Proverbs VS Ecclesiastes

Are you in trouble? Proverbs 5 goes like this:


Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction;
   pay attention and gain understanding.
² I give you sound learning,
   so do not forsake my teaching.
³ For I too was a son to my father,
   still tender, and cherished by my mother.
⁴ Then he taught me, and he said to me,
   “Take hold of my words with all your heart;
   keep my commands, and you will live.
⁵ Get wisdom, get understanding;
   do not forget my words or turn away from them.
⁶ Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;
   love her, and she will watch over you.
⁷ The beginning of wisdom is this: Get^[a] wisdom.
   Though it cost all you have,^[b] get understanding.
⁸ Cherish her, and she will exalt you;
   embrace her, and she will honor you.
⁹ She will give you a garland to grace your head
   and present you with a glorious crown.” 

What's the use of wisdom? Think of wisdom as being able to do the right thing at the right time. Or knowing the right methods to use. Many purposes -- just to name a few:


1) Keeps you from getting into unnecessary trouble: "When you walk, your steps will not be hampered; when you run, you will not stumble."
2) Keeps you from getting success at the expense/decay of the person within. You won't fight so hard for short-run success, only to let everything go through your grasp:
 
¹⁴ Do not set foot on the path of the wicked
   or walk in the way of evildoers...
 ¹⁸ The path of the righteous is like the morning sun,    shining ever brighter till the full light of day.
¹⁹ But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
   they do not know what makes them stumble. 

3) Keeps you keeping on (perseverance): without it, no one survives life--
 ²⁵ Let your eyes look straight ahead;
   fix your gaze directly before you.
²⁶ Give careful thought to the^[c] paths for your feet
   and be steadfast in all your ways.
 
On the other hand, the writer of Ecclesiastes says: Wisdom Is Meaningless

 ¹² I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³ I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! ¹⁴ I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
He then goes on to list the problems in the world:
1) The love for the status quo: 
¹⁵ What is crooked cannot be straightened;
   what is lacking cannot be counted.

2) Pain. Human dissatisfaction, frustration, just the sense that there should be something more. The more he saw, the more he realised the world needed change:
 ¹⁸ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
   the more knowledge, the more grief.

So new problem: dealing with pain. How? His ways of dealing with it are so similar to us:
i) Have fun, live for the moment--

"I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. ² “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” ³ I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives."

I think Solomon didn't bother stating how this doesn't work, because the answer is so obvious--the gnawing feeling of emptiness doesn't stop with a good comedy night or an entertaining YouTube video.


ii) Work super duper hard. Be a workaholic, accomplish a lot, have a great name, have lots of titles and accolades that others do not have.

 ⁴ I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. ⁵ I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. ⁶ I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. ⁷ I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. ⁸ I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem^[a] as well—the delights of a man’s heart. ⁹ I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me...
 ¹⁰ I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
   I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
   and this was the reward for all my toil.
¹¹ Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
   and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
   nothing was gained under the sun."

So the pain persists. This drives him to philosophy: what's so good about being so smart?


 ¹² Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,
   and also madness and folly.
What more can the king’s successor do
   than what has already been done?
¹³ I saw that wisdom is better than folly,
   just as light is better than darkness.
¹⁴ The wise have eyes in their heads,
   while the fool walks in the darkness;
but I came to realize
   that the same fate overtakes them both.  ¹⁵ Then I said to myself,
   “The fate of the fool will overtake me also.
   What then do I gain by being wise?”
I said to myself,
   “This too is meaningless.”
¹⁶ For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;
   the days have already come when both have been forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise too must die!

Death is the great nullifier. My goodness. So what if you did everything right? It is easily forgotten and probably won't seem like much in your older years.

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I think God deliberately put the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes so close together as embodiments of life experience. I wanna suggest that God intends for us to take away a few lessons from the fact that these books are side by side.

1) You can't take one book without the other.

The God of the Proverbs is the God of Ecclesiastes. Proverbs says, "If you follow my instructions, you'll have a successful time." Today we have many nuggets of wisdom all over the place. We've got career advice, advice to deal with our emotions, advice to deal with our families etc. That's the attitude of Proverbs: proven good advice from people with real-world experience.

