The Ecclesiastes Interview | Brian Borgman

Well, we are back with another episode of the Room for Nuance podcast. I'm Sean DeMars and I'm here with.

Brian Borgman. Brother, will you open us in prayer? Of course. Our Father, we thank you for another day of life. We thank you for your mercies, which renew every morning. We pray for your blessing on our time together that it would be edifying for your people in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen. Thank you for coming on the show, brother. Now people don't know this because they're only gonna be able to see the top half of your body but you're actually just wearing boxers on the bottom half.

Right, but that's because you told me I could. That's right. The news anchor outfit. No, thank you for being here. We're gonna be talking about your new book, Don't Waste Your Breath on the book of Ecclesiastes, which was that a play on the Don't Waste Your Life, John Piper book thing?

Yeah, sort of. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But before we hop into that, brother, just tell us how you came to know the Lord, three to five minutes.

Brian Borgman's Conversion and Call to Ministry

All right. Well, I was raised in a Roman Catholic home. And about 1977, my mom became a Christian by reading the Bible. And my dad, who was raised more strictly Catholic, didn't think he should read the Bible.

But my dad really was coming to sort of a crisis of faith. And he started listening to J. Vernon McGee. My dad was a feeder driver for UPS. So he would drive eight, 10 hours a day. And he'd listen to J. Vernon McGee.

And then he'd listen to my mom. And he went and talked to a priest who said, Steve, read the Bible. So once he had that approval, he started reading. And God saved him, too. And so my mom and dad came to Christ.

And this is around 1978, 79 by this time. And I was absolutely committed as a Catholic. I was a rotten, wretched sinner. And God saved me through reading the Bible. I read Matthew 5. Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you'll not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

And I thought I was pretty good. I knew it was bad, but my Catholicism sort of gave me a sense of being religiously superior. And God just devastated my conscience and brought me to faith at about age 13.

Wow. Incredible. And then about 12, 10 to 12 years after that, you planted a church in Nevada. You've been a pastor there for how long?

Yeah. So we moved to Nevada when I was 26 years old. That was in 1993. We planted the church. Grace Community Church. Grace Community Church. And we had our first service March 6, 1994. So we just passed our 30th anniversary.

Praise God, brother. That's a lot of grace.

You also have a fairly extensive writing ministry. What book number is this for you?

I think it's six or seven. I can't remember.

So you've written on adoption. You've written on a biblical theology of emotions to be a sort of resource for biblical counselors and pastors and lay people alike. But today we're talking about one of the least popular, least understood books in the Old Testament, the book of Ecclesiastes.

What makes a man say, I'm going to write a book about Ecclesiastes? What led you to write the book?

Why Ecclesiastes Became a Passion

Well, it was sort of a long journey. I'll make it short. So Ecclesiastes has always intrigued me. You know, you always hear people say, oh, Ecclesiastes is my favorite book.

I don't always. I mean, but you came to a small group meeting last night where one of our elders said that and it completely took me back.

I never heard that before. Yeah. So you'll hear people say it. And this isn't a reflection on your elder, but most people that say that think Ecclesiastes is saying one thing and it's really saying something else.

And so I had an interest in it in Bible college and seminary just because sort of the weird statements, right? Like money's the answer to everything, you know? I mean, so I hated life. You look at those kinds of statements and you're like, how did this get in the Bible?

And so it just sort of started a journey for me wanting to understand it because I really felt like I didn't, I didn't understand the forest or the trees, you know, and I ended up having sort of a, I guess you could, I call it a Havel moment from the Hebrew word for breath that we can talk about.

But in about 2002 or three or four, right in there where I just realized how fast time was going by.

My kids are getting older. Can I actually read a section from your book where you talk about that? Because it really, it really struck me. It was penetrating. You say, just as I have watched my dad bury his parents, so my kids are going to watch me bury my parents and it will happen before I know it.

But then the kids will watch them, but then their kids will watch them bury me. And a wave of melancholy overtook me.

