The NIV is Wrong about Ecclesiastes ***Guest Brian Borgman***

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Because if everything is meaningless, right, if everything is futile, then in a sense, then what's the point?

01:12

And welcome to Your Calvinist Podcast. My name is Keith Foskey, and as always, I am your

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Calvinist. Is life meaningless? Does the Bible teach that?

01:24

Well, that's what we're going to talk about today with my very good friend and a pastor that I love and respect,

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Brian Borgman. But before I bring him in, I do have a few things I need to mention before we get going.

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Number one, this podcast is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church. So if you're in the

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Jacksonville, Florida area, we would love to have you come and visit with us at Sovereign Grace. And you can learn more about us at sgfcjax .org.

01:52

Also, we are sponsored by a couple of different groups right now, and I'm very thankful for our sponsorships.

01:58

They're feeding hungry children. Mine. So the one that's been with us the longest is our friends over at Tiny Bibles.

02:08

Christmas is coming, and so if you're looking for a gift to get for someone, Tiny Bibles is a great one to consider.

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You can go there, tinybibles .com, look through all that they have. They have Tiny Gospel of John. That's what I have right here. The actual

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Tiny Bible, which is really small. It's the smallest printed Bible on the market. You can hide it anywhere, keep it anywhere, give it as an heirloom, or keep it and use it for your own personal use.

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And if you use my name, Keith, in the coupon code, you will get a percentage off. And in the same way, if you go buy this book, this is a book called

02:36

What Do We Believe? It is put out by Striving for Eternity Ministries, and it's a good introduction to systematic theology.

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If you have questions about theology or want to learn more about theology, it's good for not only beginners, but also seasoned theologians.

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It's a useful book, and it is available. Again, if you use the coupon code Keith, you will get a percentage off.

02:58

Last but not least, I want to also mention that as many of you are thinking about things like considering the future, we're going to be talking about this today as we consider

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Ecclesiastes, asking the question, is life meaningless or is there a purpose behind it? Should we be thinking about things like about the future and specifically things like saving up for the future?

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03:57

All right. Well, without further delay, I hate the phrase without further ado. I don't know why. I just don't like it when people say it.

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So I try to say without further delay, because I'm an American, I'm not French. I'm going to bring my friend and pastor,

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Brian Borgman. Brian, thank you for being with me today. Oh, it's my pleasure. It's great to see you.

04:17

It's always good to see you, my friend. And looking forward to hopefully seeing you in the flesh next year.

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Are you going to be at the FIRE National Conference that's going to be in Georgia? Yes, Lord willing,

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I'll be there. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I am very thankful for the leadership that you give to FIRE.

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And for those who don't know what FIRE is, that's the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals. And we don't tell our

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Scott Clark, because he would say you can't be independent and Baptist if you're going to be a Reformed guy.

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So we keep that real quiet. We don't tell him about it. But the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals is a great group.

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If you're a church, particularly a Reformed and Baptistic group, and you're looking for a group to be a part of, go to FIREfellowship .org

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and check them out. When did you come into FIRE, Brian?

05:11

Well, I got into FIRE sort of in a roundabout way. They were having me preach at their regionals, and I wasn't a member.

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And our church wasn't a member. And I just really liked the guys. And so I think our church officially joined in like 2014.

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But I'd been going and preaching and attending since probably 2010 or something like that.

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Can I ask you a question that's a little odd, but it just kind of came to my mind? Sure. You have been doing

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Bible conferences and teaching and preaching for a long time. Obviously, I came to know you through your Internet ministry.

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The first thing I ever heard you do was a series on church history, because I was studying church history. And I looked you up, found it, and that was how

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I was introduced to your ministry and have been listening to you ever since. Last year, I began doing my first kind of few conferences.

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I've had a few people ask me to come, and it's been kind of interesting. It's been very thankful that I've been asked to do it.

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But when was the first time you were ever asked to go outside of your church and preach a conference?

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Do you remember that? Yeah, I think it was probably 2001 or 2002, something like that.

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Yeah, okay. Yeah, and you build connections with local churches.

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You end up having people that you know, and you may preach for them or something.

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But it's kind of funny, though, because I look back, and it was so exciting to me at first. And now

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I realize that at 57, I don't really like to fly that much. And so I view it more as a stewardship and responsibility.

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And thankfully, my fellow elders are on the same page. Yeah, I agree about the flying especially.

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I had to fly four times this year, and it was the first time in years I had flown at all.

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And I don't know if you can tell through the camera, but I'm a lot bigger than you. And so I know we've met each other before.

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I'm not built for airplanes. I'm built for car travel, big cars too.

