Ecclesiastes Archives - Wisdom & Folly

I enjoy watching enhanced, colorized versions of very old videos like this and this and this.

They provide a healthy dose of perspective—a reminder that our time on this planet goes by very quickly. One day you are young and, before you know it, you are gone.

The flight of time and the human mutability it entails is a timeless theme in literature and music. I was first struck by this theme as a young teenager listening to the Rolling Stones song “Time Waits for No One.” While not renowned for tackling serious themes in their songs, much less in a profoundly poetic way, this one really got my attention:

Star-crossed in pleasure
The stream flows on by.
Yes, as we’re sated in leisure
We watch it fly.

Time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me.

Time can tear down a building
Or destroy a woman’s face.
Hours are like diamonds.
Don’t let them waste.

Time waits for no one
No favors has he.
Time waits for no one
And it won’t wait for me.

Men, they build towers to their passing
Yes, to their fame everlasting.
Here he comes chopping and reaping.
Hear him laugh at their cheating.

And time waits for no man
And it won’t wait for me.
Yes, time waits for no one
And it won’t wait for me.

Drink in your summer.
Gather your corn.
The dreams of the night time
Will vanish by dawn.

But time waits for no one,
And it won’t wait for me.

This song’s message grows only more powerful as the years roll on. For the two young men who composed it, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, are now in their mid-80s.

A much older and far more influential song conveys the same message in the form of a prayer:

Show me, Lord, my life’s end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is.

You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Everyone is but a breath,
even those who seem secure.

This song, now known as Psalm 39, was written 3000 years ago by David, King of Israel. He, too, was once young and seemingly invincible, but time didn’t wait for him either.

Nor will it wait for us. The lesson? David’s son, Solomon, summed it up well when he said,

Death is the destiny of everyone;
the living should take this to heart. (Eccl. 7:2)

That same writer, Qoheleth, concluded that book by declaring,

Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the duty of all mankind.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil. (Eccl. 12:13-14)

Although our lives fly by, the way we live while we are here does have eternal ramifications. If ever there was incentive to take seriously one’s pursuit of the Good, this is it.

June 12, 2022

The End of a Matter

By Jim Spiegel

There is a passage in the book of Ecclesiastes that has always fascinated me. It is Ecclesiastes 7:8, which says, “The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.” Specifically, the first clause has always struck me. Why is the end of a matter better than its beginning? Why is finishing better than starting? My quest for a better understanding of this idea naturally prompted me to consult biblical commentaries on the passage, but I found that in most cases the commentators skirt past this clause to focus on the second clause which is far easier to understand and explain, however strange it might be to contrast patience with pride (as opposed to impatience).

So I’ve essentially been left to my own devices to understand why the end of a matter is better than its beginning. Fortunately, personal experience has proven to be an effective interpretive tool in this case. As the years have passed, I have been struck by the vivid truth of this passage as it applies to various events in my life and in human experience generally. It hit me again two weeks ago as we celebrated the graduating class of Lighthouse Christian Academy where I serve as head of school. And it hit me a week before that when our oldest son, Bailey, graduated from Taylor University. In both cases, there was a celebration of completion, the attainment of long sought goals, the realization of the telos for which the students strived for so many years. And that is most definitely a very good thing, even better than the beginning of the journey for each of the graduates, however fun or exciting that might have been for them.

Graduations are positive outcomes, of course. But many human experiences are quite negative, even horrifically so. Here again Ecclesiastes 7:8a is clearly applicable. Whether we are talking about a painful trip to the dentist, an unhealthy dating relationship, or any number of other negative experiences, it is certainly good when such things come to an end. After some such event, it is not uncommon to hear people say, “Man, I’m glad that’s over with!” This seems to be a tacit affirmation of the negative pole of the Ecclesiastes 7:8a principle.

So I would sum up my analysis like this. The end of a matter is better than its beginning because any particular “matter” (experience/event/project) is either good or bad. If the matter is bad, then it is good to have it over with. And if the matter is good, then you still benefit from and even enjoy and celebrate the achievement. Either way, then, the end is better than the beginning.

One might object, however, that it is sad when good things end, such as when a virtuous person dies or when a good friend moves away. How could the end of wonderful things like this be better than their beginning? One of Aristotle’s observations about happiness is useful here. He notes that you cannot know you have had a happy life until it is over. This is because until a life is actually completed it is always possible that it can go awry in some way. Only when a person is dead can it be truly said with confidence that that person had an overall good life. And what is true of an entire lifetime is true of particular events (e.g., a good game or a good evening with friends). So for all of the sadness of saying goodbye to a loved one or to a sweet phase in one’s life, it is nonetheless a blessed thing to be able to say with confidence, “Old Joe was a tremendous guy” or “Didn’t we have wonderful times together!”

All of this thinking about “ends” naturally prompts me to think about the ultimate end of things—the culmination of human history as promised in Scripture. Numerous times in the Bible we are reminded that the end of the matter when it comes to the course of history will be marked by the return of Jesus Christ in power and glory. And that will be goodness on a colossal scale. The writer of Genesis says that when God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, he repeatedly declared them “good.” But as great as that was, it doesn’t compare to what will be achieved in the end—a glory that we are told, often cryptically, is beyond our ability to fathom (cf. Rom. 8:18, 1 Cor. 2:9), a time when “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” A time when Christ will rule with perfect justice and righteousness, and perfect joy and fellowship among his people will be established forevermore (Isa. 9:6-7). Now that is an end that is truly better than its beginning!