Yeah, yeah. I think that that experience is fairly common when you just start to realize how fast life is going by. And for whatever reason, I just, I felt compelled that I needed to jump in to Ecclesiastes.

And I honestly can't even tell you necessarily why, but I felt like there was a key there. And so I took, I took a study leave and just dove in. And this was around 2003 or four. And it's basically been a passion of mine ever since.

And so just collecting, I mean, commentaries, articles, I would say that it's more than a hobby. But if I have time to read extra stuff that's not germane to my preaching, I'll be reading something on Ecclesiastes.

I listened to an interview with Bobby Jameson recently where he said that his hobby was the Trinity. It's funny, within the space of two days, I'm hearing people use that phrase. It's a hobby of mine.

Hey, why is Ecclesiastes called the black sheep of the Bible?

Ecclesiastes as the Misunderstood Black Sheep

Well, it's called the black sheep of the Bible because it appears that it does not fit. It seems out of place. You end up having sort of like this negative, pessimistic perspective on life. That's that's the appearance.

And so I think a lot of people look at it as a cynical book or the skeptics book, something like that. And so that that's why it ends up kind of being pegged. You know, my Hebrew prof called it the stepchild of Scripture, you know.

And so I think that that's why it gets the reputation, the name that it does.

And you would probably say that that is because the book of Ecclesiastes is largely misunderstood, which leads me to I think maybe the most significant thing about this interview in our discussion is you have a different interpretation than basically the mainstream, I would say, interpretation.

So, yeah, talk to us about that. What's what's different about your interpretation of Ecclesiastes as compared to what most people will probably find in their commentaries or in the books that they buy?

Havel as Breath, Not Vanity

Yeah, so I would say that there's one massive difference. And that is my understanding of the Hebrew word chavel. So most of our English translations will open up in Ecclesiastes 1 -2 with vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, all is vanity, says the preacher, or futility or meaninglessness.

And so once and to me, this is this is sort of simple. Once you take such a thematic statement, right, if you say so, the minute you go chavel of chavels, all right, or vanity of vanities, whatever you're used to, that's like saying king of kings or song of songs, right?

So you're you're taking whatever this word means to to to a superlative degree, but then you repeat it. So it's repeated. And of course, you know, in Hebrew Bible, repetition is for emphasis. And then you have this absolutely comprehensive statement.

Everything is vanity or chavel. So if you take the word to mean emptiness, vanity, futility, then you have, in a sense, right from the get go, you have a lens that you're looking at the whole book through.

But the word chavel, choose 38 times in Ecclesiastes, and it means breath or vapor or mist.

And so like when James says your life is a mist. Yes. Right. Same same idea.

Same idea. So if if that's the case, if it's if it's vapor or breath as opposed to vanity, right, then then that actually shapes the way you view the book. And so I would argue that the book ends up being not pessimistic, but but far more optimistic, not negative, but actually very positive as Solomon wrestles with life in its brevity.

Right. Not not not life in its in its meaninglessness, because I don't think the Bible actually teaches us that that that any life is meaningless. Right. So when you look at it as a struggle with brevity or transience as opposed to vanity, then I think that the book changes actually the whole book.

So Paul Washer and his video that he made promoting this book says that Don't Waste Your Breath completely changed his view on the book of Ecclesiastes. So take note. Here's a summary statement from you about the book of Ecclesiastes.

Do not waste your breath and in parentheses vapor. Enjoy it while you have it. So not only is it not vanity, it's short, but it's not vanity. It's actually a call to enjoy, say you, says you. The book of Ecclesiastes is a call to enjoy the life that you have while you have it.

I've never heard that before.

Yeah, so I honestly think that. As so, so Solomon or Kohelet, right, that's the Hebrew title of the book. Can we can we call him the preacher? Is that appropriate or no? What should we call him? Well, I prefer sticking with Kohelet simply because there's not a really good English translation that doesn't have some kind of baggage.