And you need to take this advice, both within the Scriptures and those from common wisdom.  Take it from someone who believes in the sovereignty of God and who believes that ultimately God empowers his people to do good (rather than your own ability). But you still need to take the advice. I summarise it in one statement: life is hard enough. Don't make it harder. :P You will already need God's grace to deal with the normal problems in life/personal weaknesses. You don't wanna do additional damage control.

Some people get into deep deep trouble. The good thing is, they end up crying out to God to help them. That is something that ultimately means a lot to God. So I applaud that. What these people need to realise is that while God gives grace (and no mess is too permanent that God cannot handle), the solution ain't no microwave dinner or instant noodles either. It is a long, protracted pain.

Now if you know that, then I'm going to say something that seems to contradict. Knowing that both the laws of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes apply, you soon get the idea that no one can realistically follow ALL the advice at one time (you can't even REMEMBER all the advice at one time). So you can only do your best to minimise the slip-ups, but the slip-ups do come.

The further implications of this is that you can't expect to be successful/have a balanced life all the time. And even if you were wise, the world won't let you go. (Other people won't let you go.) Bad things happen to good people. You could have the best advice, do the right things, and still end up not getting what you deserve.

So the moral of the story for pt 1 is: following Proverbs does not guarantee success. Expect it to fail sometimes. BUT if you don't follow the Proverbs way, you are guarantee plus chop going to fail. So follow the Proverbs way, so that God won't just be a medicine you take in the bad times.

2) Life can be quite unfair. Some who are successful, get there even though they did all the wrong things. Stinks, doesn't it.

Acceptance is key to the unfairness in life. God will give you the capacity to accept unfairness. Why should you accept it? This actually leads me to point 3.

3) The world is as described in Ecclesiastes because it is quite corrupted beyond belief. Economically, idologically, politically, in society, in the familial sphere, you name it, you have it. Yes, I think we should look on the bright side, do our best, hope for the best, believe in people, keep hope, etc. But it looks like increased technology, better methods, and all the new buzz-words we create don't do much to solve the human problems since 4000 years ago. People still have to find a way to numb the pain: obsess in work, in fun, in drowning out sorrows etc. Or, stop wishing for the best, and start being "realistic". (Whatever that means.)

So I think it's high time we accept what the Bible says:
i) This world is quite corrupt, despite our best intentions and our attempts to set things right.

ii) Solution? The 2nd coming of Christ. Yep, you got me right. Things ain't going to change until Maranatha--until the Lord comes back soon!
So we can accept unfairness, because it is purely temporary, a speck in the brilliant rainbow of eternity.

iii) Because the damage is so irreversible, grace is so important. We don't have to be bleak and all. God's grace ensures we will triumph over the world.

"Greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world."

Jesus said: "Take courage! I have overcome the world."

John said: "I am talking to you, young people, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one." (1 John 2:14)

Grace means it's undeserved. Which also means it's sudden, unpredictable, and unlike your rights, not something you can demand from God. (It's something you can request for though.) And which means it's got everything to do with how good God is, not how right or how wise you are. A good recipient of grace knows that he or she can never boast about it, or worse, teach "how to receive it" (which usually is code for "how to earn it").

I want you also to notice that there is no overcoming unless there is something (big) to overcome. So don't be surprised when the world is so corrupt or full of trouble. It's normal. But you will OVERCOME.

4) Stop putting hope in the world. Put hope in Christ.

i) Seek first the Kingdom;
ii) Seek ONLY the Kingdom;
iii) Seek for the treasure that will last;
iv) Seek the pearl of great price;
v) Keep your mind on things above;
vi) Live an honourable life;
vii) Let his face shine on you

...and you will have arrived.

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I'll find another chance to post my personal experience that led to this reflection. But all I know is that during the crisis, I couldn't think straight or find a way out. It would be an understatement to say that I was quite in despair. The biggest issue was making sense of my pain and bewilderment, and being honestly shocked and surprised that the world is this way.

I hope this is an encouragement to those who know what it's like to walk in my shoes, or who are walking in it right now. This is a world we constantly have to wake up to. God doesn't often strike in with a magic solution (believe me, I wish he had). But his grace unexplainably sees us through. We're not unharmed, but the victory is found in the fact that we still hope in Christ. In an increasingly broken world, faith in God itself is a very quiet miracle.