What Does Ecclesiastes Teach Us About How We View Traumatic-Suffering?

Wisdom Literature, Traumatic-Suffering, and Embodied-Souls 

I’m enjoying my Genesis-to-Revelation study of the Bible’s teaching on being soul physicians who counsel embodied-souls who experience traumatic-suffering. Recently, I’ve been in the wisdom literature. I’ve posted several blogs summarizing some of my studies in Job, Psalms, and Proverbs.

From Job, I’ve posted:

• When Your Counselor Makes Your Life Worse! This post collates over four dozen examples of poor counseling from Job’s miserable counselors.

• 3 Major Problems with Elihu’s Counseling of Job. Since God condemns Job’s three miserable counselors, everyone agrees that they are not a model to follow. However, people debate whether Job’s fourth counselor—Elihu—was a good or poor counselor. As my title suggests, I believe Elihu is also a miserable counselor.

• How Not to Empathize: Job’s Miserable Counselors. Here I outline more unbiblical counsel from Job’s miserable counselors.

From Psalms (and related to Job), I’ve posted:

• Psalm 88: “The Dark Night of the Soul.” If Heman Saw a Miserable Counselor… Reflecting on Job’s experience, I started wondering what it might sound like, and be like, if Heman—the human author of Psalm 88—visited a miserable counselor.  

• If Heman Saw a Comforting Counselor. Here we imagine what it might be like for a human counselor to offer Heman (Psalm 88) a taste of the Father’s divine counsel—our Father of compassion and god of all comfort?

From Proverbs, I’ve posted:

• Proverbs & Biblical Counseling: Wisdom for Life & Wisdom from Life. Proverbs teaches us not only wisdom for living, but also wisdom from Proverbs illustrates that we gain wisdom for living from reflecting on our life experiences and from observing life.

From Ecclesiastes, I’ve posted:

• What Does Ecclesiastes Teach Us About How We View Traumatic Suffering? When we experience the unrelenting pain of unjust suffering, we either despair as we view life under the sun, or we find hope as we view life in the Son.

• The Body Keeps the Score; The Embodied-Soul Calculates the Cost. When we experience traumatic-suffering, we either despair when we view life under the sun, or we find hope as we view life in the Son.

What Are We Supposed to Learn from Ecclesiastes? 

As I studied Ecclesiastes, I’ve been asking:

What can we learn from Ecclesiastes about biblical counseling, wisdom, descriptive research, the embodied-soul, and traumatic-suffering?

To answer that question, I needed some context. Specifically, I needed to know:

1. What was Solomon doing in Ecclesiastes? 

2. What was Solomon’s spiritual state when he wrote Ecclesiastes?

3. What is the purpose of Ecclesiastes? 

Question 1: What was Solomon doing in Ecclesiastes? 

Twenty-nine times Solomon repeats the phrase, “under the sun.” It’s a poetic way to picture life in this fallen world, instead of life in the age to come. According to Solomon, life “under the sun” is filled with suffering that tempts us to lose all hope.

Solomon is repetitively clear about what he’s doing in Ecclesiastes. At least fifty-nine times in Ecclesiastes, he tells us that he is observing life under the sun. He is studying fallen creation. Using modern terminology, we might say he is doing descriptive research on how people view life after the fallen world falls on them.

1. Observational Wisdom (30X)—Applied My Mind, Applied Myself, Observed, Looked, Saw, Saw This Example, Seen, Surveyed, Turned My Thoughts, Consider, Reflected On, Pondered, Searched Out, Set in Order: 1:13, 14, 17; 2:11, 12, 13; 3:10, 16; 4:1 (2X), 4, 7, 15; 5:13, 18; 6:1; 7:13; 8:9 (2X), 10; 8:16 (2X), 17; 9:1, 13; 10:5; 12:9 (3X), 12:10.

2. Experiential Wisdom (7X)—Experienced, Learned (by Experience) Said to Myself, (Often in the Context of Solomon Then Seeking to Experience a Certain Lifestyle/Worldview), Wanted to See: 1:16; 2:1, 3, 15; 3:17, 18, 22.