Right. So preacher has an ecclesiastical bent teacher, has the academy, right, professor, whatever, pundit. And so I just kind of prefer to stick with with Kohelet because that's the one who calls an assembly.

So he's he's teaching, but it's not a classroom. Right. He's he's preaching, but it's not a pulpit. OK. And so, you know, in a sense, I take him to be taking us on a ride, OK, on a journey. He he he wants us to actually come to the conviction like he's come to the conviction.

That life is short, but it's a gift as opposed to like an achievement. Right. And so he takes us along on his journey and and in a sense sort of instill so that there are these corner pieces in Ecclesiastes where where Solomon will say, you know, basically, so so what are we going to do?

Well, you're going to you're going to eat your food with gladness, you know, drink your wine, enjoy your wife, enjoy your work. Right. These are gifts. They're short, but they're gifts. And the way that we glorify God is by enjoying these these gifts that he gives us, even though we know that that one of these days are going to pass away.

The Structure of Ecclesiastes

One of the things that makes reading a difficult book easier is understanding the structure. So just let's take some New Testament examples, Ephesians, you can roughly cut it in half. First few chapters, this is the gospel.

Last few chapters, this is how you apply it. Or something like Hebrews, a little more complicated. People get lost in Hebrews. You have these five cycles of teaching and then exhortation. And then there's kind of the closing.

Ecclesiastes is really hard to wrap your mind around to understand the design and the flow of the book. Can you help us figure that out?

Yeah. So Ecclesiastes is not as neatly structured. But what you do end up having is, I would say, basically, you have some kind of inquiry, some kind of investigation, and then Solomon's conclusions. So in a sense, what he's doing is he's making observations about things.

When he gets to his conclusions, his conclusions are almost always the same. So you see, for instance, in chapter 2, 24 to 26. You see in chapter 3, around 13, 14. You see then in chapter 5, 18 to 20.

And you get these corner pieces, right? And he's, in a sense, repeating the same refrain each time. But applying it to a different question. Yes, exactly.

If you say, this is the main two, three, four, five themes in Ecclesiastes. I mean, I know we have breath, not vanity, mist, life is short, enjoy it. But how does he get at that? He gets there through what, work, family, food?

Work, Toil, and Enjoying the Gifts of Life

Yeah, that's a great question. So I think that what happens is in those first two chapters, you see Solomon in terms of his own angst in trying to deal with two things. One is, life is really short. But then the other is, you spend the majority of your life working, toiling.

So Ecclesiastes actually has a view of labor that both holds together in a sense the dignity of work, but then also the frustration of it since the fall. So if you have this life, and it's just a breath, and you spend the vast majority of it toiling, what's left over, right?

What's the benefit, is the way that he might say it. And so this, I mean, obviously it's Solomon, right? So he's got the resources to like, okay, let's dig in. And so in chapter one, you end up having this poem on nature, right?

Sunrises, sunsets, the wind blows. I mean, you get this very cyclical view of nature. And in a sense, it drives Solomon kind of crazy because on the one hand, he's like, well, that's kind of like what life is like.

There's sort of a monotony to it. It's so short, and yet there's this monotony. So I'll use the illustration of life's like doing laundry, right? You know, your poor wife washes the kids' clothes in the morning and folds them and puts, and only to do the same thing the next day and the next day.

So there's this monotony, but nature then sort of mocks us because there's a permanence to it that our lives don't have, right? So you've got the monotony, but the impermanence of this life. So this causes Solomon to go on this quest.

And so then you get to chapter two, where he's, you know, doing his scientific pleasure experiments. And I think that what he's doing there is he's trying to figure out how can you mitigate the pain of Havel?

How can you mitigate the pain that life is a breath? Because it does. It causes us a sense of pain, right? Almost an angst. Yeah. Maybe not almost. Yeah, right. And so he goes for achievement. Greg Beal actually argues that what you see with Solomon is Solomon is sort of like the new Adam who's building the Garden of Eden, right?