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So, well, Brian, I'm wanting to talk about your book today.

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And right away, I want to just say how much of a refreshing blessing it was to me when you gave me the opportunity to look at the book in preparation for our conversation.

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And it's been over, I guess, maybe a month and a half, two months ago, because our original plan to get together got sidetracked a little bit.

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We both had our schedules kind of got in the way, but we're finally getting back now. So it's been a little bit since I read it.

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So I went back today and was looking, reminding myself of some things and just being refreshed again by the things that are in the book.

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And the question I want to ask right away is, what was the reason that this book became such a passion of yours?

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Because I know you've read other books or written other books. Faith and Feelings is one of your books. My wife got that for me for Christmas a few years ago.

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Very encouraging book, very helpful book. Am I right about that? It's the title, right? Faith and Feelings?

08:36

Feelings and Faith. But yeah, that's the title. Okay. It's on my shelf. I look at it. Maybe I got it upside down.

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Okay. But this one is Don't Waste Your Breath, right? And so what was it?

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And I know you talk about this in the book, but what was it that made you say, I need to write this book? Yeah, it was a process for sure.

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I would say that I've always been intrigued by the book of Ecclesiastes simply because it says so many things that just don't sound like they belong in the

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Bible. And so I'd take classes, undergrad and seminary and so forth.

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And so there was always this looming idea in my head that it was really a book that I needed to grab hold of and understand.

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But my family and I, we vacation at the Oregon coast in a little town called

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Bandon. And one year, I'm standing there, we get to the cabin.

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It's the same thing every year. The kids get out and they're tearing around and the sea air and it's just this wonderful, like nostalgic kind of thing for us.

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And I'm looking at my kids and how fast they're growing. And I really,

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I went into a state of melancholy, like where has the time gone? And I think that's a pretty common experience for people.

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And for some reason, I was convinced that the book had something to say to me about that.

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And I had read an article by Ardell Canaday that really had sort of given me sort of a beginning view of,

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I should say a positive view of Ecclesiastes, but I really wanted to flesh it out.

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And so I did. I went back to that same cabin on a study leave and just took every article and every commentary, and just read it through in different translations every morning.

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And so then I finally, I preached it for the first time in 2004. And I tell people that I've written a book on Ecclesiastes three different times.

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So I initially wrote out the manuscript after preaching it the first time.

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And it almost got it published. And I won't say who, by who or whatever, but I got bumped because the guy who was contracted to do

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Ecclesiastes was way more famous than me. So anyway, but I'm actually thankful because I think that if it would have come out then, it would not have been what

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Don't Waste Your Breath is. And there was another iteration of it in between that time.

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Zondervan actually had expressed some interest. But they wanted me to do more stories, like interweave stories, which

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I really wasn't too crazy about. So I re -preached it. And I think the maturity of 20 years from the first time

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I preached it to the second time I preached it actually even seasoned me even more to write it.

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And Jeff Johnson at Free Grace Press, and if I can just,

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I don't want this to sound like I'm name dropping, but Paul Washer was just a very, very enthusiastic supporter of the work.

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And so I knew if we went with Free Grace Press, I'd have more control over the final product, the final outcome.

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And so that's the journey in a nutshell. Now this is, you're talking about Jeff Johnson, president of Grace Bible Theological Seminary.

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Is that the same Jeffrey Johnson that I'm thinking of? You just cut out for a second.

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What was the question? Is that Jeffrey Johnson, who is the president of Grace Bible Theological Seminary?

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Am I thinking of the same person? Yes, it's that Jeff Johnson. Okay. Well, I just met him two months ago.

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I was preaching at a church in Arkansas and the church was very near his seminary. So they took me to the seminary to see him and he's a very, very gracious man.

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He is. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. I have a preaching question.

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Every time I talk to you, I ask preaching questions because I know I don't want to talk about the book, but you're sort of one of my preaching go -to guys.

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I say when I grow up, I want to preach like you. So Brian, I don't know time -wise how long should you wait to re -preach a book, but you just said it was 20 years between your first and second time.

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And I remember you mentioned this in the book, like you had preached through it twice. What's it like? Because I haven't done it yet. I mean,

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I've been preaching for 18 years. I haven't got to the point yet where I'm redoing anything. I'm still going into books.

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Like I'm fixing through the Gospel of John for the first time starting in... Have you preached? I'm sure you've preached through the

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Gospel of John. No, that's what I'm going to do after Romans. Oh, really? Okay, so you haven't done that.

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Well, I'm a little nervous. It certainly is a lot.

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But when you re -preach a book, what were some of the things as a pastor and as a preacher that you feel were the benefits of re -preaching it?

