Episode 3: Eternity Shapes Life’s Endeavours (1:12-2:26)
Can the pursuit of wisdom, knowledge, pleasure and toil squash the reality that death undeniably looms? The preacher goes on an extensive search in our passage today, answering that very question. Why not grab a friend to chat over the truths from this Bible study in Ecclesiastes?
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How are we tempted to build our lives on wisdom, pleasure or work?
In which area are you most tempted to forget it's fleeting?
How do v24-26 impact the way we see and live this fleeting life?
What's going to encourage you to look up this week and remember God?
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The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Sarah: We're really thankful for 10ofthose.com who are sponsoring this season. A few friends have asked me recently how we get through so many books. And before I recommend a book to you, let me just say that I don't read for hours on end, but for the last couple of years, I have prioritized trying to read for ten minutes each day and it's been so worth it. Lady Jane Grey Nine Day Queen of England is a wonderful biography by Faith Cook detailing the upbringing and then supremely conflicted position jane Gray found herself in as Queen in the midst of political and religious turmoil. I loved how rich and readable this historical account was and how it broadened my view of events at the time and the context surrounding them, as well as shining a light on the steadfast faith of one so young, ultimately martyred for standing firm on the foundation of Christ alone. Pick up your copy at 10ofthose.com.
Felicity: Welcome to Two Sisters and a cup of tea. My name is Felicity and I live in the States and I am here with my sister Sarah. She's in the UK and we're excited to be continuing in our season in Ecclesiastes. We're going to be jumping back into chapter One, edging over into chapter Two and we're excited to get going again. Sarah, any tea offering over there?
Sarah: I've got some tea trivia today, actually. I know. I was in conversation with a friend at church on Sunday and she blew my mind with how she uses tea. Let me tell you that this lovely Indian friend, she platts her hair with tea.
Felicity: What?
Sarah: I know. She dips her fingers I had to clarify that. This is what she's saying. She dips her fingers in black tea and I could have said, is it Earl Grey? Is it Yorkshire tea? Any black tea is fine. She dips her fingers in black tea, platts her wet hair with it dries overnight, and then her hair is, like, wonderfully curly in the morning and she kind of takes it down. She says it's because of the tea.
Felicity: Hold on, so she's saying that the tea makes her hair curly?
Sarah: Well, with the platting as well.
Felicity: Okay. Wow. Who thought of that? That is wow.
Sarah: I know, right? And it's definitely not what I was expecting to talk about on Sunday morning. I was like, oh, but this is too good not to share. It's amazing, isn't it? And she has got beautiful hair.
Felicity: Yes, no doubt. And you were talking about this while you were sipping your slightly tepid church cup of tea.
Sarah: Absolutely.
Felicity: Which you probably wouldn't want to put on your hair.
Sarah: Probably not, I know. So, Felicity, we talk a lot about opening the Bible with others in our everyday life and the podcast is an overflow of that for us and that's always been the case. Tell us right now, what does that look like for you in your everyday life?
Felicity: I am always looking for that opportunity. Not in a kind of weird way, just in a natural part of life. Like when I meet up with friends, Christian friends, then it'd be quite likely that we'd start talking about things of the Lord. And I might just say, here's what I was thinking about this morning in my quiet time. Have you thought about this? That would be a very low key way of doing it. I meet up with a friend to pray relatively regularly and often we'll start with a bit of the Bible just to kind of get us going. And then a friend and I are just beginning to pick this up after a summer break. But I do love to read through a book of the Bible with someone. So I've got someone who I've been reading Galatians with and we're hoping to finish it off in the next few weeks and that's maybe a bit more formal, but I would say that it just looks like a whole load of different possibilities. It can be having the Bible open in front of you, it can be going for a walk and talking about what you remember from the sermon, it can be just praying with someone and what you read that morning. What about you? What does it look like for you at the moment?
Sarah: Nice. Yeah, I'd say primarily it's with my children, with my husband, and just trying to prioritize that time as a family and what that looks like. And it feels chaotic and messy and short and sweet and just trying to kind of prioritize the word being a center of things. And then yeah, with church folk more formally, kind of helping to train and lead Bible studies in that kind of way. But also just as you were saying, I just love the opportunity to open it anywhere, really, and I don't know whether people are going to go, oh no, here she goes.
Felicity: I wonder that. I don't think you ever regret it. I sometimes think, oh, is this a bit awkward? But I think no one comes away from that chat like regretting that you opened up the Bible. So I think let's keep going in that.
Sarah: Keep going. Crack on. Let's do it now.
Felicity: Yes.
Sarah: You're going to read one verse twelve to the end of chapter two.