3. Empirical Wisdom (13X)—Study, Explore, Find Out, Test, Prove, Try/Tried, Search, Investigate, Discovered, Find: 1:13; 2:1, 3; 7:23, 25 (2X), 27 (2X Discover), 28 (3X), 29.

4. Rational Wisdom/Wisdom’s Conclusions (9X)—I Know, To Understand, Concluded: 2:24-25; 3:12-13; 3:14; 3:22; 5:18-19; 7:25 (2X); 9:1.

It’s vital to understand that Solomon doesn’t stop at observation. He repeatedly interprets what he is observing. He makes conclusions.

Ecclesiastes is saturated with instances of Solomon offering an under the sun interpretation of his under the sun observations. He interprets temporal life from a temporal perspective. He crops hope out of the picture.

Consider Ecclesiastes 3:18-21 as one example of many.

I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

Solomon draws the unbiblical conclusion that humans are like animals, that the fate of human beings is the same as the fate of animals. Our death is the end, just like death is the end of animals. Here, Solomon rightly observes under the sun life—we all die. But here, Solomon wrongly interprets under the sun death—there is no afterlife for humans or for animals. Fallen life kills all hope for an afterlife. Life has killed the dream we dreamed.

Thirty-eight times Solomon concludes that life is “meaningless.” Contrast that with Paul observing life under the sun and then interpreting that life under the Son. “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). Nine times Solomon describes the futility of life as trying to catch wind: “chasing the wind.” 

Every commentator has to grapple with the pessimistic worldview that saturates Ecclesiastes. Every counselor has to grapple with the flood of hopelessness that sweeps over Solomon as he observes a world filled with unjust suffering.

And, yes, I do think there are “wisdom sections” in Ecclesiastes. There are times when Solomon moves from under the sun conclusions to under the Son conclusions. There are times when we receive glimpses of an eternal worldview overcoming Solomon’s more frequent temporal worldview. There are times when he moves from a foolish assessment of his observations to a wise assessment of his observations.

This would be especially true in Ecclesiastes 12, where he remembers that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Perhaps Ecclesiastes 12 is equivalent to Samson at the end of his life. Having gone from hero to fool, Samson, one last time, depends upon the Lord’s strength. Perhaps the hopefulness of Ecclesiastes 12 is Solomon at the end of his life, one last time depending on the Lord’s wisdom.

What was Solomon doing in Ecclesiastes?

He was observing life under the sun. Sometimes he interpreted life wisely—under the Son. Sometimes he interpreted life unwisely—under the sun.

Here’s what I am proposing for how we view Ecclesiastes:

In Ecclesiastes, we find an inerrant, inspired account of Solomon’s wisdom and of Solomon’s foolishness as he observes the unjust suffering in our fallen world. 

“But Bob!”

I can hear your objection. “But this is inspired Scripture! Scripture wouldn’t give us accounts of the foolishness of God’s people! Shocking!”

It should not be shocking.

Clearly and obviously, Ecclesiastes is inspired Scripture. It is an inerrant account of how Solomon observed life in a fallen world. It is an inerrant account of the conclusions Solomon drew from his under the sun observations.

Many times the Old Testament shares the faults and sins of many heroes of the Old Testament. Think of Abraham, Samson, David… The imperfections, sinfulness, and foolishness of the best of God’s people teach us our desperate need for Christ—the Greater David, the Greater Solomon.

Many times the Old Testament shares both the foolish conclusions and the wise conclusions of God’s chosen people. Think of Job’s miserable counselors. Think of Asaph in Psalm 73. Over half of Psalm 73 is filled with Asaph’s self-confessed foolish conclusions about life under the sun. Hear Asaph’s confession of foolishness in Psalm 73:21-22:

²¹ When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
²² I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.

Asaph is devasted by unjust suffering to the point of despair. Blind to hope, Asaph has the reasoning of a “brute beast.” He’s looking at life from a temporal perspective, instead of from an eternal perspective. While Asaph thinks like a brute beast, Solomon concludes we are brute beasts (Ecclesiastes 3:18-19)!

