Qohelet in Ecclesiastes

Talk about fascinating stuff to digest. I am preaching this Sunday from Ecclesiastes 4:7-11 and so have been digesting a couple of good commentaries on the book. Here's a quick review and my current understanding of Ecclesiastes:

Michael V. Fox in A Time to Tear Down & A Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes is interesting. I found two parts particularly interesting: 1) His comparison of Qohelet (the teacher - tradtionally Solomon but likely not - featured throughout the book) to parallels in Camus' writing and 2) his conclusion that the repeated refrain translated in NIV as "meaningless" is better rendered "absurd." His commentary on individual passages is a bit limited though. Is very helpful for an overall discussion of the theme/theology of Ecclesiastes.

Tremper Longman III's commentary, The Book of Ecclesiastes, for the NICOT series was particularly useful to me. I found he reasoned well through the issues of authorship, language, and continuity of the book. I particularly found his connection of the prologue/epilogue to the overall theological theme of the book helpful. His commentary is more extensive than Fox's.

My conclusions then (for now):

• The author: not Solomon, but a later author who frames the body of Ecc. as a long quotation from a "Solomonic" character.
• The theological perspective of the teacher: Negative
• The theological perspective of the book: Positive
• The key to understanding - seeing the prologue (1:1-11 - notice the switch from third to first person) and epilogue (12:8-14 - Longman and Fox argue together that the NIV doesn't translate well here) as a framework for the extended quotation from the teacher in the body.
  

Understood this way, I see the book much as Longman does. The teacher serves as a foil in the body of the perspective we are NOT to have but certainly can understand. He has much wisdom. The teacher captures the dispair of a world full of uncertainty and death. Pragmatically, it appears to be the only possible view as you read this book which echoes much modern existential angst. All is uncertain. The only thing that is certain is death. God is there - but he seems distant - even uncaring. True - there are things along the way that lighten the load - maybe bring a little joy. But in the end, even those are wiped out by death as well!

Today many reject God entirely and ultimately come to the same conclusion of the teacher here. Life is meaningless. Absurd. And his perspective would be accurate except for one thing. The teacher fails to properly understand God. He fails to see the ultimate control and goodness of God. Thus he fails to find that there is ultimate meaning in life despite death and lack of personal control. So his wisdom while pragmatically accurate, is ultimately incomplete - much like the wisdom of Job's friends. The epilogue shows us particularly that the teacher demonstrates an attitude that is to be criticized. It points out that human reasoning and wisdom has it's limits. God - in contrast does not.

Thus the book itself is positive in that it takes the teacher's wise but ultimately incomplete wisdom and then points to what we should be doing. We should be living righteous lives because God is there. He is caring and concerned - even about the most minute detail.

Rookie No More

Rookie. Greenhorn. Noob. Those terms don't apply to me anymore. Well, sort of. As of last month, I passed my one year mark as pastor of Fellowship Bible Church. This past year has been a very good learning experience for me. Of course I know I have a lot of learning to go. But I feel more "in the groove" now.

My biggest learning experience? That's a good question. I've learned a lot for sure. It's just hard to nail one thing down. What comes first to my mind is how hard it is to keep everything in balance. Read back over my blog and you'll see that I perceive many issues/problems in the church today. There are lots of things to watch out for. Lots of things we are doing and shouldn't. Lots of things we aren't doing and should. But what I've discovered is that it is crazy hard to keep an eye on all of these things at once.

What? Our Sunday morning worship songs don't highlight the transcendent nature of God enough? Ok. Let's work on that. Add some liturgy. Add some traditional songs with fabulous doctrine. Have a solemn prayer. Encourage that transcendent sense...

What now? Our Sunday morning worship songs don't highlight the personal nature of God enough? God seems too distant? Too far off? Crud. Ok. Let's see....

Not that I'm complaining. I'm just realizing how great the challenge is for church leaders. I'm recognizing a bit better the reality that no matter what we do we are going to have areas that need improvement. If we do really well at one thing then there is probably something else that we are going to be weak on.

And yes, I know I've been a bad blogger.

John Piper on the prosperity gospel

Thanks to www.emergingminister.com

LOOK! A post!

