Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs by Edward Curtis

Author:Edward Curtis [Curtis, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Books & Bibles, Bible Study & Reference, Bible Study, Old Testament, Commentaries, Churches & Church Leadership, Pastoral Resources, Reference, Religion & Spirituality, Old Testament Study, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon
ISBN: 9781441242693
Amazon: B00CIUJWKE
Publisher: Baker Books
Published: 2013-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

Qoheleth contrasts wisdom and folly, saying that “wisdom is better than weapons of war” (9:18). This relief shows the walls of Lachish being assaulted by a siege machine as it moves up the siege ramp. Archers on the wall and below the wall shoot arrows at each other as the battle rages. Torches are thrown from the wall in an attempt to stop the siege machine. In the end, the city was defeated (palace at Nineveh, 700–692 BC).

Illustrating the Text

The indirect relationship between earthly behavior and reward is simultaneously a proof of God’s sovereignty and a test of our faith.

Science: Explain about the phenomenon of conditioning. This is a process whereby a creature learns a connection between a behavior and a result (as when a lab monkey hits a button to get food). The way scientists measure the strength of conditioning is through a process called “extinction trials.” These break the correlation between behavior and reward and measure how long the creature will repeat it before losing hope and giving up.

The easiest conditioning to extinguish is a 1:1 correlation; as soon as the reward stops, the behavior is easily extinguished. A more sparse correlation (like 3:1 or 10:1) is stronger and harder to extinguish. The hardest conditioning to extinguish is a random payback schedule, as when the behavior is sometimes rewarded after being done once, sometimes after ten times, and sometimes after thirty or one hundred times.

Invite your listeners to replace the lab monkey’s button pushing with our faith in God and food pellets with earthly blessings. If God wanted to be our favorite vending machine, he would just adopt a 1:1 payback schedule (one good deed = one blessing) or perhaps a more strenuous works-based ratio (ten prayers = one answer, or one year of tithing = one promotion at work). If his interest were simply in good behavior, this would work, as long as he never broke the correlation between works and rewards.

Instead, this passage assures us that the correlation between godly behavior and earthly rewards is truly random. This tells us that God is sovereign and is lovingly conditioning us toward inextinguishable dependence and trust that endure regardless of reward. His interest is not mere good behavior, but humble acceptance of his sovereignty and enduring trust in his goodness despite circumstances.

A little folly does a lot of harm; avoiding foolish behavior is a reward in and of itself.

Props/Visual Aid: Set up some large prop dominoes up front. Alternatively, you could use regular dominoes and have a camera enlarging the view for your listeners or use a video clip of a domino toppling stunt. (You could also use another type of chain reaction, like the game Mousetrap, or any type of “Rube Goldberg” machine.) Ask listeners what will happen if you topple the first domino (or otherwise start the machine). The answer will be obvious: a small act will set off a complex and unstoppable reaction with results that are often hard to predict. In the same way, a little bit of folly can set off a chain reaction that harms others and causes regrettable results.

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