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And maybe to put more of a finer point on the question, do you feel like you really changed a lot on the second go -around?

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Yeah, I'd say that there are certainly some advantages of re -preaching a book, especially one that you put a lot of energy and effort into the first time around.

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And I think that 20 years, frankly, more articles, more commentaries had come out.

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Because I kept up on those things, I felt like my understanding was sharpened.

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So maybe from an expositor's perspective, I felt that I was sharper on the consistency of the message.

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I saw things the second time around that I just didn't see the first time around.

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But then I also think that 20 years and having all my kids grown, having grandkids, it's not that you exegete out of your experience, but your exegesis most certainly is impacted by where you're at in life.

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And so to me, that was probably just as important as the other part.

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As I preach and get older, I'm in my mid -40s now, and I started in my mid -20s.

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As I'm preaching and as I get older, I find myself preaching longer simply because I feel like I have more to say.

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But is there a point where, like, did you see that in your evolution of preaching?

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Ooh, bad word, evolution. Let me say, as you grew in preaching, did you see that you got longer or shorter, or have you always been about the same?

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Yeah, as far as time -wise goes, I think I've always been about the same.

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In fact, maybe I preach slightly longer now, but it's kind of hard for me to tell.

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I do know that the fewer notes I have, the longer I preach. That's incredibly insightful.

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I never thought about that, but I've gone to a one -page note system now, and that's kind of my focus, is how to get it all on one page.

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And even with only one page, I still tend to preach longer than I used to. Have you ever seen my crazy notes?

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Everybody makes comments about them, my colorful. No, I haven't. I've seen

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Kofi's notes. I can't say his last name.

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Me either. Yeah, yeah. Kofi's been on the show, and I still can't say his name. Yeah, yeah.

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So I've seen his. I haven't seen yours. I'll have to take a look. Just colorful.

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I'll have to send you a copy. It's very odd looking. A lot of people make comments about him when they see him. So getting to the main thing, and I know a lot of people clicked on this because I've got a little bit of a clickbait title, and I admit that because I like to get people interested.

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And the clickbait title is What the NIV Gets Wrong About Ecclesiastes. But it's not just the

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NIV. I would say so many of the translations that we have, based on your book, are really missing something essential in the book of Ecclesiastes, and that is the understanding of this word,

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Havel, or maybe if I'm not saying that right. I'm not sure how you. That's right. As far as I know.

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Sure. And this idea, which is translated in the NIV as meaningless, and then in the new living translation, it's also meaningless.

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Actually, the NIV says utter meaningless. And then in the new English translation, it's translated as futile or futile.

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And in the King James and the ESV, of course, it's that word vanity. I think coming out of the

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Latin, if I remember how they come to that use of that word.

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But you make the argument, and I think very well, that these words don't really capture the idea of Havel.

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And certainly we don't want to give the whole book away. We want people to go buy it. But I would like to ask you, why do you feel like the conclusion that you came to, because I agree,

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I think it's masterful, the conclusion you came to, and I certainly don't disagree in any way. But why do you feel confident that the conclusion that you're coming to, even though it sort of goes in the face of some of these other translators and translations, why do you feel confident in it?

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Yeah, I think there's two reasons that stand out to me. One is, in a sense, a positive reason, and that is that the word

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Havel actually just does mean breath, vapor, mist.

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In fact, the idea of brevity is simply attached to that word

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Havel. Even Abel, Avel, Abel's name means breath.

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And so to me, it's like you go through, and about half of the uses of Havel are in Ecclesiastes.

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But you have very clear passages outside of Ecclesiastes where Havel is attached to fleeting shadow, things like that, right?

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So the message of the Bible is, in fact, that our life is short. And Havel is used like that very often.

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There is, somebody could push back and say, but you know, in the prophets, it says that the idols are

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Havel. And so we usually translate that vain idols. But I would actually point out that the word for glory is kavod, which means heavy, and the idols are actually insubstantial.

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That is, they are weightless compared to the

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God, the true God, who is the God of gravity, weight, glory. And so even in those contexts,

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I think you could actually make a really good argument for that the idols are just insubstantial.

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They're a mist. They're a vapor. They're a breath. And in that sense, it's not the brevity, but in a sense, the weightlessness of them compared to God.

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So I think that there's good lexical information that leads to that.

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Daniel Fredericks, who's one of my favorite commentators on Ecclesiastes, actually says that this view is in fact gaining traction.

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So that's positively put. Negatively, I would say that when we look at the way that, so the

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King James, vanity of vanities, we can trace this back and look at the way that Jerome did the

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Vulgate. And so he says vanitas. Ian Proven, and there are others who have identified this as well, but Proven actually points out that with Jerome as a monk, living in a monastic life, to him this was, not that he did it maliciously or anything, but this was just like, this is my dead ringer text right here.