He's trying at least.

And so you've got That's such a Greg Beal thing to say, by the way. Yeah, exactly.

So you have him with, he's trying to make these uber achievements, right? He wants to do something that's going to last. And actually, he looks after all of his accomplishments and he's satisfied, but just for a second, because then he realizes, oh, I'm still going to die.

And then I'm going to leave it to somebody and they're not going to appreciate it. They're not. And so that's when he goes, I hated life, right? So he's got this journey and his conclusion after that first, in a sense, that first leg of the journey, that conclusion is, OK, life is a gift.

Eat your food, drink your wine, be glad, trust God. And there's a sense where what Solomon's conclusion is, is that there's stuff that we don't get, there's stuff that we don't understand. And these gifts are a vapor.

Enjoy them while you have them. Don't ruin them, right? Don't ruin them by loving money, for instance, right? Don't ruin them by looking at everything as an achievement. Maximize the joy in it by receiving it as a gift, as long as you have it.

The Limits of Knowing the Future

Wow. What does the book of Ecclesiastes say to our desire to want to know the future?

Well, we all want to know what's going to happen in the future. And we also want to know what's going to happen once we're gone. And Solomon is absolutely emphatic that there is no way for us to know.

In fact, not only is there no way for us to know, but if we could know, right, it would, in a sense, ruin the present chapter that you're in.

Yeah. You say this, you say, the more you know, the more you hurt.

I think that that's true. Solomon says as much at the end of chapter one. But I think that the idea is that the more understanding you have, the more insight you have, in a sense, the more wisdom that you have, you actually see the pain.

So this is relevant to the discussion because Solomon, at the end of chapter three, has three, four, last half of chapter five, and end of chapter six. And those are somewhat the depressing chapters. But each one of those sections, he's basically dealing with what are the things in life that are threats to God making all things beautiful?

And what are the threats of, in a sense, robbing me of the joy of the gifts? And so sometimes it's oppression, it's injustice, sometimes it's loving money, sometimes it's hoarding for the future, right?

And so one of the things that all of this has in common is you don't know what's coming, you don't know what's going to come in the future. And the fact is, is that God knows. And in fact, God doesn't even forget the past, right?

And so there's a sense where Ecclesiastes is a great book on having us trust God, not only with every chapter, but with the ones that haven't even come yet. And so Solomon is a realist in the sense that he says, nobody knows what's going to happen, it could be love or hate, right?

And a lot of that's in chapter nine, a lot of commentaries think that what what he's referring to there is like either favorable circumstances or calamity, right? You don't know what awaits you, but you don't determine God's love for you based on what the next chapter holds.

You just don't know what it's going to hold, right? So you trust God. He's already approved your work, right? You're already accepted with him. And so you can't determine God's disposition towards you by circumstances.

Christian Hedonism and Enjoying God

Yeah, man, there's a lot more we can unpack there, but I have so many more questions. One of the things that I couldn't help but thinking about as I read your optimistic book about the book of Ecclesiastes was Christian hedonism.

You know, Piper's whole spiel on how the Christian faith should be a joyful faith. One of the things that that Piper says is that, you know, he didn't get it just from Lewis or from Edwards. It's on every page of the Bible.

And he says it's even in the places you wouldn't expect. And I have to tell you, you would not expect it from the book of Ecclesiastes. How much does the Christian hedonism stuff flow through your veins?

Does it make sense to you? Does it click?

Yeah, it does. And I understand there are people that have incredible reservations about it. But I think that if we understand really what Piper's overarching principle is, right, is that God's glory is uppermost in his own affections.

And he created us, you know, to actually rejoice in that glory. Then our happiness is found ultimately in God, right? Now, I think Ecclesiastes actually, in a sense, holds out a vision like that. Now, it's not exactly like Piper would put it, because for Solomon, he uses the word joy and enjoyment a lot in Ecclesiastes, but he also uses, you know, you see this word that's translated better in Ecclesiastes, right?