Pretty amazing. I'm posting. And from all places - I'm in Guatemala.

Pretty funny thing, this world wide web. I'm down here in Guatemala but our mission house has wireless internet complete with VOIP so I have called my family and stayed up on my email. Very nice. Almost luxurious. But what I'm enjoying is not what most enjoy down here. There are a lot of very poor people.

And my arms hurt. I just about killed myself hammering nails into "houses" for these folks. 12x12 sheds is what we build - but they're huge upgrades. One family we built a house for today then fed us some genuine Guatemala food for lunch - chicken soup. Very delicious, actually.

Pix to come? We'll see. I'd love to but you know me.

Pray for the Turkish Church

Dr. Darrell Bock has been blogging about the recent martyrdom of three men in Turkey.

I'm glad I read about it because I'm a soft Christian. I don't understand persecution - let alone martyrdom. I forget that so many fellow believers today are dying for their faith.

A letter from the the church there in Turkey. Powerful words. Read if you have time.

Some details, links, and somewhat disturbing videos.

We need to pray for the church there. Several quotes from the letter really challenged my heart.

Quote 1: “Don’t pray against persecution, pray for perseverence,” urges Pastor Fikret Bocek.

Quote 2:

In an act that hit front pages in the largest newspapers in Turkey, Susanne Tilman in a television interview expressed her forgiveness. She did not want revenge, she told reporters. “Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do,” she said, wholeheartedly agreeing with the words of Christ on Calvary (Luke 23:34).

In a country where blood-for-blood revenge is as normal as breathing, many many reports have come to the attention of the church of how this comment of Susanne Tilman has changed lives. One columnist wrote of her comment, “She said in one sentence what 1000 missionaries in 1000 years could never do.”

Sermon Illustration: Would You Recognize a Maestro?

This is the second illustration. I haven't used it yet but I will!

The Washington Post posted an article entitled "Pearls Before Breakfast." The premise of the article was this: Would an unknowing audience recognize musical excellence? They got one of the best violinists in the world - Josh Bell - to play like an ordinary street musician one morning in a subway station in DC. The article is well worth the read. Would people recognize his genius in such a setting?

Read the article. Really....

Ok. If you won't, then I'll spoil it for you.

SPOILER OF THE ARTICLE YOU REALLY SHOULD READ:

Summary: Josh Bell, who had commanded $100 for only okay seats a few nights before, played for the subway crowd. Most did not recognize him. Neither did they stop long enough to notice. Few put in any money. In fact, only ONE person recognized Josh for who he was. Everyone else missed it. Many were too busy. A few paused briefly.

Point: Jesus/God!!! God has revealed himself to us and is playing beautiful music. Yet we are so busy with our lives. We are too preoccupied to stop and listen. We fail to recognize him or enjoy what he offers.

Sermon Illustration: Prison Gates

I ran across two AWESOME sermon illustrations this week. For my preacher readers I thought I'd post them for you. These are my own in that I found them myself - they're not from an illustration database somewhere. Feel free to adapt and use for yourself. I'll post each one separately.

This one I used in my Easter sermon. It was the perfect sermon illustration. I kid you not when I say that I got tingles up and down my spine when I found it. Honestly - I think God must have shown it to me. Serious.

Prison Gates That Lie

The gist of the illustration is this: Dachau was a World War II Nazi Concentration camp. 200,000 prisoners. Over 31,000 died there. The gate to Dachau that each prisoner had to walk through (and apparently several other concentration camps such as Auschwitz) had stamped into it the words arbeit macht frei meaning literally "work makes free" or "work brings freedom." Bitter irony for the prisoners, I'm sure. --- Point: The words on the gate, however intended, were a lie - work did not free the prisoners. But those words transcend the prison in Dachau. People everywhere are in "prison." They believe that "work makes free." They don't realize that those words are on the gates of their prison. Reality: "Jesus makes free." That's the point and the celebration of Easter.

That was a great metaphor. I was able to carry it all the way through my sermon and it really drove the point home. Below is the illustration as I manuscripted it. This is the "image" of my sermon. I make the point about us being in similar prisons and Jesus breaking through those prison bars later in the sermon. Again, feel free to use!