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Vanity of vanities. Just showing the vanity, whatever that may mean, the vanity of this world compared to choosing a monastic life.

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And then I think the idea of a negative view of Havel, which would include the

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NIV, meaningless. I think that's probably the most overtly negative, but either vanity or futility.

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I think that what ends up happening is that you have a book then that gets negatively cast because if everything is meaningless, if everything is futile, then in a sense, then what's the point?

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And I don't see that as a message in the Bible. The idea that everything's meaningless would then make everything that followed in Ecclesiastes meaningless.

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And so to me, and now there are people that take it that way. There are obviously a variety of perspectives that all have a negative view of Havel and they just, in a sense, they're shades of differences.

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And so I just, I think that the book has got such a negative view that, and it all stems back to the way that we translate this word

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Havel. And so again, I think the NIV actually really does get it wrong.

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And so basically if you start out with that word wrong, you're going to get the whole book wrong.

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I mean, that simple. Yeah. And you talk a lot about this in the book, about how when you were studying and reading different commentaries, and I guess coming up through seminary,

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I mean, you were taught a variety of different things, but some of them were like, this was the, like, this is man's attempt at wisdom and not

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God's. And like, this is not like, these things aren't true. And almost, you know, it's properly.

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I think at one point you said properly recorded, but not that it's true.

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Yeah. I mean. Which is terrible. Yeah. You have to come to the book and basically say, well, this is a, this is a right recording of wrong thinking.

25:32

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's, it, of course, you know, you have little snippets of like that, like in the book of Job, for instance, you know, you have the accurate recording of, of, of misinterpreted perspectives from Job's comforters.

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But to have to, but to say that you have a whole book that's devoted to man's wisdom, that is actually, you know, it's just carnal wisdom to me is, is, is a terrible conclusion.

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Yeah. And it makes you wonder why, you know, what, what the value is really.

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I mean, I, and, and, and, and that leads to really the, the biggest question

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I have. You went through, you preached through 20 years or 20 years separated preaching through it twice.

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Did you have the same view of Havel the first time as you did the second time? Yeah, I would say generally, yes.

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Although the first time I went through it, I was more open to, to different shades of, of meaning on Havel.

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So for instance, at that point I was pretty influenced by a commentator named

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Graham Ogden. And it's, he has a fine commentary, but he sees, he sees oftentimes the idea of absurdity.

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And so I was, I would say that there are times where Havel implies absurdity.

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Okay. In terms of the way we experience life, in terms of the fact that life is so temporary, you spend the best years toiling and then you leave it.

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I mean, so there, there are, there are in a sense implications to the word, but I think the second time around,

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I really did focus more on Havel, meaning breath or vapor or mist more consistently,

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I say. And were there, because of that, were there insights and you may not have any examples off the top of your head, but can you think of any examples of insights in the book that really were more impactful the second time around?

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Yeah. In fact, once you get past the, the poem in chapter three, you have a series of sections that deal with all kinds of really dark subjects and everything from injustice to oppression, to loneliness, to living for money.

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And in a sense, the folly of politics, the folly of shallow worship and going through it the second time.

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I think that the, the, the, the insight was that after those first three and a half chapters, when you start looking at the dark things,

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I think that, that Solomon deals with those because those are the things that seem to threaten most that life is a gift.

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And so if, if life is a gift to be enjoyed, what do you do with injustice?

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What do you do with oppression? What do you do with loneliness? What do you write?

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So all of those things would seem to, would seem to go against the idea of life as a gift to be enjoyed.

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So I would see those Solomon dealing with those as threats to his overall premise.

29:42

Absolutely. So I have a, I have several people.

29:49

This was not a live show. We didn't do this show live. Instead, what I did was because it's, we're doing this at, you know, five o 'clock on a, on a

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Tuesday. I didn't know how many people would tune in live. Especially it's three o 'clock where you are,

30:05

I think. So sometimes harder. But what I did do is I reached out to some people that I thought might know you, the people on the internet who follow me.

30:13

A lot of people also know you. And I said, Hey, ask some questions to Brian about about this book or about some questions they might want to ask you.

30:22

And before the show, I got your permission. So I'm not just throwing these at you, you know, strangely or coincidentally,

30:28

I did ask if we could do this, but I do have a few questions that people have asked that I'd like to, to walk through if that's possible.

30:35

Sure. All right. Well, let's do it. Let's see. Okay. I kind of already asked you this one.

30:45

It is the question of what was the driving force behind your decision? And you mentioned, you answered this, but he goes on to ask this question.

