Questions from the Scripture text: What has Solomon seen (v1)? What has God given him (v2)? But what has God not given him? With what result? What might a man have (v3, 6)? But with what condition of his soul (v3, 7)? Who is better off (v3–6)? What does the poor, but wise, man have/know (v8)? What does he see (v9, cf. v6)? But what do others, who are worse off, have? With whom does the desiring one contend (v10)? What would his desired things increase (v11)? What (Who!) is the answer to the rhetorical questions in v12? What type of wisdom (7:1a) applies to what other comparison (v1b)? What is better than what else (v2a–b)? Why (v2c–d)? What else is better than what else (v3a)? Why (v3b)? Whose hearts are where (v4)? What (v5a) is better than what (v5b)? What does the laughter of fools precede (v6)? What two things divert the mind from wisdom (v7)? What is better than what (v8a)? What does your spirit need (v8b)? So that you don’t do what (v9)? If your “good” is based on circumstances, what might you say (v10a–b)? What does this show about your question (v10c)? What, then, is good (v11a)? Whom (even) does it profit (v11b)? What is a defense (v12a)? Why; what does it give (v12b)? What should we consider (v13)? In what conditions can one be joyful (v14a–b)? By considering what (v14c)? What can’t man do, in v14d, that God can? How does v15 summarize the problem presented in this section of the book?
What is the good life? Ecclesiastes 6:1–7:15 looks forward to the hearing of God’s Word read in the public worship on the coming Lord’s Day. In these twenty-seven verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the good life is one in which we trust God’s providence and enjoy His goodness in every circumstance.
What if someone has all that this world has to offer (v2, 6a), but lacks opportunity to enjoy it (v2) and ability to enjoy it (v3)? This is “vanity and an evil affliction”; it would have been better to have been stillborn (v3–6).
For life to have true joy and purpose, we need God to give us the ability to see goodness (v6)? To have our soul satisfied (v7), we need to know how to walk before God (v8) and trust that He is doing us good (7:13) in both prosperity and adversity (7:14).
Better to receive from God the ability to see His goodness (6:6, 9a) than to have our hearts continually wandering after our own desires (v9). To covet, rather than to be content, is to battle with God (v10) for things that would just increase the vanity of our life anyway (v11). It is God Who knows what is good for us (v12a), and what will come of us (v12b). And we need from Him to be able to see that He is good and to trust Him.
In His mercy, He gives the sort of wisdom that helps a man to know that the day of death is better than the day of birth (7:1b), just as that good names are better than valuable ointment (7:1a). So, He gives us things like funerals to remind us, while we are still alive, to live as we will wish we had when we come to die (v2–4).
While laughter can be enjoyable in the moment, it does not benefit us in the same way that grief does, as it corrects us (v3b, 5a). If we live for the pleasantness of the laughing moment, then that laughter will just be the sound of the tinder and the kindling preparing to burn us (v6).
So, we must be wary of those things that rob us of eternal perspective and limit our focus to the moment in front of us: whether that be oppression that overwhelms us with the pain of the moment (v7a) or a bribe that allures us with the promise of wealth in the moment (v7b). Focusing on such things makes us to forget God and eternity. To live like that is shortsighted and impatient (v9–10), like the man who thinks that money will defend him, when really only the Lord is a proper refuge (v11, cf. Pr 18:10–12).
If we consider that the providence of God (v13) includes righteous who die young (v15b), and wicked who live longer (v15c), we will realize that He is pushing us to count eternity (and therefore, our living before Him and seeing and enjoying Him as our good) as infinitely more significant than all of the wealth and honor of this world.
Are you more blinded to God and eternity by oppression or by possessions? How are you enjoying God’s goodness in your prosperity? How are you enjoying God’s goodness in your adversity? If you are not enjoying God’s goodness to you in your circumstances, Who can give you that joy? What means(!) does He employ to do so? What funerals have you been to? What use have you been making of them?
Sample prayer: Lord, forgive us for when we have thought that more wealth, or honor, or a longer life would make our life good. The wandering desires of our covetousness are not worth comparing to the ability to see Your goodness in both prosperity and adversity. So, forgive us our sin, and grant unto us to trust Your providence and enjoy Your goodness in every circumstance, we ask through Christ, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP1 “How Blessed the Man” or TPH231 “Whate’er My God Ordains Is Right”
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