the world. That means we care about things like justice. That means we care about righting the wrongs in our culture.
I’m so encouraged about the steps that Faith Church is taking to help women who have been stuck in less-than-ideal, unjust, unfair, hurtful situations. You’re giving them the tools that they need to have dignity and thrive in their lives. When we provide hope for the hopeless, when we provide help for the helpless, when we give love to the unloved, we are ushering in God’s kingdom.
People want to talk about 2020 being messed up? The truth is that the world is messed up. But as agents of God’s kingdom, we can actually help usher in something that is the opposite of messed up. Something that is so right that people are thirsting for it. Paul’s message is complete. It’s not just about Jesus. He talks about the kingdom of God. And those things are not mutually exclusive. Obviously, Jesus is all about the kingdom. And the kingdom is all about Jesus.
How about you? As you live out your faith in Jesus, are you confident in him? Do you not only proclaim, but also demonstrate a message of the Kingdom’s rule and reign that is complete?
Editor’s Note: This week we welcome Paul Mannino to the blog, and he will be discussing Acts 28. If you want to watch the sermon, it’s posted on Paul’s YouTube Channel here. My wife, Michelle, and I met Paul and his wife, Mary Kate, at the Evangelical Congregational Church’s Pastoral Assessment Center this past January. There they not only got the green light for pastoral ministry, but we began a friendship. After 20 years in local church ministry, the Manninos are pursuing church-planting. I’m excited for you all to hear how Paul communicates God’s Word. If you want to learn more about the Mannino’s ministry, click here to contact them on Facebook.
How do you think God feels about you? Maybe you’ve run away from God, or even turned your back on him. Maybe you haven’t talked with him in a long time. Maybe you’ve done things that you think would make him angry at you. Keep reading, because God loves you anyway.
We’re following the Apostle Paul’s journey, and after many months, he has made it to Rome! Three days later he called together the local Jewish leaders. When they had assembled, Paul tells them about the events of the last few months, and then he says, of his appeal to Caesar that brought him to Rome, “I certainly did not intend to bring any charge against my own people. For this reason I have asked to see you and talk with you. It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.”
“With this chain.” He’s probably attached to the guard. He’s basically saying, “Look, guys. I didn’t so anything wrong. I don’t know why they had me arrested in the first place. I talked to the Romans. I appealed to them.” The Romans were like, “Yeah, what did he do? He hasn’t done anything wrong.” Remember, a couple chapters ago when Paul said, “Yes, I don’t care though. But I want to talk to Caesar because this is an opportunity to clear the air about what we’re about”?
It’s funny because I think that if Paul were to play his cards “right,” he wouldn’t have had to go through all of this. But, because Paul appealed to Caesar, he’s now in Rome and has an opportunity to communicate with the Jewish leadership in Rome. Rome, the center, the focus of the known world. Paul knows what he’s doing. He’s being strategic. He wants to share the Gospel in the place where, if it got legs, it would spread like wildfire. And why is he doing this? He says it’s because of “the hope of Israel.” What’s the hope of Israel? It’s not “what” is the hope of Israel— it’s WHO is the hope of Israel. It’s Jesus. He wants all Israel to know the truth about Jesus.
And here’s a funny part… They replied, “We have not received any letters from Judea concerning you, and none of our people who have come from there has reported or said anything bad about you.” So the people in Rome have never even heard of Paul. They haven’t heard of Paul, but if they had heard of Paul, they haven’t heard anything bad about Paul. This just makes me laugh because it makes me think of paperwork—maybe the paperwork hasn’t made its way to the Roman Jews yet. How is this possible? There are theories about how the Roman Jews don’t know about what happened back in Jerusalem. For one, you can consider the time of year. Maybe the mail just hasn’t made it. When you think about it, Paul really did risk a lot by going through the storm, taking his many detours. Same goes for the mail. Maybe they just haven’t gotten the mail yet. Or maybe the Jerusalem Jews just decided that once Paul was gone they didn’t have to deal with him anymore—that it would be too much work to bring charges against him. The bottom line is that these guys in Rome are open to hear from Paul.
We know that because this is what they say, “But we want to hear what your views are…” Wow. To a believer, that may be the most golden thing a person can ever hear: “We want to hear what your views are.” Alright Paul, let’s go…let’s talk about Jesus with these guys!