30:54

What answers were you looking for? You know, you talked about the, what sort of was the impetus and your trip and how you looked at your family and you saw these things.

31:02

What, what, what answers were you hoping to find? And did you find them in your study of Ecclesiastes? Well, this may not be the best, the exact best way to put it, but I would say how to, how to cope with the brevity of life and how to, in a sense, how to navigate this life, knowing that it's a gift, but it's going to be over very quickly.

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And I think that that was in a sense, I would say that that probably, in fact, the title don't waste your breath.

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I think that that ends up being sort of the crux of, of what I was looking for.

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Really. And this is, this goes beyond the question of the person who wrote in, but it's just something in my heart.

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I know that it can get sometimes almost overwhelmingly heavy on the heart.

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When I think about how, how brief my life seems to have been already. I look around,

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I'm 44 years old. I have six children. My daughter's fixing to get married. And I really do think I was just,

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I was just a kid. I mean, it just seems like it has all happened so quickly. and here's, here's something that I, I don't know if you've ever experienced this.

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Have you ever thought about how, how, how, when you, when you do reach that day where you're going to be with the

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Lord, how quick it's going to have seemed then? Yeah, absolutely. There's, there's no doubt about it.

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I think, so I'm a little older than you. A few months, I think. No. But I think about death and I, I, I do believe by the way that Ecclesiastes wants us to think about death.

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David Gibson's excellent book on Ecclesiastes is called living life backwards. The idea is you're living it from the view of the grave.

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And so I do think about that day and I think about what

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I think about what I'm, if God gives me a chance, what I'm going to say to my family as I'm breathing my last,

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I'm going to be thinking about if I, if I think life went by quickly, you know, these first 57 years by the time, whatever age

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God gives me, however many years when it's over, it's going to seem even quicker.

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And what's ironic is just last night, I grabbed the hymnal to look for some hymns for tomorrow night.

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And the hymnal that I grabbed, I gave to my wife on her 39th birthday.

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And it just seems like yesterday that I was celebrating my 40th. And then it seems just like a minute ago,

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I was celebrating my 50th and now I'm 57. So it goes faster.

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The more years you have under your belt, the faster it goes. And so the answer is yes,

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I think about that all the time. When I was in, when

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I was doing my undergrad work, I remember reading because I have my degree is in social science and education.

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And it was, I wasn't a Bible college. It was just a regular university. And as I was, as I was,

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I remember one of the books that we had to study was on life because it was social, social studies essentially.

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And it said when you're, when you're five years old, one year is one fifth of your life.

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But when you're 50 years old, one year is one 50th of your life. And therefore it seems to take on a different view from looking back.

34:52

You know, one year, you know, to my kids, a year is forever to me years like yesterday. Yeah, exactly.

34:59

Yeah. This question comes and I'm just going to,

35:05

I'm going to read it as written. And if you say you don't want, you don't know the answer, you don't want to deal with it.

35:10

It's okay. Cause this is a, this is an actual textual question from the text. It says, why does, what does the author mean in, in chapter seven, verse 28, when he says he, he has not found a woman among all the thousand men.

35:23

Do you remember that? Did you speak to that or you want to just tell him to read the book? I remember that.

35:31

Yeah. I mean, so he finds one in a thousand and of men who are wise.

35:39

And he actually may be even just referred me for referring to himself. But I would say that just comparatively speaking, one in a thousand and zero and a thousand is, is just a fractional difference.

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And his point is just simply, I don't think his point is a misogynist point, but simply a point to just say there really aren't that many wise people out there.

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And and so of course there is no doubt that that it's written from a male perspective.

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So you know, preach that text carefully. I love that answer.

36:20

That is that that's wisdom. Well, I have a question from Joel set a case.

36:28

this is with the he's with the think Institute. I don't know if you know him, but he's a very good guy. He's a

36:34

Bible teacher online and been on my show before. And Joel asked a simple question.

36:39

Do you think that it is actually Solomon who is the writer of Ecclesiastes, or do you have another opinion?

36:47

No, I think I hold to Solomonic authorship for sure.

36:53

And, and, and I say that knowing that most evangelicals, in fact, don't

36:59

I think I'm not, I'm not a Hebrew scholar. I'm not a

37:05

Hebrew linguist. But I do think that there have been some, some very good some very good research in terms of the fact that that Solomon most certainly could have been the author.

37:21

And there is, there really is no reason to demand that this is a post -exilic book, you know, and so, you know,

37:32

I think very clearly the author claims to be Solomon. Now there isn't, there is an approach that undermines

37:40

Solomonic authorship and simply says that this frame narrator is looking at a book that's about to be thrown into the ash heap.