So, you have one of the chapters is your better life now, right? There's no way to have your best life now. You have your better life now. That is being the Hebrew phrase, the good, right? So, you can think of it like the good life, right?

Well, what is the good life for Solomon? Well, it is this intrinsically good life in that I'm looking to God as the one who holds every event in my life in his hands. I look to God who is the one who is sovereign over my good days and my bad days, right?

And as I get anchored into that, it actually empowers me not only to enjoy God, but to enjoy God through these temporary gifts.

So, let's talk about that, God being sovereign over the good days and the bad days. What does the book of Ecclesiastes have to say about prosperity and calamity?

God's Sovereignty Over Prosperity and Calamity

God's in control of both. So, the book of Ecclesiastes would have to be just devastating to the prosperity gospel. Absolutely. I think Solomon, if Solomon would have heard about the prosperity gospel, and maybe he did in some form, I think he would just scoff at it because one thing that is absolutely clear is, if God bends something, you're not strong enough to straighten it out.

And probably the key text, I think, would be Ecclesiastes 7, 13, and 14, where Solomon actually says, so, in the good day, okay, so our translations will say something different, but I'll just give you a more literal rendering.

So, in the good day, be in the good, right? In other words, when God brings those good things into your life, the blessings, it's like Solomon saying, enjoy those days, enjoy those days, you know, and whether that's, you know, hey, when your kids are little, when they're running around, just enjoy that, right?

When you're walking on the beach with your wife in the sunset, just enjoy that. In the good day, be in the good. But then he turns around and he says, basically, but in the evil day, right, or in the day of calamity, right, he doesn't say, you know, wine or pout, right, pine for the good old days.

He turns around and he says, consider, right? So, you go from a good day, which our good days don't last our whole life, right? They're sprinkled throughout. So, in the evil day, in the day of calamity, consider, right?

So, think, and then this is what Solomon says, God made one just as the other, right? And it's like, okay, I need to ponder the fact that for whatever reason, in his appointed time, okay, he's brought this calamity into my life.

That, in a sense, gives us a realism of encountering the good days and the bad days, just say, you know what, God's over both. God is sovereign over the days when I didn't have two nickels to rub together.

God is sovereign over the days when I can afford to go on a vacation. God is sovereign over the days when I'm walking hand in hand with my wife on the beach. God is sovereign over the day when she's sitting next to my hospital bed wondering if I'm going to live, right?

Yeah.

So, let's press into that more. If we know that the good days are not guaranteed, I mean, in a sense, if you step back and I guess and view all of life, they are guaranteed to be sprinkled in, but you know that the bad days are coming.

How do you enjoy the good when, especially if you're theologically attuned, you know it's a guarantee the bad days are coming? Let me add to that question just a little bit more. Matthew McCullough in his excellent book on Remember Death uses this thought experiment from some French philosopher who says, you know, imagine that you are on your way to be sentenced to death, but you get to enjoy all these hedonistic pleasures along the way, but you know you're going to die, you know, right around the corner.

How can you possibly enjoy any of these pleasures if you know death is right there? It robs you of all that joy. So, that's kind of the vein that I'm thinking in. How can you enjoy the good when you know that the other shoe is going to drop perhaps any minute?

Okay. I love that question because it's really a great question because if there's anything that's absolutely clear in Ecclesiastes, it's this, you're going to die, right? Soon. Yeah, right. So, I mean, that's why it's a vapor, right?

Because it's a breath and then it ends. How does it end? In death. And so, death is not actually viewed romantically in Ecclesiastes at all. It is a terrible reality, right? But here's the thing. I think Solomon would say, and David Gibson in his book on Ecclesiastes, Living Life Backwards.

Living Life Backwards, yes. I think actually has captured this truth and that is, as a Christian, you really are not equipped to live until you are, in fact, ready to die. And so, his image is living life backwards.

That is, you live life from the perspective of the grave. Now, that sounds absolutely morbid for most people, like the thought experiment, right? That's what they think of. And I would say that for Solomon, that's not the case at all.

