Janosz - Welcome Today in the Word readers. We're so glad you're here, and we are excited to talk about our study on the Book of Ecclesiastes. We've titled it, “What Are We Here For?” because this book deals with some of those deep questions of life. I'm excited to introduce you to our author Dr Russell Meek. Welcome Russ.
Meek - Thanks for having me on. Good to be here.
Janosz - We're always glad to sit down with our authors, and I find it very helpful as we're starting this Bible study to pause and get the big picture so that when you read it you'll feel like you're oriented and you know where you are. Especially with the Ecclesiastes, because it comes in and it just kind of plunges right in. Let's begin by giving us a little bit of background on Ecclesiastes, where it is in the Bible, and maybe just some basic things to know about this book.
Meek - So Ecclesiastes is in the Old Testament. It's part of what we consider the wisdom literature or the writings in in the Hebrew scriptures. We have the Torah or the Pentateuch coming first. And then we have the historical books and then you have the poetic or wisdom literature and then the prophets after that. So the Book of Ecclesiastes is written … we're not exactly positive when it was written, but most likely during the reign of Solomon. This puts us right around the 9th or 10th century, 970 to 930ish, okay right around there. So if you're thinking about the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles that give us the historical overview. Then you're going to place this book most likely during the reign of Solomon and we'll see here in a little bit that it's informed by what came before so the idea with the wisdom literature is how do we live life faithfully to the Lord. We have the Pentateuch or the Torah saying okay here are the commands this is what it means to be a covenant people in relationship with the Lord and then the wisdom literature. So Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Job are saying, “Okay how do we live out these commands and principles that God gave us in the Pentateuch?” It is getting practical, saying this is this is what God wants of us but how do we do this right?
Janosz - Yeah, that’s right. I've always heard the author was Solomon King Solomon right son of David, and he's called, he self-identifies, as The Teacher here, correct? So are there some things we should know about who this author is?
Meek - Yeah it's a funny thing because we always kind of assume that it's Solomon and I think that it most likely is Solomon, but he never comes out and says it's Solomon, right? There's no mention of the word “Solomon”, it doesn't appear anywhere in the book you know whereas in in the book of Song of Songs you have the Song of Songs which is of Solomon or by Solomon or for Solomon. Then you have the Proverbs of Solomon, and then you have Ecclesiastes which doesn't have a clear claim of authorship but there are a lot of clues in the book that at the very least to make us think how could this be anyone other than other than him. I think Solomon is kind of working through a struggle like a central struggle that's central to humanity. If he is the author indeed, he was incredibly wealthy.
Janosz - I know many people who think if I just had unlimited wealth my problems would go away, everything would be fine, and this is proof positive that that's not true right? Because he had everything, and yet he's in this searching, expressing this angst about life. And it goes on and on throughout the book in in repetitive way, repeating in a cyclical movement, but what is the central Crux of the problem here in Ecclesiastes that he centers this around? How do we live in an upside-down world?
Meek - So we're here in this world marked by sin from Genesis 3, so how do we navigate this life? How do we keep our faith in God? How do we trust in the Lord? How do we live? I think what he's getting at is what you mentioned … the cyclical nature of the book. One of the things I love about that, although it can be kind of annoying, he just keeps coming back to death and work and enjoying life and all of this. But I think about how if you've experienced any sort of like trauma, or maybe not even trauma, but you maybe you've had like an argument with someone and like one of the most one of the most difficult things I think is you keep, or at least I do and I hope other people do it, you keep replaying it, right? You keep coming back to it, and so you move on and it's like three months have passed by and then all of a sudden here you are thinking about that same thing again. You know and so it's like, Man I thought I worked through that. I thought I kind of moved on, but that's not the way our minds work. We process things in cycles. We kind of work through one aspect of it maybe and then we're good for a few months, and then something happens and we're right back there where we used to be. And so, I think Ecclesiastes does a good job of modeling what living life is like. Even in the writing of the book, we're like yeah this is how I experience life. Sometimes I'm joyful. Today I enjoy this cheeseburger and then sometimes I'm like, man, I can't believe that all of us are going to die. It's just so unfair. We work through those things in cycles with the conflicting emotions and situations of life again and agai.,
Janosz - You go into this upside down world. And that phrase been more real to me than recently. In this world everything seems a little crazy, and so I keep thinking, yes. We are in upside down world! Very often I'm like, What is going on? So, we may really resonate with that in our modern society, even people who might not believe as Christians. They may struggle with that. Why doesn't life make sense? You point us back to Genesis because the book is pointing to Genesis correct?