July 5, 2021

Resign to the Grind

By Jim Spiegel

This week begins my fourth week as head of school at Lighthouse Christian Academy—a K-12 school in Bloomington, Indiana. There are lots of wonderful, dedicated people there whom I’ve enjoyed getting to know. I’m excited to see what the coming school year will bring. Although none of us know the future, we can absolutely count on two things: 1) God will be faithful to us along the way and 2) the work will be a grind, and by that I mean consistently hard and often tedious work. But that’s okay, because all jobs are, in one way or another, a grind. At least if one is going to do them well.

Before this job, I worked as a college professor for 28 years, and that was certainly a grind. Preparing lectures, giving lectures, advising students, serving on committees, attending faculty meetings, filling out forms, and endless grading. And the research and publishing part was just as difficult and tedious, if not more so. But that’s what it takes for success as a college professor—a willingness to push through, day after day, semester after semester with the tedium.

This is no less true in those fields that are typically considered glamorous or prestigious. Professional athletes are exalted in our culture, envied by many. Yet their work involves enormous amounts of repetition with training drills, weight-lifting, dietary regimens, constant travel, and media interviews. It’s an exhausting lifestyle, to be sure. Of course, we rarely pity them, because—at least in the case of major sport male athletes—they make a lot of money. But that doesn’t keep their work from being a grind.

The same is true in the entertainment world. A successful Hollywood actor must work through countless scripts, repeatedly rehearse lines and prep for their roles, work through conflicts with directors and fellow actors, and do tons of photo shoots and interviews, all the while working with their agents to establish their next acting gig. And the more successful they are, the greater the demands on their time. Likewise for rock stars; whether working in the studio or going on exhausting tours, their work is a tedium of repetition, and success (and sometimes even survival) hinges on how well they can keep the grind from crushing their souls or tempting them to abuse drugs or alcohol—a common problem in the entertainment world for just this reason.

Or consider a successful CEO of a company. Even the multi-millionaire mogul must endure daily briefs about the business, constant number crunching, and all that goes into monitoring product development, marketing, financials, and personnel issues, and pressures often created by rumors of scandal, social media issues, and one’s competitors, not to mention backbiters within one’s own fold. A truly stressful tedium indeed. Again, we never pity the Jeff Bezoses, Bill Gateses, or Jack Dorseys of the world because they are so wealthy. But their professional lives are every bit the grind of any other successful worker.

And then there are the other fields of work that are more obviously grinds—those who work in auto factories, retail management, manufacturing, accounting, mail delivery, truck driving, medical research, communications, informational technology, counseling, landscaping, dentistry, and law. Each of these industries, whatever one’s role, is in one way another a serious grind—again, assuming one is doing reasonably good work. One can avoid the grind by slacking off, of course. But that is simply to choose failure.

Bottom line: to be successful in this world you must resign to the grind. Real achievement necessarily requires a dedication to doing dull, monotonous, repetitive tasks and doing them well. (My latest YouTube video fastens on this point.) This is a fact about the human condition that the writer of Ecclesiastes sums up well when he asserts, “All things are wearisome, more than one can say” (Eccl.1:8). Amen to that.

April 6, 2012

Reflections on Ecclesiastes 1:18

By Jim Spiegel

In the book of Ecclesiastes we are told that “with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge the more grief” (1:18). This is one of those passages that might seem counter-intuitive, especially to the young. But if ever there was a biblical dictum that is proven by experience, this is it.

It is interesting to note that this passage confirms a popular idiom, namely that ignorance is bliss. The suggestion seems to be that knowledge and wisdom are proportional to pain and sorrow, respectively. If so, then the less knowledge/wisdom one has, the less grief/sorrow one experiences. And a complete absence of knowledge/wisdom would therefore mean a complete absence of grief/sorrow. In other words, ignorance is bliss. Of course, there are other ways to ruin one’s bliss that don’t involve knowledge/wisdom, such as through brute physical pain. One need not have any genuine knowledge/wisdom in order to suffer.

Now let’s reflect on some implications of this passage on the positive end, that is, for those who have an abundance of knowledge and wisdom. Their lives would presumably be marked by grief and sorrow. Jesus Christ, as God incarnate, would have a maximal amount of knowledge and wisdom. Wouldn’t it follow, then, that he would be very sorrowful? This is exactly what the Scriptures tell us, as Isaiah refers to the Messiah as the “man of sorrows” (Isa. 53:3).

Another implication is that to follow Christ and strive for wisdom and understanding is to commit to a life of grief and sorrow. That’s not exactly how the Gospel is pitched in our culture. But, then again, that’s not really the whole truth of the matter, since the faithful Christian’s sorrow is actually accompanied by joy. This is one of the existential paradoxes of Christian experience, as we actually experience joy in our troubles and trials (cf. 2 Cor. 7:4; James 1:2). And this joy is grounded in knowledge, quite the opposite of the bliss of ignorance.