Okay? Death is just an inevitability, right? It's going to happen. And so, you can't rob it, you can't cheat it, you can't prolong it, but you can actually enjoy the gifts while you have them, knowing that they will, in fact, end.

So, if I could just use an illustration, all right? So, your kids are little. How do you actually enjoy them being little? Well, you realize that one of these days they're going to grow up, right? And now, that's going to be a different chapter and that chapter will have enjoyment as well, but those days are going to be gone.

So, it's like you live them to their full while you have them, knowing that they're going to pass. And one thing that should be obvious to us is that Solomon doesn't have a full-blown view of the afterlife.

He does have a view of the afterlife. He's not a pessimist in the sense of, well, who knows what's going to happen? He does ask that question, but I think that question is understood differently. But he's relatively early in salvation.

History. The fullness of revelation hasn't been made clear.

Right. So, for us, living this side of the cross and the resurrection, what we can understand is that, yeah, death is an inevitability for all of us, but thanks be to God, Jesus took the sting out of death for us.

He conquered death for us, so even death. So, to go back to the French philosopher's thought experiment, I think that what you could say is that for us, we live life to the full, knowing that we're going to die, but then also knowing that all of the wonderful gifts that we've tasted and experienced in this life, one of these days, are going to give way to eternity, where the goodness of God's gifts, as they come to us in Christ, will never, ever pass away.

So, I think it's powerful.

Death, the Beast, and the Hope of Resurrection

Yeah. When you take the book of Ecclesiastes and cast it in the light of the cross, you get a level up, even from what Solomon is saying. Does the author of Ecclesiastes, does he say that man and beast are the same?

Yes, he does. Okay. And what are we to make of that? Can I eat your insides like a hamburger?

I think that there are two things that Solomon is getting at when he says that. He introduces that idea at the end of chapter three, and I think there's two things that he's making a comparison of. One is, if we actually live lives of wickedness, we live lives of depravity, we live lives of having our own agenda that tramples people, we're no better than the beasts.

In fact, we've become beast-like. But then the other thing is, Solomon is very emphatic, just like a dog dies, you're going to die too. And so, just like the beasts, their life comes to an end, yours does too.

So, in some ways, what Solomon does with death is, he is continually reminding us that there are certain things that you might think give you an advantage in death that don't. So, being a human being, that does not give you any advantage over beasts, both alike die.

Wisdom, better to live with wisdom, but wisdom doesn't help you cheat death either.

Much to the contrary of this guy, this billionaire guy that I've been watching on YouTube, he's like, listen, I don't want to die, and I think I can stop it. And he's taking all these supplements, and he's doing all these things, and he has all, so again, he thinks he has a cheat code.

He's got all the money, and all the free time in the world, and access to the best technology and information, and he's going to die just like everybody else. Yeah, wow. How can we grow old without becoming grumpy and cynical?

Old Age, Decline, and Remembering the Creator

Well, one of the things about Ecclesiastes is that it deals with old age and the process of drawing near to death in pictures that are not overly appealing. Okay, he's honest. He is totally honest. He's not putting a filter on anything.

Yeah, and so I think that the picture of old age is pretty depressing in Ecclesiastes. But here's, I think, the key for Solomon is those days, you know, if God gives you a long life and you reach old age, there's no guarantee that that happens.

But if it does happen, and you find yourself in old age, in a state of decrepitude, right, the eyesight's going, the hearing's going, even natural desires are going, you know, and life is just followed by one doctor's appointment after another, after another, right?

And my dad might watch this podcast, he might not, but I'll say, hey, dad, so what'd you do this week? Well, I went to the doctor on Monday, I went to the doctor on Tuesday. And so that's the inevitability of old age.

Solomon, I think Solomon would approve of old age is not for sissies, right? Because it is a hard season. But I think that when you look at that text in chapter 12, the key actually ends up being in verse one, when he says, remember your creator in the days of your youth,.

