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<\/a><\/p>\nI\u2019ve been teaching our church\u2019s Bible class, looking at the three books penned by Solomon.\u00a0 The Song of Solomon, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are extremely interesting and rewarding, though they are difficult to the point that some people ask, \u201cwhy is this in the Bible?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer, of course, is that God\u2019s Word has a breadth, depth, and complexity that can very well include the erotic love poetry of the Song of Solomon and the abject despair of Ecclesiastes.\u00a0 The former is full of gospel, as the rapturous love between the king and the Shulamite reveals how Christ sees His bride, the Church.\u00a0 And the latter is full of law, with the old apostate king looking back on his life to realize that his wisdom, wealth, accomplishments, pursuit of pleasure (with his 700 wives and 300 concubines), leading to nothing more than emptiness,\u00a0 meaninglessness, and \u201cvanity.\u201d\u00a0 But it also shows the gospel, as the king realizes that, while everything \u201cunder the sun\u201d\u2013that is, this immediate world that we can see\u2013appears meaningless, knowing God (who is beyond the sun) transfigures life, and we see Solomon\u2019s return to faith.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Ecclesiastes has much to say about vocation.\u00a0 Toil and relationships can be frustrating, miserable, and meaningless.\u00a0 But, when we bring God into them, we can experience them in a different way.\u00a0 Solomon thus shows another dimension to life \u201cunder the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here are some of the texts from Ecclesiastes that address vocation:<\/p>\n
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is\u00a0from the hand of God,<\/span>\u00a0for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?<\/span> \u00a0(2:24-25)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yes, our toil can be meaningless.\u00a0 So can our pursuit of pleasure in eating and drinking (2:1-11).\u00a0 But we can also experience enjoyment in our work.\u00a0 And that enjoyment \u201cis from the hand of God\u201d!\u00a0 \u00a0The same is true of the enjoyment we receive from eating and drinking.\u00a0 This too \u201cis from the hand of God\u201d!<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSolomon develops that theme later, in piercing words (my bolds):<\/div>\n\nWhat\u00a0gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen\u00a0the business that\u00a0God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has\u00a0made everything beautiful in its time.<\/strong> Also, he has put eternity into man\u2019s heart<\/strong>, yet so that he cannot\u00a0find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live<\/strong>; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil\u2014this is God\u2019s gift to man<\/strong>.\u00a0 (3: 9-13)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
God \u201chas made everything beautiful in its time.\u201d\u00a0 Think about that.\u00a0 This world under the sun may be filled with vanity and meaninglessness, but there is great beauty here too.\u00a0 That \u201ceverything\u201d was made beautiful, and in its time is or has been beautiful is a striking insight.\u00a0 Yes, your toil may seem like drudgery right now, but remember the time when it was beautiful to you\u2013when you first got that job or when you were finding such satisfaction in it\u2013appreciate that.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has put eternity into man\u2019s heart.\u201d\u00a0 Here is the famous \u201cGod-shaped vacuum\u201d that only Christ can fill, attributed variously to Pascal and Augustine, both of whom said something similar but not the same.\u00a0 Here, though, Scripture itself teaches that we all have \u201ceternity\u201d in our hearts, making too the important additional point that we cannot from our own resources find that eternity, apart from God\u2019s revelation.\u00a0 We measure everything by eternity, so of course it fails to satisfy us and seems meaningless.\u00a0 But when we find eternity, we can find joy even in this brief and frustrating life.\u00a0 Be joyful and do good.\u00a0 That\u2019s the secret.\u00a0 Eat and drink and take pleasure in our toil, which would include not only what we do to make a living but also the work of all of our vocations, including what we do in our families, our church, and our communities.<\/p>\n
Solomon says as much in this other quotation (my bolds):<\/p>\n
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do<\/strong>. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
Enjoy life with the wife whom you love,<\/strong> all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your\u00a0portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.<\/span>\u00a0Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.\u00a0<\/strong> (9:7, 9-10)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Enjoy your food.\u00a0 Enjoy your wine.\u00a0 Indeed, \u201cdrink your wine with a merry heart.\u201d\u00a0 Note the gospel:\u00a0 \u201cfor God has already approved what you do.\u201d\u00a0 That is to say, God has justified us.\u00a0 We now have His approval.\u00a0 This frees us to enjoy life, despite all of its frustrations!<\/p>\n
Then Solomon brings in marriage:\u00a0 \u201cEnjoy life with the wife whom you love.\u201d\u00a0 Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines from many nations, but when he built for them temples to their pagan gods, they turned his heart away from the Lord (1 Kings 11:1-8).\u00a0 When you read Ecclesiastes in light of Solomon\u2019s biography, that line calls to mind the subject of Song of Solomon.\u00a0 If I had only been content with the Shulamite, the devout Israelite woman who was, amidst all the others, \u201cthe only\u201d one I loved (6:8-9)!\u00a0 But, for the rest of us, this is priceless advice. Yes, \u201call the days of your vain life\u201d may be full of trouble, but living them with a spouse whom you live, can fill them with with enjoyment as well.<\/p>\n
Our toil and our relationships are our \u201cportion in life\u201d; that is, they are our vocations.\u00a0 And what God gives us to do, we should do it with all our might!\u00a0 If we throw ourselves into our work or our marriage, giving them our best, our lives even in this meaningless world \u201cunder the sun\u201d will have meaning after all, as coming from the hand of God.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Illustration:\u00a0 Icon of King Solomon, in Greek Catholic Cathedral of Hajd\u00fadorog, Hungary (18th century) via Jojojoe, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Book of Ecclesiastes, while making us face up to the “vanity” of life “under the sun,” has much to say about vocation. Enjoyment in our work comes from the hand of God. A spouse whom we love can enable us to enjoy life. The enjoyment we can find in good food and drink is the gift of God. Through faith in Him, our meaningless life acquires meaning and satisfaction after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":56728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,48],"tags":[11071,2048,4359],"class_list":["post-56722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-vocation","tag-ecclesiasts","tag-solomon","tag-vocation"],"yoast_head":"\n
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