Asaph does not understand life under the sun (Psalm 73:2-16, 21-22), until he enters the presence of God (under the Son). “Till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny” (73:17).

• God’s presence provides God’s perspective. 

• God’s eternal perspective interprets our temporal problems. 

• Life under the sun can only be interpreted under the Son. 

• Walking in the Son (the fear of the Lord) provides wisdom from the Son.

Apart from God, Asaph foolishly interprets the traumatic suffering of life.

What about Solomon? What is his mindset, his worldview, his spiritual state as he is flooded with example after example of unjust suffering?

Question 2: What was Solomon’s spiritual state when he wrote Ecclesiastes? 

When we think of Solomon, we typically think of him as the wisest man in the Old Testament: 1 Kings 3:4-15 and 1 Kings 4:29-34. However, we sometimes forget the foolish end of Solomon’s life when he marries many foreign wives and worships numerous false gods: 1 Kings 11:1-13.

As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done (1 Kings 11:4-6).

Proverbs 1:7 informs us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” In Proverbs 1:1-33 we learn that we can increase or decrease in wisdom. The wise can become foolish. So here is something very important to keep in mind when we read Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes:

While Solomon began his reign as a wise man, he later lived the foolish life of a foolish man who no longer feared the Lord.    

Solomon’s Confession of Foolishness

Is it possible that Ecclesiastes 4:13-16 provides us with the chronological context for when Solomon wrote? Is it possible that it provides the spiritual condition of Solomon’s heart as he observe repeated case after repeated case of unjust suffering? Is Ecclesiastes 4:13-16 Solomon’s confession of foolishness as he reflects back on the words of 1 Kings 11:4-6 about how his heart turned to the foolish worship of false gods?

¹³ Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to heed a warning. 

Is this Solomon’s self-confession and self-confrontation? If so, how might Ecclesiastes been different had Solomon not succumbed to his sinful foolishness of following false gods? How might Ecclesiastes have been different if Solomon was living with hope under the Son, rather than living with despair under the sun?

Question #3: What is the purpose of Ecclesiastes? 

Our first question was, “What was Solomon doing in Ecclesiastes?” Our answer:

“He was observing fallen life under the sun—repeatedly seeing evidence of unjust suffering.”

Our second question was, “What was Solomon’s spiritual state when he wrote Ecclesiastes?” From internal evidence (his many foolish conclusions) and from external evidence (the biblical history of the foolish trajectory of Solomon’s life), our answer is,

In Ecclesiastes, sometimes Solomon was making wise conclusions about the meaning of suffering, and sometimes he was making foolish conclusions about the meaninglessness of suffering.

Our third question is: “What is the purpose of Ecclesiastes?”

As I seek to answer this, it’s important to remember that every theologian, commentator, and preacher has a different interpretation of Ecclesiastes. With it’s pessimistic focus on meaninglessness, it is notoriously difficult to interpret. I offer my interpretation simply as my current, best understanding of Ecclesiastes.

The Main Idea of Ecclesiastes for Christian Living and Biblical Counseling

Ecclesiastes asks the questions:

• How do wisdom and foolishness interpret the unjust suffering of life under the sun?

• How do wisdom and foolishness respond to the traumatic suffering and apparent meaninglessness we experience in our fallen world?

Ecclesiastes answers those questions like this:

• Wisdom looks at life under the Son—through a Christ-centered worldview. Foolishness looks at life under the sun—through a human-centered worldview.

• Wisdom looks at suffering in our fallen world and crops Christ into the picture. Foolishness looks at suffering in our fallen world and crops Christ out of the picture.

• Wisdom looks at fallen life with God’s eternal perspective. Foolishness looks at fallen life with a temporal perspective.

• Wisdom maintains an eternal perspective while looking honestly at our fallen temporal reality. Foolishness looks only at our fallen temporal world and forgets eternity.

• Wisdom uses spiritual math (logizomai in Romans 8:17-27) that factors in the eternal equation. Foolishness uses only earthly math that only factors in temporal existence.

