Ecclesiastes - Chapter 11
Words of Advice on Investment
Diversity (1-2):
Solomon spoke much on the futility of life when people try to make profit or pleasure or prestige or permanent things their aim. He used proverb like small stories to help his students and readers make their way beyond what is futile and what is vain. How to become fruitful in a world where he saw so many lives as barren was one area where he used these small proverbs to improve life.
Fruitfulness meant both prosperity and joy. Having things was not enough if a person could not enjoy what they had. Solomon seems to be teaching that life is a double path. We walk a middle line between these two pathways with one foot on the side marked prosperity and the other foot on the side marked joy. As he saw life without the one we have no chance for the other. If we live in error seeking only one side we are pursuing only half a life.
The theme here seems to be that we should use wisdom boldly and carefully but humbly, taking joy from life while we remember that our days of joy are limited by the coming certainty of death (a constant theme for this preacher).
Who knows what crop will fail or what ship carrying our goods will be taken by pirates or what merchant may make off with our profits? He teaches to spread your investments widely (he suggests 7 or 8 places) so that no one or two calamities can wipe you out. This advice was (and is) crucial to the road to prosperity.
Observation (3-5):
The preacher believed that certain observable trends in the patterns of wind and rain had to be right for them to do their work successfully, especially in sowing and reaping.
Learn to watch the weather for it is God's work on God's schedule and you must seek understanding of it by observing it constantly.
While wisdom might be drawn from observation to help learn important things, there are other things that wisdom could not tell them. Solomon warned his students not to try to guess from observation ALL of God's ways, just because patterns of creation taught them SOME of His ways. Some of God's way are as mysterious as trying to understand how the unborn grow in the womb.
Diligence (6):
The reason Solomon taught diligence is that the mystery of which the seed grows and how it does so (prospers) is in God's hands and can never be known by us. Here is just basic common sense. Each of us who has farmed or has farmers in our family that came before us understands that diligence is simply always working hard, doing all we can possibly do and then praying and leaving the increase to the Lord.
Celebration (7-8):
Alongside the path to prosperity the wise preacher lined out for us the road to joy. Find the beauty in everyday life was his simple advice as he concludes his thoughts on small proverbs to teach important points. He reminds us that life is fragile and that the limits of our understanding of life make evident the need to celebrate every hour of daylight. He uses the strong word “sweet” to picture for us the immense joy each day can bring. Then he uses the word “pleasant” to picture the blessings that the gift of each day of sunlight can offer.
Enjoy the tasks at hand and savor each bit of food and drink while you share your joys. Make the most of what you have for the “days of darkness” are coming when this enjoyment will end. Death will black out the light of life. He also gives a strong but negative thought to close this section that the days we are dead are many. No matter how long we live, we will all be dead a lot longer than we are alive.
Rejoice in youth (9-10):
Since his last words in the previous verses were full of anxiety, might we think that he warns us of the foreboding future because it was his own aging that he dreaded? Was he raising the volume of his voice in his writing to calm his own fear?
He was not afraid to vent his feelings from the beginning of his book, especially on life and work and wisdom and folly and he has consistently seemed to say that all these things are nullified by the timing and circumstance of death over which there is no control.
So now he teaches us to live a life of joy motivated by the knowledge that God will judge our life and that we should be wise, avoid all pain and loss we can while remembering that youth is brief. On this matter we have a strongly similar teaching from the half brother of our Lord (James 4:14):
“... For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away”.
Maybe James had read and studied the works of Solomon.
Most of this Old testament advice has been affirmed by the most holy Wise Man of the New Testament, our Savior. He too believed that we should make the most of what we have. This was part of what He had in mind when He gave us the parable of the talents. We must not forget His stinging words in this teaching:
“Thou oughest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received my own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it to him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath”. Matthew 25:27-29
Our abilities, goods, wealth, and opportunities are divine gifts of which we are only stewards. One of the things Jesus will do at His second coming will be to judge how well we have used His gifts.
Part of our due to the Lord is to invest our money, time, and energy into things that will pay dividends to further build His kingdom here. Solomon was right but he did not tell the whole story for he lived and gained his knowledge and wisdom on the other side of the cross. We are to rejoice in the gifts received. Yet we are more than just receivers. We are meant to adore God in His person, His Son, and His Spirit. These are the efforts of those who seek His grace of salvation through His gift of faith. In that effort Solomon could only see dimly. In Jesus Christ all becomes clear.