37:50

And so he salvages the book through the prologue and the epilogue and throws in fear of God at the end.

37:57

And I'm Solomon at the beginning and therefore salvages the book.

38:03

I think that's actually, I know that a lot of people hold that view and one very prominent

38:09

Old Testament scholar. But to me to just say you salvage a book because of the prologue and the epilogue and everything else in the middle is, is unconventional, unorthodox, you know, secular wisdom doesn't do the book any favor.

38:28

Awesome. I have a question here from Chris Honholz.

38:35

He said, can you ask him to go easy on me next semester at RBS? Apparently this is one of your students.

38:43

You said he's taking your apologetics course. So on behalf of Chris, please go easy on him.

38:50

I do have to ask that if you're teaching apologetics, what is your approach to apologetics? Do you find yourself more in the presuppositional camp?

38:58

Are you more in the classical or even evidential? Where do you find yourself?

39:04

Yeah, I would be, I would certainly be in the presuppositional camp. I, I still like Cornelius Vantill contrary to a lot of my reformed brethren who were jumping the

39:19

Vantill ship, but oh, well. And I understand that maybe more than some people even understand.

39:27

I get you. I'm right there. I understand. This was a great question.

39:33

Someone asked, do you think that, that Ecclesiastes has value for pastoral counseling?

39:41

And I'm glad this question was asked because I forgot to mention at the beginning of the show, but Don't Waste Your Breath was voted.

39:48

What would you say was the number one book by ACBC this year? The book of the year?

39:57

Did I lose you? Hello? I'm back. Yeah, I missed,

40:03

I missed what you just said. The question was, is

40:09

Ecclesia, is Ecclesiastes useful in pastoral counseling? And I said, I had forgot to mention at the beginning of the show that ACBC named your book, the book of the year.

40:19

So they haven't, they haven't named it book of the year, but it was, it was nominated. So yeah, that doesn't come out until December 20th.

40:28

So if you're ACBC counselor, you probably saw that email.

40:33

So I was actually really happy about that. That was a great, but to answer the question, the answer is yes.

40:41

Ecclesiastes is profoundly helpful for a number of different areas in counseling.

40:47

In fact, when I teach at the Institute for Biblical Counseling and Discipleship, I've done,

40:54

I've done a few sessions or maybe two on the use of Ecclesiastes in counseling.

41:01

And so, and so I do think that it's significant that ACBC would recognize the, the counseling value of it.

41:13

So I was very pleased about that. I'm going to jump over to Facebook real quick.

41:20

I was looking at Twitter just a minute ago. I asked, I asked two groups of people. I have followers on Twitter and followers on, or people who, you know, like me on Facebook and stuff.

41:28

So you saw the Facebook one. So you, you know, some of these questions cause you, you got to see them beforehand.

41:34

In fact, there's somebody here who has your last name. Nikki. Yeah. I don't know who that is.

41:42

Oh, well she says, it says Nikki Borgman. So I thought maybe. Yeah, that's my sister. I forgot.

41:51

Okay. Well, she's, I, she said this could, I guess be a loaded question to ask.

41:58

Well, it is. It is Thanksgiving. Well, well, let me ask you this and I'll ask a family question.

42:03

It's not her question, but a family question. What is your favorite Thanksgiving? What's your favorite part of the

42:10

Thanksgiving meal? And what part of the Thanksgiving meal do you like the least? Well, I say this to my wife's great disappointment.

42:21

I, I don't like, I don't like sweet potatoes. Oh yeah.

42:28

And I, and I don't like pumpkin pie. Oh, wow. I know. Oh, you might as well.

42:34

You just got off the whole, the best part. So what is your favorite part? I, I like ham better than Turkey.

42:43

Well, I do like. That's because you're saved. That's, that's how you know. You're one of the elect.

42:52

I, I do love the green bean casserole, the potatoes and the gravy.

42:59

Awesome. Well, this question comes from Dr. Michael Schultz.

43:05

Do you know, do you know, Michael? I can't say that I do. Sorry. Michael is a wonderful young preacher.

43:12

I've, I've come to know him the last two years and he is also a professor at forge theological seminary and just a wonderful young man.

43:21

If you ever have an opportunity to hear him, he is, he's one of my favorite young men to listen to preach.

43:27

He's passionate. He's accurate and love him to death. But he asked this question. He says, do you think

43:32

Solomon went to heaven when he died or was his heart led astray from God to the point of him being sent to hell?

43:41

Well, you, you obviously know the, the gravity of that question.

43:49

Sure. And I, I would, I would say that obviously

43:55

I don't know for sure. So here's, here's my, my take.