• Wisdom observes traumatic-suffering in our fallen world and uses special revelation—God’s wisdom—to interpret those observations. Foolishness observes traumatic-suffering in our fallen world and uses general revelation—human insights to interpret those observations.

• Wisdom sees unjust suffering through the CFRC Narrative: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation. Foolishness sees unjust suffering only as a CF Narrative: Creation and Fall.

• Wisdom looks at life with spiritual eyes. Foolishness looks at life with eyeballs only.

“What does Ecclesiastes teach us?”

The wise and the fool can both observe life under the sun. However, only the wise person can interpret life in Christ—under the Son.

Ecclesiastes teaches us the stark difference between how the wise and the foolish interpret unjust suffering in our fallen world.

The Big Picture of Ecclesiastes for Christian Living and Biblical Counseling: A Last Will and Testament

“Ecclesiastes” means “the assembler,” “the gatherer.”

Picture Solomon at the end of his life. He gathers his children for a father’s last will and testament. He assembles his children for a father’s deathbed confession.

He’s studied unjust suffering with greater intensity and focus than anyone who had ever lived. Having lived both a wise and foolish life, he longs for his children to know experientially the costs of foolishness, the price of not fearing the Lord. He longs for his children to interpret their suffering through the lens of hope in God, instead of through eyes that only see life as meaningless.

My dear children, life is bad. Life in this fallen world is a mess! It’s a jungle out there. Disorder and confusion everywhere. No one seems to care. Violence and danger fill the air.   

I’ve spent all of my life using all of my God-given capacity to observe and examine life. At the beginning of my life as King, I observed life in the fear of the Lord. Proverbs was my good gift from God to me to you. 

Now, at the end of my life, I’ve been living away from the fear of the Lord. This letter I’m leaving you with—it’s saturated with hopelessness. Why? Because if you reject the fear of the Lord, then as you face life’s unjust suffering, it will all seem meaningless. When life is bad and you crop God out of the picture, then you crop all hope and meaning out of the picture. Do some math. Add it up: “bad life” + no God” = “no meaning!” 

But hear me now. If you’ve not been listening until now, be sure to read and heed this last chapter of my last letter to you. Crop God back into your picture! Factor God into your equation: “bad life” + “good God” = “hope!” 

Don’t get to the end of your life like me—with regrets for turning on God and turning off wisdom. Don’t give up hope. Don’t choke on despair. 

Here at the end of my life, let me encourage you how to live your life. Live life in this fallen under the sun world with wisdom—live in the fear of the Lord. Live with hope in God.

A Fourth Question: How Do Wise and Foolish Counselors See Traumatic-Suffering? 

What does Ecclesiastes teach us about how wise and foolish counselors view and respond to unjust suffering?

You go to a counselors. You share your suffering. If they respond from an under the Son eternal perspective, how do they minister to you? If they respond from an under the sun temporal perspective, how do they minister to you? 

• Under the sun foolish counselor: “Life is hard, and then we die. So I’ll help you to figure out how to get as much out of your short life as you can. There is no comfort in life and death.”
• Under the Son wise counselor: “Life is bad, but God is good. So I’ll help you lament to God and find comfort in God so you can comfort others with the comfort you receive from the Father of compassion and God of all comfort.”

 

• Under the sun foolish counselor: “It’s normal to despair in a fallen world, but it’s naïve to hope. I’ll empathize with your suffering, but I have no answers for your doubts.”
• Under the Son wise counselor: “It’s normal to hurt in a fallen world, but possible to hope in Christ. I empathize with your suffering, and I encourage you to cling to Christ.”

 

• Under the sun foolish counselor: “Your life is hard. Let’s fix what we can. Let’s find some solutions to make your life easier. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die. And this is all there is.”
• Under the Son wise counselor: “Your life is hard. I grieve with you. But God is good. Together, let’s find God’s comfort in your pain, God’s strength in your weakness, God’s wisdom for your journey, and God’s hopeful purpose for your life…”