Today's Scripture Reading (December 16, 2022): Ecclesiastes 7
Several years ago, I was
speaking from the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus's command to love our enemies, and I ended my message
with a list of things the Muslims are commanded, or forbidden, to do. The list
was probably not politically correct, and it included several societal crimes, some of which might not even be considered
to be a crime in our
contemporary society,
for which the death sentence was to be applied. And at the end of
this list of atrocities, I dropped the other shoe. The list hadn't come from the Qur'an; it came from the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, or what we more commonly call the Old Testament. By
pointing out the old-fashioned things that the Qur'an might demand of its followers is also to point out some of the old-fashioned stuff that the Bible might require of us. The truth is that we have tempered the expectations of the Bible in our
contemporary understanding, whether we are comfortable in making that confession or not. And many of our Muslim brothers and sisters have
done the same thing with the demands of the Qur'an.
I think we misunderstand the
opening chapters of the Book of Romans. Paul opens his letter to the Christians
in Rome by producing
a list of bad behavior. Romans 1 features a list of sins that
Paul charges belong to the Gentiles. The list's purpose is to make the Jews living in Rome feel
self-righteous. It contains a lot of behaviors that Jews could point at and
say, "Gentiles really believe this; no wonder God has chosen the Jews to be his people." But then Paul drops the other shoe speaking to his
own people. "You are no prize either; look at all the things you do that you know you shouldn't." But the purpose of the opening of Romans is not to
create a catalog of bad behavior so that we can increase the things that we
should not do. His objective is to be able to convince his readers of one
universal fact.
What
shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have
already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of
sin. As it is written:
"There
is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there
is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they
have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not
even one" (Romans 3:9-12).
It
was a thought that Paul understood straight from the Ecclesiastes. We are all
guilty of wrong. And even if we can avoid Paul's list, there are other sins that
we won't avoid, and this is a choice that we make. There is no room for pride
in our ability to keep the rules because if we choose to allow regulations to
define us, we will always fail.
A
good friend of mine, looking back on Solomon's writings, makes this
observation. He believes that the "Song of Songs" was written during
the King's youth, a time when he was confident in his ability and all that the
future might hold for the King. "Proverbs" was the King's writing
during his middle years, when he realized the pressures life would exert on his
purpose and understanding. And "Ecclesiastes" was written during
Solomon's elder years, as he began to understand how badly he had failed in his
life. Solomon might have written "Ecclesiastes" during a time of
repentance. Even the King, with all the advantages his father had given him, could
not stay away from his sin. He had failed and proven that no one is righteous
and no one remains without sin. Life scars us all.
Solomon
did not have a solution for the problem, but Paul did. Jesus.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
Ecclesiastes 8
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