Then the Jews clarify: “But we want to hear what your views are for we know that people everywhere are talking against this sect.” Do they really want to hear, straight from the horse’s mouth, what is this all about? They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. He talked with them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus. He talked about the kingdom of God, and he used the Scriptures to try to persuade them of the truth of who Jesus is. Large numbers flock to where Paul is, and he holds court from morning to night. What are the results?
Here’s what it says: “Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe.” I believe that some of them made a decision on that day to follow Jesus. Some didn’t. And there really wasn’t anything that Paul could say. Paul was good at what he did. We know that. Paul had that knowledge. He’s a former Pharisee. He could tell you the Old Testament inside and out, and he could do anything to get you to believe…if your heart was ready. They weren’t. Here’s what it says, “They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement.”
What was Paul’s final statement? It’s not a flattering one. It’s just Paul being honest, using Scripture to explain the state of their hearts. “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your ancestors when he said through Isaiah the prophet: ‘Go to this people and say, “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.” For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”
What’s Paul doing here? Paul is sharing a pretty damning prophecy from Isaiah 6. In it, Isaiah prophesies that there are going to be people that, no matter what you tell them, they’re just not going to believe the truth. Now that’s interesting! Paul, in no uncertain terms, then, uses a Jewish prophecy about not being able to hear and not being able to see, against the Jews! And it would be easy to think that maybe the people are deaf to what God is trying to tell them through Paul and that they’re blind to what God is trying to show them through Paul. But it’s very clear in Isaiah that it does they CAN’T hear. And it actually says very blatantly that it’s not that they CAN’T see, it’s that they’ve closed their eyes. And there is a difference between having your eyes closed and having your eyes opened. I have to think that it’s the same idea with the ears.
Remember when Stephen was killed by the religious leaders? Do you remember what they did before they picked up rocks to take him out? They put their hands over their ears because they didn’t WANT to hear the truth. This isn’t a matter of them not being able. It’s a matter of them not wanting to. That’s very similar to what is Paul is suggesting here in Rome. He’s saying, “If you would just take the hands off your ears, and just listen! If you would open your eyes! You’re saying you can’t see. Hey, why don’t you open your eyes? I guarantee it would work. If you did that, I could heal you. If you tried to hear, I’d help you to understand. If you tried to see, I could help you see.” It’s a prophecy from Isaiah, but it’s true in that moment.
So I’ve got to ask the same thing of you. Where are you? Where are you in your relationship with Jesus? Have you heard the truth your whole life, but it’s sounded more like the teacher in Peanuts—“Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwaaaaah.” Because if you’re going to be honest, maybe you’ve had your hands over your ears. You don’t want to believe, so you’re not even going to really listen. Or are you like the person who says (with their eyes closed), “I can’t see! I can’t see.” Well, why don’t you open your eyes?
The things of God don’t come naturally as far as understanding goes. I get that. But my question is, “What is your heart posture?” Paul is speaking to these Roman Jews in this specific place, in this specific time—and he’s challenging them. I feel fine challenging you. Where are you? Feel free to comment below or contact me using the info above in the Editor’s Note. We’d love to hear what the hang up is. Where are you just not wanting to give up ground? But, please, for the love of God (literally), don’t be like the Jews in Rome. On that day, they walk away. On that day, this is what Paul tells them, “If you turned, God could heal you.” That’s from Isaiah. And then Paul says this, “Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!” What Paul is saying is, “If you want to be stubborn, that’s fine. You’re just going to miss out. If you want to be stubborn, that’s fine, but all that’s going to do is hurt you. God’s heart is to save people. God’s heart is to bring people back to Him. And if you’re not going to pick up what God is throwing down, then…at the end of the day…I’ve got news for you…He is going to bring it to people who (according to you guys) have no business knowing about God. Yet He loves them ANYWAY.”
He loves them anyway. Does God love the people on the island of Malta? Yes. Does God love the Roman people who believe in Castor and Pollux? Yes. Does God love the guard who is chained to Paul at that moment? Yes. Is it good news to him? He’s been listening this whole time. Is it good news to him? We don’t know if he believed, but that doesn’t changed that this is amazing news for him! Paul does everything he can to persuade them. Some listen. Some are hard-hearted.
At some point, Paul has to say what people say now: “Bye, Felicia”— and just move on. But I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater in this exchange. Paul didn’t give up on his people. He tried to share the truth. He tried to persuade. In this day and age, I sometimes hear people say, “Well, they had their chance.” But that’s misguided. Everyone deserves a chance—and as many chances as it takes—to believe.
Engaging Scripture 