Felicity: I the teacher was king over Israel. In Jerusalem, I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun. All of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened. What is lacking cannot be counted. I said to myself, Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me. I've experienced much of wisdom and knowledge. Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom and also of madness. And folly. But I learned that this too is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow. The more knowledge, the more grief. I said to myself, come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good. But that also proved to be meaningless. Laughter I said is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish? I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly. My mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers and a Harim as well. The delights of a man's heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this, my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all what my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless. A chasing after the wind. Nothing was gained under the sun. Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom and also madness and folly. What more can the king's successor do than what has already been done? I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wise have eyes in their heads while the fool walks in the darkness. But I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both. Then I said to myself the fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise? I said to myself, this too is meaningless. For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered. The days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die. So I hated life because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless. A chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun because I must lead them to the one who comes after me and who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish. Yet they will have control over the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who is not toiled for it. This, too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun all their days? Their work is grief and pain. Even at night, their minds do not rest. This, too, is meaningless. A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This, too, I see, is from the hand of God. For without him who can eat or find enjoyment, to the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness. But to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand over to the one who pleases God. This, too, is meaningless. A chasing after the wind.
Sarah: Thank you, Christy. Wow. There's a long passage there, isn't there? I'm struck by the repetition within the passage, as you were reading that to us just now. Again, the word meaningless comes up. It actually comes up 38 times in this book. So kind of the word remember it's the word wind or vapor or breath. The kind of repetition of that I was struck by the repetition of the kind of what does this gain? What does it get me, that phrase? What do I gain by all this? Or conclusions about that?
Felicity: There's a lot of emotion in here, isn't it? I feel like as I was reading it, I was beginning to feel a bit weighed down with all his grief and despair and pain and toil. And he kind of comes back round to that is the conclusion, which is and he is very diligent in this experiment that he's conducting, isn't it? I think the way he says it in verse 13, I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. And he repeats again, I still have my wisdom. And I'm doing this like I'm exploring these avenues. I'm looking for essentially the meaning of life. Isn't he really like, what is it all about? What's the deal here?
Sarah: It's considered, isn't it? No stone is unturned. And I think it's really striking that even before we get to the kind of pleasure part at the beginning of chapter two, the conclusion at the end of chapter one is the more wisdom I gain and the more knowledge I gain, the more grief and sorrow he has. So the burden that he feels as he sees the world more rightly with wisdom actually weighs him down even further into the what is the point? Kind of.
Felicity: And isn't that so true? The more we live, the more we know of the world. It's not that makes us happier. That is how the world is. We're more knowing of the frustration of the world. Yeah.
Sarah: And so then he distracts himself. Or is it distraction? I don't know. But he kind of seeks distraction with pleasure, doesn't he? And he kind of goes to the school of pleasure, as he will, and it is the most extraordinary description. I don't know whether he spotted this, but it is very Eden like, isn't it? With the trees and the planted gardens and vineyards and the flourishing nature of it and it's opulent, isn't it? It's beautiful. He's done it all. And yet the repetition of I me, myself yeah. That was really striking for me. Yeah.
Felicity: And I think that's right. That is very desirable, isn't it? It's very attractive. And when he says in verse three, I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens and I think you look at this picture, this kind of construction like what he's doing, he's essentially creating his own kingdom, isn't he? And this does seem to be a very attractive and good thing to do in the sense of it's desirable to have a place and to have all these riches and these pleasures. And I think you're right that it is a distraction, but I think actually it's just part of the exploration of what it is to live in this world. Is this what we're supposed to be pursuing? Like these desirable things? It's so kind of extreme, isn't it? Verse ten, I denied myself nothing my eyes desired I refused my heart no pleasure like this, is it? This is like pleasure all out, like nothing lacking and yet everything was meaningless. He says in verse eleven, so we have this kind of desire all out desire all out pleasure and then it just gets a bit sobering, doesn't it? As we hit verses twelve through to 16, death kind of looms in at.
Sarah: This point, but in a very real way, isn't it? That actually it's totally true, isn't it? And how much do we kid ourselves of this in real life? But actually, just actually the fate of both the fool and the wise is exactly the same, isn't it? There's no difference. Death comes to us all. It's 100% certainty. There's no kind of getting round that one, is there? And I think in that sense, it's just really clear and kind of helpful, I think, even though it is very stark.
Felicity: I know, I agree. I think very helpful in a yeah, starkly sobering, because then it fixes our perspective, right, doesn't it? We don't like to think about this. That's not a thing we talk about very much in our society. We're trying to avoid talk of death. And so then to have it front and center like this yeah.