Meek - Yeah that's right it's absolutely the most one of the most important things we can do for reading Ecclesiastes is putting on our Genesis lenses. So, the author of Ecclesiastes assumes that his readers are going to know the Book of Genesis, and so he leaves little breadcrumbs or makes Illusions to the Book of Genesis throughout the book that an original reader would have picked up on. Imagine a society where we don't have internet or phones or TVs or radio or even libraries. There's not access to entertainment or things to fill our time with. A person in the ancient near East or ancient Israelite, their access to culture is going to be through Scripture. They're going to know the stories of Genesis and the wording of Genesis way better than we do you. There are several points in Ecclesiastes where he'll have words or phrases or thematic elements that all connect back to the Book
of Genesis, and it's his way of saying, “You need to read what I'm saying in light of these this story of creation and fall and the story of Cain and Abel and the flood.” There is a broader theological construct of the Book of Genesis.
Janosz - We won't unlock all of that here because we want you to go to todayintheword.org and read our devotional with us, daily. But there's some really interesting meaning you unlock by pointing back there, and it will add a richness to our understanding of Solomon's questions. And, also, the answers given here will be helpful to us. So good, yeah, so I won't give all that away, but I do think that that's going to be a very special part of the study for people. Why do you think people still struggle with this question today: What are we here for? Why is that still on our minds? Why haven't we figured that out?
Meek - I don't know, you know. Whenever I read Ecclesiastes, I think of the song I don't remember the name of the song, but it is by Jack Johnson. He has this line where he says love is the answer. At least for most of us the question to our heart is like why are we here and where do we go and how come it's so hard? I feel like Ecclesiastes just captures that you know the that we still struggle with those fundamental questions, and I think part of it is that we were never intended to die. We were never intended to be separated from God or to experience death and evil and injustice. And here we are plopped down in the world, and we're experiencing it you know, and no one is giving us the answers. And even if they are giving us the answers, we're still experiencing suffering and injustice. Sometimes through our own fault because we make poor decisions and sometimes through other people's faults because they made poor decisions. We're just kind of left here to sort it out. But we're left here with Scripture, and we have a community of believers, Lord willing, around us. God has given us the church, and He's given us His Word and He's given us relationship with Him, so we're not like totally left alone. But we do still struggle with those same fundamental questions which I think is one of the great things about Ecclesiastes.
You mentioned that it's a book for believers and unbelievers because unbelievers also have these questions. And it's also a book for rich people and poor people. I don't want to get into it too much, but the calls to enjoyment, that's for people who have money and don't have money. He's not saying you can only enjoy life if you're wealthy. And then the questions that he struggles with like injustice and death. Those are broad questions that aren't restricted only to Christians and so this book really gives us an opportunity for evangelism. So if someone we know is struggling maybe someone close to them passed away or they got fired or they're treated unjustly or any number of things, Ecclesiastes offers a really good way in. You can say, “Hey, here's this book that talks about those things that you're experiencing.”
The Bible looks unflinchingly at our lives. It doesn’t gloss over things and says there's no struggle in life or that we're all happy. I think we get painted that way incorrectly very often. So I would invite a friend to study with you and say, “This is a really interesting philosophical book I'd like your take on it too. Why don't we do this together?”
Janosz - I think that would be amazing. If you do that make sure you leave a comment here and let us know. We'd love to hear about that. We do family studies every month and there is a family study on this one, believe it or not. We really believe kids can know that in the twists and turns of life that God is a constant, that God is there for them, and that He's given them things even though they walk through hard things He's given them things to enjoy and to bless them. It's a great study and I think you will all enjoy it. So go to our website or look below here and get ready for a great study with Russ Meek. Thank you, Russ for writing this, and we look forward to starting it.