44:01

Okay. So, uh, Walt Kaiser who has two very, very fine little commentaries on Ecclesiastes one.

44:12

He wrote years ago with Moody press called total life. And then, uh, another one that he wrote much more recently with Christian focus called, um, coping with change.

44:25

And he argues that, that Ecclesiastes represents

44:30

Solomon in his old age. And that there is what he calls an air of repentance in Ecclesiastes.

44:39

And I think that that's true. Um, I can't, I can't prove it. Um, I, I can do a much better job of proving

44:48

Havel means breath than I can, that Solomon was repentant. Um, but I do,

44:54

I do think that that is the case. Um, I do hope, um, that it's true, uh, obviously for Solomon's sake.

45:03

Um, Solomon is one of the most enigmatic old Testament characters for the very simple reason that God gives him more wisdom than any other person.

45:14

And yet he ends up becoming, uh, more foolish.

45:19

Um, you know, especially as he turned, I mean, turns to idolatry, but I, I, I, I think that Kaiser's right.

45:29

And so I would, I would say that in the mercy of God, I'd like to believe that he brought him to repentance in his old age.

45:38

Amen. All right. Two, two last questions. One's kind of a short, fun question, and then we're going to end on a real serious, good question.

45:47

And then I'm going to let you get back to your day. I know you're a busy pastor and I don't want to keep you away too much from your, from your duties.

45:54

Uh, one question asked, one person asked this question, uh, since your name is Brian Borgman, do you own a gun?

46:00

And if so, do you call it the BB gun? You don't have to answer the question of owning the gun because I know you and I did a whole video on how much you love, uh, a certain, a certain, a

46:14

Western movie about gunslingers. So I imagine you probably have one or two. Yeah.

46:20

Yeah. And so I don't know if you can see my hat or not, but I don't know if you can read it.

46:27

Yeah, there it is. Yeah. Um, yeah, no, I don't,

46:32

I don't call, I don't call any of my guns a BB gun. I think that's a great question.

46:40

Great question. Now I might say that's BBs gun, but not a

46:45

BB gun. Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever go by BB? Does that ever come out? Was that, you know, um, there are a few people for, for instance,

46:54

Jerry Marcelino has called me BB for years. There are a few other people that do.

47:00

Um, typically they're people that really like Warfield. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, this, this question

47:07

I think is a great place to end. And, um, this is from Kambui million junior.

47:12

I don't know this man, but he asked, I know him. Okay. Great. He's a student of mine in Zambia.

47:20

Oh, well praise the Lord. Well, I'm glad he's able to connect. I hope he gets to see this. Um, he asked this question and I think this is a perfect place to end.

47:29

As many of us know, we, you know, Christ is all through the scriptures, but how does one preach

47:35

Christ from Ecclesiastes? Hmm. So I don't think that, um,

47:46

I don't think that the question of, um, how do we preach Christ from all of scripture is always an easy question to answer.

47:58

And, um, I've done a few things over the years, um, at a conference in California on what does it actually mean to preach

48:08

Christ? Um, one of them was called preaching Christ in the era of Christ centered preaching, because that's sort of the big, the big thing now.

48:17

So I, um, I do find, uh, Sidney Gray Donis's work to be helpful.

48:24

Uh, his, his preaching Christ in the old Testament. I don't necessarily find his preaching

48:29

Christ in Ecclesiastes to be all that helpful. Um, it's not, it's not meaningless, but there's value to it, but it's just not my favorite.

48:42

Uh, I would say that one of the things that is demanded in Ecclesiastes is that you, you have to realize that, that first of all, the, the, the immediate perspective of Ecclesiastes is life.

49:00

This side of the grave. Okay. Number one, but that's the old

49:05

Testament perspective is life. This side of the grave. That's why you end up having comments.

49:11

Um, like, well, the dead don't praise you. You know, what are those? And she all know, right?

49:16

Well, it's, it's life. This side of the grave that looks at death as, um, as these bonds that have been severed.

49:25

And, um, and so in Ecclesiastes, obviously, uh, Solomon does believe in the afterlife.

49:33

There's no doubt about it. Um, even the, the question, uh, I would say it's actually not particularly a question, but who knows whether the soul of man or the spirit of man returns to God, it gives it.

49:45

Um, I don't think that Solomon's actually being an agnostic at that point because he's very clear in other passages.

49:53

Okay. That you're going to give an account and that your soul actually will return to God.

49:58

So there is a view of the afterlife, but here's the thing is that is that the, the view of, of, of Ecclesiastes is not, does not have the high definition, um, uh, vision of, um, that Jesus Christ, because of his resurrection has brought life and, and, uh, immortality, life and immortality to light.