Sarah: And then the emotion that paused from that, from verse 17 to 23. Well, it is stark, isn't it? I hated life, it was grievous hated all things he toiled for my heart began to despair, misfortune, grief, pain, no rest. I mean, that is quite some kind of summation of how he's feeling, isn't it? But then in verse 24 to 26, we get this kind of reorientation of his heart. And I love this that he says this too, I see, is from the hand of God. For without him who can eat or find enjoyment, to the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness. And just that we've kind of seen him trying to please himself in the kind of seeking pleasure and seeking wisdom. And as he shifts his gaze and seeks to please God, it's God who gives him the wisdom, knowledge and happiness. God's the one who gives him the happiness.
Felicity: Isn't it a relief when you get to these verses like, oh, I'm so glad we get it. And it seems like there's a bit of a movement, doesn't there, in his thinking and his realization and as you say, a reorientation of his heart as his eyes are lifted up to the Lord, the giver of the gifts. And that is the key, isn't it? That the Lord gives everything that is in our hands that is before us.
Sarah: Yeah. So I think it then means, I guess in terms of how we drive this to our heart I think it then means that that has to reorientate our gaze as to how we view this fleeting nature of reality, doesn't it? So we've had this kind of it so far in chapter one and chapter two. We've had this extensive kind of summary of how fleeting life is, how cyclical life is, how nothing is gained from it, essentially. And yet, because it's from the hand of God, we can enjoy it and we can enjoy what we are given knowing that it's fleeting. Yeah.
Felicity: And the satisfaction I think the word satisfaction is pretty key there and what we do with it. And it doesn't change the fact that it's fleeting. I think that's it isn't it's not denying the reality that's being described over the last couple of chapters. But in the midst of that reality, there can be satisfaction and enjoyment. Not through our own construction, not through some kind of self fueled wisdom, but through looking to the one who is ultimately wise and who gives us this life. But I think that is challenging to hold those two things intention. Like, the teacher is asking, I think, the reader to kind of hold those two things. Like know that this is a reality. Feel the emotions that we've just talked about, all the grief and the pain and the sorrow. But live life eyes on the Lord with enjoyment and satisfaction. I think that's a challenge. I think that's hard. I feel like I can slip one way or the other quite easily. I either go into sort of like deep depression of like whoa, it's all meaningless. Why are we even bothering? And then the next minute it's like, well, eat, drink and be merry. And that's that. Let's just crack on. And that, I think, holding those things intention is where my heart has sort of been exposed a bit this week.
Sarah: That's interesting. I think I've been struck and I feel like I'm just really mulling through my ability to pretend that this isn't true, basically on where I look for pleasure and I look for wisdom and I look for work to be far more than a fleeting reality. And I look for my kind of solidity to be found in those things, my confidence to be found in those things and try and root those things in a way that they cannot deliver. And I think that I feel goaded feel prodded into how much I think I'm probably kidding myself on a day to day basis, like on the very simple, very small things of my day, but also on the bigger picture, just, yeah. How much do I think I'm living? Am I actually living this reality, thinking it through? If that makes sense.
Felicity: As we kind of realize that the reality is true, then that pushes us to look to the Lord that's it, isn't it? Because if we don't believe this to be true, then we do try and find our wisdom and our worth and our fruit in this fleetingness and that then stops us looking to the One who really does give the gift and therefore gives the satisfaction and the enjoyment that's it, isn't it? It's really important to see it and believe it and run with it because that will then cause us to look to God more.
Sarah: And as we do, it's wonderful, isn't it? Because we can actually go back. I can go back through my day and gosh, thank you, Lord, for the gift of that time or the gift of that task, for the gift of these conversations. And I can thank Him for the enjoyment that there was or that the hardship that there was was still a gift from the Lord. And it's something to you know, it was an opportunity to trust Him and just letting Him shape my view of those things. That really changes things, doesn't it?
Felicity: Yeah. Because I think when you're evaluating it, you're not evaluating it according to how much has been gained or what my toil has achieved. It's more just what is this gift been like? What is it to live in that.
Sarah: I feel like we're really starting to open up the conversations here and our time's already gone. As ever, this is just the starter of a conversation, isn't it? Felicity, why don't you pray for us as we close?
Felicity: Father, we thank you so much that you give us this view. Thank you that you show us reality, and we pray that you'd help us to believe it. And as we believe it would, we look to you as the One who gives us this good gift. We pray that you'd help us to have satisfaction and enjoyment as we look to you. Help us to run to you, not to our own endeavors. Father, we pray that you give us a right view and therefore a right worship of you. And we pray this in your name. Amen. Wow. Sarah. Just good stuff. Good stuff. Do as we've been saying, chat about it with a friend. But if you would like more resources, more kind of things to help you think about these things, then go to our website, twosistersonacupoftee.com, and there's a season page that has got resources shown up, questions, lots of things to help you get into Ecclesiastes. And we will look forward to seeing you next time.
Sarah: See you then. Bye bye.
Felicity: Bye.
Sarah: We're so thankful for ten of those who are sponsoring this season.
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