The Holocaust was a terrible thing. 6,000,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazi’s in a few short years. None of us were there. Most of us weren’t even born. Yet the memory of the Holocaust stands out vividly to us because of how awful it was. Many movies and books on the Holocaust have been made. All recount the horror. Right after college Desiree, my wife, and I used some money we had saved, packed two backpacks, and spent the summer traveling through Europe. When we were in Germany we visited the Dachau concentration camp. Dachau was one of the first concentration camps. And it served as a model for the ones that followed it. It housed over 200,000 prisoners over the course of the war. It didn’t have the death chambers like some of the others did so “only” 31,000 or so prisoners were believed to have died there. Only? That’s the entire population of our county. SHOW PIX OF DACHAU - Those are the beds. Triple bunks, 1,600 to each building. Disease ran rampant through the camp, killing many. SHOW PIX – Those are the ovens where they cremated the dead. The sign on the rafters says in several languages, “prisoners were hanged from here.” SHOW PIX - Those are the gates that each and every prisoner had to walk through to reach the camp. Those words on the gate read, “arbeit macht frei” – literally “work makes free” meaning “work brings freedom.” I can’t imagine what it must have been like to walk through those gates and be a prisoner in a concentration camp. To be arrested. To see your friends and family die. To wonder if you’ll be next. To be fed so little that your body wasted away until it was literally nothing but skin and bones. It was a sobering place to visit. And its sobering to think about the evil that went on there – even now. But as World War II drew to a close, Dachau was one of the first concentration camps that was liberated. So it is hard for me to imagine what it must have been like for the prisoners on April 29, 1945 as the American troops of the 42^nd Infantry Division cracked open those steel gates and offered them freedom. I can’t imagine what they thought. Is it a dream? Is it real? Did they have the strength to dance or sing? Or did they just sigh in relief? I’ve read the story of several survivors that stated they were very numb for a long time. It was only after they had eaten a few good meals, and actually slept in a soft warm bed that they finally began to realize that life had changed and that they were safe now. The impossible was true. It had happened. They were free.

H&R Block Needs to Hire My Brother-In-Law

I was just on H&R Block's website trying to download their "Taxcut" software so I could do my taxes. Yes. I procrastinate again. But that's not the point.

The point is that I tried to order and couldn't. Why? I discovered it was because they had a glitch in their site that didn't support the Firefox browser. I select product. Click. I enter all sorts of personal information. Click. Then I find a mostly blank page with no directions. What? I try again. Nothing. I try on my wife's computer. Nothing. Finally I try with internet explorer. It brings up a page asking my county in Arkansas. What are they thinking?!! I don't know about the web as a whole, but 39% of the traffic on my site comes from people using Firefox.

Anyways, that's bad. Not good. They should hire my brother-in-law.

There's a great application point in here for ministry, I'm sure. It's just not coming to me right now. Oh - I know - make sure that you don't put up barriers to a large group of the audience that you are trying to reach. Heheh. I wanted the software. I was willing to pay for the software. But I was forced to try FOUR times to acquire the software. Many others would have given up long before that. In the church, we need to make sure we aren't erecting unnecessary barriers between people and the truth of Christ as well.

There. How was that?

It pays to be critical

I didn't say this originally, but I found the mistakes mentioned in the two previous posts encapsulated within sermons that are available at PreachingToday.com

I've found that site an incredibly helpful resource. It costs. $80/year if I recall... But it has been worth it. Good illustrations in their archive and they're well documented. I found the site through recommendations and held off on subscribing for months because I didn't want to shell out. Finally (late one Saturday night!) I caved. I use it almost every week now. Definitely worth it.

This isn't a post about how cool PT is, though so I digree. But I didn't want to come across as bagging on something I really use and appreciate. Anyways, I found the problems I mentioned in my post in sermons in their archive while looking for Easter ideas. I posted about them here but I also sent in a suggestion to them about the Devil and Faust problem.

Yesterday I got an email saying that, yep, it looked like I was right, and even better, that I had been given 6 free months membership. Sweeeeettt!!!