Before the evil days come. And the evil days are the hard old days. Yeah, yeah. The days of.

Being aged. Yeah, yeah. And so I think the old Puritan William Bridge has a great treatise called The Word for the Aged. And he deals with, in a sense, some of the liabilities of old age, some of the dangers of old age.

And I think that from Solomon's perspective, that that's kind of right on track. There are some dangers, because what's happening in old age is that all those good gifts that you had, they're starting to slip away.

Right. You know? Yeah.

Relatives begin to pass away. Friends are gone. You can't enjoy a lot of the stuff that you used to enjoy. So it's so easy to slip into that. Yeah. That's really good, brother. What does the book of Ecclesiastes have to say to us about wise stewardship?

Work, Money, and Stewardship

Well, it has a lot to say about work and money. All right? And the work ethic in Ecclesiastes is interesting, because on the one hand, you work hard. But on the other hand, you make sure that you take time to rest.

Okay? So I think that that ends up being just sort of a vital thing for us to remember, because we want to work hard. We want to teach our kids to work hard. But the fact is, is that we'll never enjoy the good gifts of God, including our labor, unless we take time to rest.

Right? So that's one counsel I think Solomon gives us that is really helpful. I mentioned in the book that I wish I would have had this perspective in seminary, because I just poured myself in. I mean, I wanted to ace everything.

I wanted to do my best. And what it did is it led me to neglect my wife. We only had one kid at that time, my daughter Ashley, because I was always, I got to study, I got to study, I got to study. And I say, I think Solomon would have pulled me aside and said, listen, it's okay to get a B.

Go spend time with your family. One of the guys that I worked for told me that his seminary professor pulled him aside after he got another A on an exam. And he goes, hey, you're doing great, but don't you have a wife and kids?

He was like, yeah. He was like, okay, you shouldn't be getting.

A's in my class if you have a wife and kids. Yeah. Yeah. That's a wise seminary professor. That's right. But Solomon also talks a lot about money. And the idea is that, first of all, money is a gift from God, but it can't become God, right?

Because the minute that money becomes an idol and you're living for it, you're looking to money to give you more than what God intended it to give, right? So, Solomon's pretty honest. Would you rather be dirt poor or have a little bit of money, right?

Well, yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, it's nice to have a little bit of money. It's nice to be able to go and do things. It's nice to be, right? All of that. But Solomon has such a dogged determination to make sure that none of the good gifts of God become idols, right?

Because then they end up, you talk about ruining the gift, right? And so being generous with your money, actually being a good steward of your money is the way that you show that it's not your God. Yeah.

Yeah. That's really good, brother.

I always say that preacher, because I'm afraid I'm going to mess up the Hebrew. I didn't go seminary. So bear with me. The Kohelet. How do you say it? Yeah. Kohelet. There you go. Does the Kohelet employ sarcasm?

Sarcasm, Gentleness, and the Limits of Human Government

Oh, yeah. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Yeah. And whether or not we should as well. Yeah. Well, that's a hard one for me because I was born into a family where sarcastic humor was, you know, just par for the course. Yeah. So Solomon does, in fact, use sarcasm.

I don't see, like, massively heavy doses of it, but he'll say things, and this is, you know, maybe not technically sarcasm, but he'll say things to evoke a response, right? You know, I'm naturally, my humor is probably a little more sarcastic than some people would like, but I think that, you know, as Christians, we probably should know when we've used too much, right?

It's like salt.

Or pepper, you know? Yeah. I think when you just think through the peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, there is no law against these things. You can't overuse them. You can't be, I mean, I guess someone could distort what gentleness is and then say that they've used too much of this, but true gentleness, you can't overuse it, right?

Biblical gentleness, gospel gentleness, but you can really easily overdo sarcasm. Yeah. Okay. In chapter seven, you highlight the systemic nature of injustice in a fallen world, but I thought you did something interesting, which first of all, you're a conservative.