50:25

Right. So, so one of the things that I think you have to do in Ecclesiastes is, um, there are going to be some, some sections that are easier to, to point to Christ.

50:39

So for instance, um, the, um, chapter two and, um, trying to, trying to mitigate

50:51

Havel by success and pleasure and all this kind of stuff.

50:57

Right. Um, that's a fallen condition focus that, you know, kind of hearken to Brian chapels, you know, and so that fallen condition focus actually naturally leads you to make a gospel implication.

51:12

But I would also say that one of the things that you have to do in Ecclesiastes is you have to keep the trajectory in mind.

51:20

And so, um, and by trajectory, I mean that this is a short life.

51:26

It's a gift. It's to be enjoyed as a gift from God.

51:32

But all of that has, um, trajectory to it so that, so that Havel actually does give way to the eternal weight of glory.

51:46

Okay. So, so you see the juxtaposition of breath and then eternal weight of glory.

51:53

Um, there's trajectory to the gifts of God now, which actually are, um, uh, in a sense of portent of greater gifts to come.

52:07

Right. Well, of course, both of those things are connected to Christ and those, those would just be two, two examples.

52:15

Uh, and so I think that the trajectory of Ecclesiastes is to a new heavens and a new earth where Havel will not be, um, that which causes angst anymore, because it will give way to eternity.

52:30

the, um, in a sense you can also make, and I wouldn't do this like every sermon for sure, but I think that you can also take

52:39

Solomon as a type of Christ. And, and I, and I think there are interesting parallels in the fact that Solomon gives very unconventional sounding wisdom.

52:50

Uh, but actually so did Jesus, you know? And so we talk about Jesus as prophet, priest, and King, and that's all true, but there's also a sense in which

53:00

Jesus is the ultimate sage, right? He is wisdom from God. And so I would say that those are a few, um, helpful ideas.

53:10

Uh, and so that's one thing that I did try to do. Um, now I'm not,

53:15

I'm not of the persuasion that, um, that every, every single text,

53:22

I have to figure out how to make a beeline to the cross. All right. Um, I just,

53:28

I think that sometimes we, we can end up, you know, in a sense, forcing things into the text that aren't apparently there, but I'm all about what's the falling condition focus.

53:40

What's the trajectory where, where the shadows here that point us to the substance, that kind of thing.

53:48

Absolutely. Yeah. And in our hermeneutics class at church, we talk about that where we, we, we certainly want to see where Christ is in the old

53:56

Testament. We, we don't want to shoehorn in, uh, eisegetically meanings into texts that, that aren't there.

54:02

So I think what you just said was very wise and very helpful. So, yeah. Great. Well, brother, I want to, again, thank you for giving me this time.

54:09

I always enjoy talking to you and I'm, I'm so grateful to have an opportunity to tell people about your book.

54:14

So what's the best way that people can get a copy? Is it just Amazon or is it, is there a better, is there a better resource for people to go through?

54:24

Yeah. So you can, um, if you go to Amazon, only the Kindle version will be available.

54:30

All right. Um, if you want the hardback, uh, then you can go directly to free grace press or reformation heritage books, uh, or Westminster books.

54:43

I, I think free grace would have it, um, the, uh, the, the least expensive.

54:49

Great. And of course, if anyone is near Minden, Nevada, they should come see you at grace community church in Minden, Nevada.

54:57

Is that right? That's right. Excellent. Well, thank you again, brothers. Anything else you want to ask people to know about or share before we, uh, before we draw everything to a close?

55:08

No, just want to say thanks for, for having me on. And I think that I speak for a, a vast multitude.

55:16

When I say that we love your videos, you have a great sense of humor.

55:22

You have an ironic spirit. And I think that you're a blessing to the body of Christ.

55:29

Well, that is, that's very, very meaningful, especially coming from you, brother. So thank you. And again, you know how

55:35

I feel about you and how much I appreciate your ministry. So God bless you. And thank you for all that you do.

55:41

Well, thanks a lot, Keith. Yes, sir. I want to thank you guys for again, watching your Calvinist podcast.

55:47

Hopefully you were encouraged as much as I was during this video. And if you haven't go ahead and get yourself a copy of that book, you will definitely benefit from it.

55:55

I want to also remind you that we are hoping this week to hit the 30 ,000 mark on the subscribers.

56:02

We're only a few hundred away. So if you haven't subscribed to the channel, please do so by going to the little subscribe button there at the bottom.

56:10

If you liked this video, hit the thumbs up button. And if you didn't hit the thumbs down button twice.

56:16

Thanks again for listening to your Calvinist podcast. My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist.