40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Ecclesiastes 8:1-17 (Episode 427)

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

Should you obey the king because God made a promise to him? Justice lets the righteous down. And finding joy in the small things is the best life. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: When You Meet Jesus | Gospel Encounters Conference Pre-order: Hitchhiking with Prophets: A Ride Through the Salvation Story of the Old Testament by Chad Bird 30 Minutes in the NT on Youtube Remembering Rod Rosenbladt Encouragement for Motherhood Edited by Katie Koplin More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Hi, this is Chad Bird. Have you ever felt lost? I don't mean you've dismissed a term, but I mean deeply lost in the challenges of life. My new book, Hitchhiking with Prophets, invites you to catch a ride back to our real home with Jesus. Join me as we sit shotgun with legendary storytellers of old like Abraham, Moses, David, and Isaiah. As each companion tells their story, you'll find that they're all pointing us to be on the lookout for the promised seed, the Messiah. Order your copy today and join me in discovering that despite life's twists and turns, we are never truly lost, but always being led home to Jesus. Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament.

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thoughts in their heart. We're going to talk about all that stuff. Come hang out with us, there's a link in the show notes, and you can get registered, and we'd like to see you there. All right, Chad, enough of all that. We are in Ecclesiastes chapter 8, and it feels like we take a little bit of a turn here. Some of these chapters seem like he's just kind of, you know, building on something or returning back to something else, and this one feels like he's saying something a little different, and we talked a little bit beforehand, and it's not exactly the the clearest of all passages? No, it's not. I spent quite a bit of time looking at these first, what, eight? Yeah, six to eight verses. And so if anyone is interested in doing this, just

use something, one of these Bible programs where you can compare translations and you'll realize just the diversity of ways of rendering these first few verses. In fact, I think I saw one commentator, maybe it was verse two or verse three, one of these verses said, yes, this is the most difficult verse to translate in the entire book of Ecclesiastes. And by that, it doesn't always mean that the Hebrew is like weird, it just means that it's ambiguous, and it can be taken two or three different directions. So we'll try and just slog our way through this and especially concentrate on that, which is clear, kind of the general gist of what seems to be communicated. So I think the beginning of chapter

eight is to some extent riffing off of how chapter seven finished, where he talks about turning his heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things and so on and so forth. So there is a theme in those last few verses about looking for wisdom, looking for understanding, and hardly ever finding it. You know, one man among a thousand he found, as we talked about at the end of that last episode. So that's kind of where it begins or where that chapter ends. Now, the way the chapter eight begins is with a couple of questions. So we've been talking about the wise and seeking wisdom and seeking understanding. And so kind of reflecting that, he begins with this first verse in which he says, first two verses rather, who is like the

wise? And who knows the interpretation of the thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine and the hardness of his face is changed. I think we'll just stop there. So the answer to those two opening questions, who's like the wise and who knows the interpretation of a thing, are both negative. So who's like the wise? Well, nobody's like the wise. No one is. And who knows the interpretation of a thing. Well, I think the edge of that is negative too. No one really understands the interpretation of a thing. No one's able really to make sense of everything that we try to make sense of. He's going to expand on this as he goes to the rest of the chapter. Because there's a lot of things in this world that are simply beyond our understanding, because we're under the

sun, things are not clear, we have to deal with foolishness both in others as well as within our own human hearts, and we're trapped in this book under the sun. And so there's a lot of things that do not make sense to us. By the way, if any of you out there listening have ever spent some time in the Dead Sea Scrolls, just maybe for fun, or maybe you've studied that, there is an interesting Hebrew word here. So the word translated as interpretation is pesher. So Google sometime, if you haven't studied this, Google sometime pesher interpretation at among the Dead Sea Scrolls. And that is a word commonly used there for biblical commentaries they have. So this is the interpretation they will say, and they use that

word hesher, which is used here for interpreting a thing. Anyway, he starts out that way, and then he goes on to somewhat vaguely talk about how a man's wisdom changes the expression of his face. So it begins to shine, and the hardness of his face is changed. I tell you, this is one of these verses, I'm like, hmm, okay, I'm not sure exactly how that fits there. Maybe he's simply saying that at best a man's wisdom can change his countenance and the countenance of another. That's one way I guess we can take this. Some people think of this as kind of prepping us for what is to come in the next verses, where we hear a lot about the king, where they'll take this as like a man's wisdom will make the king's face shine and change the hardness of the king's face to soften it to

where he's more susceptible or more prone to go the way that we want him to go. But I think either way, it's a little bit of a kind of a dark and obscure verse as to what he means there, unless you've got some insight, Dan, that you want to... I don't. Maybe in the sense that, I don't know, if you're wise, you might not live in such a way that you make all kinds of foolish mistakes, and so this makes your life better, so your countenance is better, as opposed to somebody who, like, lives foolishly has probably made their life more difficult than it would have been if they had not lived foolishly and they live a hard life. And, you know, certainly sometimes you'd say if somebody who has lived a very hard life, you could certainly see it on their face. That's a common expression. So is it something like that, that literally if you lived in a wise way as opposed to a foolish way, that it would be written on your face? Maybe.

Maybe. I mean, yeah. We'll save that to ask Koheleth one of these days. hey, about that first verse in chapter 8, what are you talking about? Anyway, that's the way it starts out. We have this theme of wisdom coming up and understanding. So verse 2, really through the rest of this little section, is going to be concerned with life before the king, I guess is the way that we could title this section. It starts out with, this is the Hebrew verse. It's kind of strange. Really, in Hebrew, it just begins, I, and then

goes on from there to talk about the king's command. So most translations will add a verb, something like, I say, or here's the way I see things, or this is my advice, or something like that. So ESV has, I say, keep the king's command because of God's oath to him. I'm just going, I want to say something about that, but we'll, let me just read through this, these next few verses. I say, keep the king's command because of God's oath to him. Be not hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. for the word of the king is supreme and who may say to him what are you doing whoever keeps the command will know no evil thing and the wise heart will know the proper time and just way for there

is a time and a way for everything although man's trouble lies heavy on him just reading that i'm like this there's a lot here that seems a bit disjointed and a part part of the issue i think too, is part of the issue is translational because there's some things which could be rendered a couple of different ways. So this verse here is kind of infamous for lots of different ways that we could take it, but the gist seems to be, first of all, an emphasis on keeping the king's command. So if you're serving in the court or for some reason you have to appear before the king, then certainly the overall message here is you need to make sure and try and stay on the right side of the king. Whatever he commands, try to do that. Don't be hasty to

leave his presence. Try and do whatever he pleases. His word is supreme. No one's going to say to the king, what are you doing? No one's going to question him because he has this kind of, at least on earth, this almost ultimate authority. So that's the general blow of this section. That's the general message that you get here, but there's a lot of other things that are a bit more confusing. For instance, so the first verse says, I say, keep the king's command because of God's oath to him. Now that could be translated because of God's oath to him. It could also be translated because of the oath before God. So this could be either God's oath to him or someone's oath to God.

It could also be translated because of an oath to the king. So there's different ways that that Hebrew phrase could be rendered. But however we render it, the basic message still remains the same, that he is the king, and God has made him the king, and he is the one who is in charge. And then he goes on from there to say not to be hasty to flee from his presence. And don't take your stand, it says here, in an evil cause. the Hebrew there is

devar ra. And it's a bit an evil cause is certainly a very negative way to render this. You could also render it simply as kind of a bad idea. Don't take your stand on a bad idea. It doesn't necessarily mean something evil. It could just be like something that's improper. It could be

something that just is not a good idea. It could be something which is like just a bad idea, a bad opinion. I think that's probably the better way to take that. So if you're serving before the king and you know, you've got this idea, but it turns out to be a bad idea, well, don't stake your claim on that. The king is going to do whatever he wants anyway, so leave it to him to kind of direct you with his words as to what you should do. Yeah, I think when you start with this, like, you have to

ask, what king? So, like, he says, like, I say, or I. It's weird, it's interesting that they insert that word there because you don't have to i mean uh it's probably because solomon if you think solomon's the author here he is the king so it's kind of weird for him to say that he keeps the king's command because you're like well i mean you are the king so that's weird but um i think the idea here is like that he's not talking about like the king of like some other country like far away, right? So, I mean, he's writing to a certain people, and he's saying that those people should keep their king's command, and the reason is not because you like him, or because he's a good king, or because even that just like he has that position, therefore, just because he has that

position, you should obey his command, but instead it's because of God's oath to him. And so you're like very early, obviously, in the line of kings here. You've had Saul, and then you had David, and then you get Solomon. Well, to whom did God make an oath to? Well, it's Solomon's father. So there is a promise given to David, and it seems that maybe what Solomon's saying here is that it's a good idea to, you know, whether the king's making a bad decision, or you're making bad decisions, whatever, is to don't run away from the king, because God has made a promise to the king, and I think this would be the promise to David, and he's going to keep that promise. So the promise of the Messiah is given to David,

so it kind of doesn't matter also like what what kind of kings come after david because that promise has been made right and so you're going to submit to the king not because of the king but because of what god spoke to the king yeah yeah i think if we take it because if we take it that way because of god's oath to him that is back in second samuel 7 god's promise to david with regard to the ensuing dynasty that will come from David, then yeah, then that, that makes sense because ultimately it's the, the king is serving the greater purpose of what God has ordained for that line of David to, from, from, from the one that's going to come from that line of David down, down the road. So that would, that would make sense. Um, so if that's the way that we go

with this yeah then i would say this overall section is is positive uh if we don't go that direction if we take that phrase because the god's oath to him in a different way in the sense of the oath that we make to the king or something along those lines then it's going to be going to take these verses a slightly different oh yeah for sure for sure okay yeah it kind of depends on where you understand the how you understand these verses i guess functioning within the broader message that Koheleth has for us. You know, there are some positive sections in the book, and there's some sarcastic sections in the book, and there's some negative sections in the book. So kind of depends on where we see this one, this one fitting there.

So we got through kind of toward the end of verse six. I think he's kind of setting us up for something in verse seven. So just to look again at verse five and six, he says, whoever keeps the command will know no evil thing that's by the way that's the same hebrew phrase translated above as evil cause so we'll know no evil thing or no bad thing and the wise heart so this is someone who's wise they will know the proper time and the just way for there is he says in the next verse there is a time and a way for everything, although man's trouble lies heavy upon him. So he's saying the wise in heart, they're going to know this proper time and way, because there's a proper time and way for everything under the sun, right? Even though you've got a lot of trouble that we

have to deal with, it lies heavy upon us. But then after saying that, after saying there's a time and a way for all this, and the wise in heart, they're going to discern this, he kind of takes away what he gave, because verse 7 goes on and says this, for he does not know what is to be, for who can tell him how it will be? So this seems to be, Kohel is setting up this situation where he's like, you know, if you're really wise, you're going to be able to discern the right time, the right way to proceed with life, because there's a, you know, there's a time to live and a time to die, a time to do this, a time to do that. But then having said that, he's kind of set us up, because in verse 7, he goes on to say, yeah, but no one really knows. He doesn't know what it is

to be. You're not going to know the future. There's no one who can tell you how it will be. So our wisdom, our ability to understand time and the proper way of proceeding is severely limited by our own inability to tell the future, by the fact that we're stuck here under the sun, by the fact that God himself has set up a system whereby we cannot control what's going to happen. He's taken away from us knowledge of the future. He's taken away from us complete understanding. And so in the very system that God has devised,

we are left utterly dependent upon him. There's no way that we can control and manipulate events in such a way, either through wisdom or through something else, to know for sure when the proper time and the proper way is to proceed, because we're fallible, insufficient human beings trapped in life under the sun. Yeah, I mean, with all that being true, might as well submit to the king. I mean, since, I mean, what do you know, right? That seems to be part of what he's doing here.

is like yeah i mean might as well submit to the king since i mean he's over you anyway and at least at least there's a if we take uh the positive of this at least there was a promise made to him uh but it might so might as well because i mean you don't know anything you can't control anything um so yeah it seems like that's where he's going i mean i mean even as he continues i mean you're not gonna you don't have any power over the day of death like i mean you can't you don't decide if you go to war or not like i mean you don't you don't get to choice in any of this stuff yeah that does fit uh with with so many uncertainties in life one good certainty is hey follow the king because again if we take this positively because god has at least made a promise

a promise to him yeah he uh having said all that in in the next verse he he uses four examples of things that are outside of our ability to control or to manipulate he says first of all no man has power to to restrain or to retain the spirit and i think that's better translated as wind that's our typical evil word ruach which can mean spirit wind or breath i think this this should be translated literally so you know find me someone who can build a fence and keep the wind inside it you can't of course uh no man has power to do that just like no man has power over the day of the day of death. So you don't know when you're going to die. It's going to happen. You can't control that. And also, there's no discharge from war. In other words, if you're heading into battle

or you're going to fight, you can't get out of that. Just like you can't restrain the wind, you can't control the day of your death. Also, you can't get out of warfare if you're already marching toward it. Nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. so four different ways in which we are basically out of control whether it's dealing with wickedness whether it's dealing with war or death or the wind and then he finishes that section verse nine by saying all this i checked out i observed all this when applying my heart to all that is done under the sun when man had power over man to his hurt and he be that so that when adam a word for Adam, when Adam had power over Adam

to his hurt. So in this life under the sun where one man controls another man or one man controls multiple men, then this is kind of the way that life is. There's not a lot of knowledge, there's not a lot of understanding, there's a lot of uncertainty and inability for us to really control most of what happens in this world yeah yeah all right so uh that is verses one through nine now the the next section is a little bit more uh has a bit more clarity here we're going to talk about uh the wicked and

whether justice gets done with regard to them and how that affects other people i'll read 10 through 13. Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity, hevel. This also is vanity. Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet i know that it will be well with those who fear god because they fear before him but it will not be well with the wicked neither will he prolong his days like a shadow because he does not fear before god you kind of get the idea that there's uh almost a mixed message going here because on

the one hand verses 10 and 11 they're talking about the wicked so uh cohala says i saw a funeral for this wicked guy. And I knew him. I mean, this kind of person, he would go to the temple and everywhere he went, people were singing his praises, even though he was a wicked person. And because of his wickedness and because there was no sentence carried out against him in any kind of speedy way, and people saw that basically he was getting away with his evil, then other people were affected by this the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil because they saw him kind of getting away with us so he says that but then he then he proceeds in the next verse to say that if a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life yet it's

going to be better with those who fear god because they fear before before him and then he says that the wicked will not prolong his days like a shadow because he doesn't he doesn't fear god so he seems to kind of go transition back and forth here on the one hand he seems to be saying listen it seems like the wicked get away with it and then in verse 12 he comes back and says the wicked won't get away with it because they're not going to prolong their days like like a shadow and maybe this is on purpose or maybe i'm just misreading this but it's almost like he's kind of setting up uh two different ways of looking at things on the one hand you kind of have the the traditional way of proverbs will say where you know you're not going to prolong your days if

you're not fearing god but then he also says and yet i've seen this happen i've seen a wicked man who who didn't seem to really have to pay for his wickedness and because of that a lot of other people wanted to mirror that in their own lives as well because uh they it seemed as if he was getting away with what he was doing well it seemed it seems like there he's saying okay under the sun or we could say like you know apart from the resurrection there aren't actually any real deterrents from evil like so you might want to be like yeah but we got like this system of justice over here and it's like yeah but that doesn't work in fact it works so badly

that it actually encourages people to explore the opportunities to do evil because they're like nine times out of ten you don't get caught or the sentence

drags on forever and so he says you've seen some evil people prolong their days because there's no real deterrent for being evil and then flips it and says But that's like if you're only dealing with under the sun. Under the sun, there's no deterrence.

But above the sun, there is a deterrent, because these days are actually not that long in comparison to the number of days that you could have, which of course would be endless days, that God is not going to give you that. So God's not going to grant eternal life to those who are trying to figure out, just how evil can I be and get away with it? He's like, actually, the person that doesn't do that receives the greater reward, but not here. I mean, if everything—so it goes to the same thing, right? There is no resurrection, if there is no life after the grave, there doesn't actually really exist that many deterrents for evil behavior. No, no, and there actually exists a lot of incentives for evil behavior, if it accrues to your benefit.

I mean, if I can get away with evil and actually it makes my life here under the sun better, then that's just an incentive for me to actually engage in evil. Isn't it kind of weird, like, because you think about the law, and this is like, you know, not the law of God necessarily, but the way the law works, is that you might be like, well, the law is a deterrent, right? And you're like, well, not under the sun, really. Like, I mean, Psalm actually says here that because we are evil and don't apply the law or don't apply it justly, actually even the law itself has not become a deterrent, but rather an incentive. Yeah, yeah, especially when you see so many people getting away with getting around the law. So perhaps the most important phrase here is in the middle of verse 12, where he says, begins, though a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I know.

Maybe that's the key phrase here. Yeah, he knows something they don't know. Yeah, I know something. Here's the insight that I have, he says, yet I know that in reality it's going to be better with those who fear God, because they're before God, they fear him, and it's not going to go well in the end with the wicked, because he doesn't fear God. I mean, that would at least fit with some of the other passages we have in Koheleth, where he praises the fear of God, and it certainly fits with the end of the book, where you finally have this summation of what the entire life of

man is all about. And part of that is in fearing, fearing God. So it might be another case where he's, as it were along the way, dropping these, these hints of the greater message, which is, which is to come. So basically, Hey, look, look at life under the sun. The wicked seem to get away with it. And not only did they get away with it, but other people want to emulate their actions because they are getting away with it. Well, let me tell you something that they don't know, but that I do know, because I'm going to give you a little glimpse here above the sun, and here's what this above-the-sun perspective is, that it's better, much better, in light of eternity for you to fear God

and not for you to engage in this kind of unbridled evil. Yeah, I like that Solomon also has enough awareness to not contrast people who do bad things with people who do good things, or, like, good people and bad people. Instead, the contrast—and he's going to get into it where he's going to sort of do, like, righteous and wicked people, but he sets that up here, where the contrast is actually evil doers or wicked people, and the reverse of that is actually just people that fear God. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Because Solomon knows that he is also, like, someone who has done evil. but the distinguishing mark the thing that he knows, the thing that makes him different than these other people that do evil is that he fears God, right? This is actually the, that's the question and then next

he's going to apply this righteous and wicked dichotomy where, okay, well who what would make you righteous? Well, it would be to fear God like that would, that's who would, those are the righteous people Yeah, yeah

the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom and the fear of the lord is also the beginning of righteousness yes yeah so uh verse 14 that's where we're at and i think i'll go ahead and read 14 and 15 he says there's a vanity that takes place on earth and here keep in mind that vanity here is one possible translation of hebel there's a lot of different ways we could take this I'm not sure that vanity is probably the best translation here, but so there is a hevel, something empty, vain, perhaps even enigmatic is a translation here, but there is a hevel that takes place on earth. And what is this? That there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according

to the deeds of the righteous i said that this also is hevel this also is vanity so if you look out over the course over the you know humanity you see these righteous people over here righteous because they fear god and what's happening to them well they're getting what the wicked deserve and you look at these wicked people over here and what's happening to them well it's like they're getting what the righteous deserve so there's in there's a terrible inequity that's this taking place here the righteous are getting treated like the wicked and the wicked are getting treated like the righteous well this is hebel this is this is vanity so as he looks out over humanity and sees this kind of unfairness this kind of inequity happening he says and i'm just kind of this is

my own little paraphrase or insertion here he says to himself man if that's the situation what should we really be focusing on then what what's the best thing that we can that we can do and that's what he explains in verse 15 he says i commend joy for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that god has given him under the sun and i kind of like that perspective because i mean If you spend your life, this is the way I see it, if I spend my life every day, whether it's looking at things actually happening in my community or just opening up social media or whatever it is, and I become just enraptured, maybe that's not the right word, but just kind of drawn in by the wicked being treated like the righteous and the righteous being treated like the wicked, all the injustice in the world, my life is going to be very lacking in joy. i'm not gonna be able to enjoy the the work that i have to do because i'm gonna be so overcome by the frustration that comes from observing this injustice and so solomon here or kohalath here

says here's here's what i recommend joy nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful because that's the best way that you can make your way through the toil that you have all the days of your life that God has given you under the sun. And this is a limited perspective, but I think it's a wise perspective, too. It's much better to not let the inequity of the world so sour our lives that we can't even enjoy the few days that we have here. Yeah, I mean, you know what this looks like. Imagine two nations going to war. This is not hard to imagine sort of two kings in a sense uh they're gonna go to war with each other two two kings gonna fight it out and maybe these are both like not righteous kings they what do they

want power resources whatever it is who's gonna do all the suffering here i mean not them no not them no no it's gonna be like and then in the course of this war you have mass civilian casualties and, I mean, think about a God-fearing man who's had a farm in his family for generations and, well, that just gets blown up. You know, that's gone. And you look at that

and you're like, this seems incredibly wrong. Like, what's happening here? Like, he doesn't have anything to do with this. And these other people have these massive egos and there's all this sin involved and then this guy pays the price. And so since that is the reality,

I mean, that's not like a... You don't have to work hard to imagine scenarios like this. This happens all the time. And so what is Solomon's advice? Well, since you can't do anything about that. Beyond your control. Yeah. You don't have the ability to do anything about that.

He's going to commend joy. It's not worth spending all your time thinking about it or figuring out what you could do to stop it or change it. but in the days that you have, whatever those days are, that you should, you know, eat and drink and be joyful, this is the best way to be. Yeah, yeah, I think he kind of continues that same thought with the close of the chapter, too, and we can kind of circle back to this, but he goes on to say, when I applied my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep then i saw all the work of god that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun however much man may toil in seeking

he will not find it out even though a wise man claims to know he cannot find it out so it's kind of doubling down to the fact that you know life here is uh it doesn't matter how smart you are it doesn't matter why you are, it doesn't matter how much time you spend studying things. There are just way too many aspects of life that are beyond our ability to not just control, but even don't understand. And when a wise man comes along and says, Oh, I know he doesn't, he can't find, he can't find it out either. Even though he may claim to have, you know, all the mysteries of the universe and all the secrets and all the knowledge figured out and, uh, you know, wrote a book and you can buy this book and explain, he'll explain it all there.

he doesn't no one has this this kind of knowledge and and this is i think verse 17 is significant here cohalis says i saw all the work of god that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun in other words god's work is actually hiding this from us one of the one of the ways that god engages in his work in this world is by concealing these things from us and i think this is where you have this is one of these more positive elements too where that leaves room of course for for trust for faith because we know that there's so many things in life that are beyond our ability to comprehend beyond our ability to explain we're we're we're trapped here as mortal human beings troubled anxious uncertain so many things out of control well if

that's the life that you live you can't control the day your death you can't you can't uh corral the wind you can't get out of war you can't uh go against the word of the king there's all sorts of things that are limiting to us and so what are you going to do well you trust in the lord you commend your life to him you seek the gift of joy so that whatever your vocation might be you can at least enjoy life here in the midst of all the things that are outside of of your control and that is the better choice, rather than fretting and worrying and being engaged in a life that's just suffocated by a fixation on the injustice in the world. Yeah, it seems like a lot of, like, pithy little saying, throwaway sayings, were probably pulled from this line of thinking,

you know, whether it's, best things in life are free, stop and smell the roses, you know, whatever it is, this is kind of what he's saying, right? Where it's like, yeah, there are certain things that, if you want to prioritize, that kind of all of these other things that you can't control don't have any power over, which is you could enjoy the small things. You could do that, and you could actually live a better life in that way. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of Sermon on the Mount kind of material, you know? don't don't spend your life going after all these other these vain things uh seek first the kingdom and his righteousness so keep keep everything focused upon that which matters the

most which in this case he speaks of joy but we could expand that to be the kingdom and the gospel and all the wonderful things that god does give to us as gifts and then which can bear fruit in our lives, in whatever our callings might be. That's the place to be, not trying to understand everything, because that's beyond our ability, just to rest in Christ and rest in the joy that He gives us in the midst of this brief life that we have. That's it, and we are out of time, so we will leave it right there. We will be back next episode, getting into chapter 9. Man, we're going to find out guess what shocker everyone's gonna die and solomon's gonna let you know about it uh we're gonna look at what he has to say next episode i'll see you then chad all right see you