Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Broken by the Bible | The Writings | Ecclesiastes 8

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

Have you ever been broken by the Bible? Has the the truth of Scripture ever forced you to change your mind? Has it forced you to change your life? In today's episode, Jeff shares how Ecclesiastes 8��attempts to break our sense of pride and certainty and encourages us to embrace our limits with humility. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Ecclesiastes 8

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. Have you ever been broken by the Bible? I know that probably sounds like a strange question, so let me explain. The phrase being broken is taken from Alan Jacobs' book, How to Think. Awesome book, by the way. He actually borrows that phrase from Leah LeBresco Sargent,

as she describes the culture of debate at the Yale Political Union. When the Yale Political Union evaluates whether someone in their organization is ready for a leadership position, they ask that person two questions. The first is this, have you ever broke someone on the debate floor? To break on the floor is to change your mind right there in the middle of a debate, to change your mind and adopt the position of your opponent. This is a very rare occurrence and obviously a high mark of achievement in the debate world. to argue so convincingly that your opponent breaks on the floor. That's to reach the pinnacle of public persuasion. It's an impressive accolade suggesting that someone may be ready to take on a leadership role.

But this is only the first question that the Yale Political Union asks. The second question is far more interesting. And it's this. Have you ever broken on the floor? Have you ever changed your mind in the middle of the world? debate. And for the Yale political union, the correct answer to that question should be yes. If someone was actually ready to lead, they had to have the humility to admit that they'd been wrong, that they'd bumped into their limitations. Sargent describes the importance of this

second question this way. It wasn't very likely that you walked into the YPU with the most accurate possible politics, ethics, and meta-ethics. If you hadn't had to jettison some of your own ideas several years in, we had our doubts about how honestly and deeply you were engaging in debate. So to sum it up, if someone had never been broken on the floor, had never acknowledged the limits of their knowledge, then they probably weren't actually thinking. They were probably posturing or maneuvering to stay in the safe position of stasis, to keep their certainty, to keep their control. And in this way, to be broken on the floor is actually to be rebuilt, to become more honest, more whole. The question about being broken on the floor, it's an interesting one, even just at the level

of psychology and human nature in general. But there's also a way to appreciate it when we consider our approach to the Bible. My tendency might be like yours. My tendency is to want my preconceived notions, my self-reliant knowledge, validated by the Bible, not broken by it. But all of us need humility in the face of our limitations. We need our preconceived notions broken so that they can be rebuilt in light of who God really is and who we really are. This process of perspective reconstruction occurs all throughout the Bible, yet it takes on a special

prominence in the eighth chapter of Ecclesiastes, where we see our need for humility as we sense our control and our knowledge being broken out of love. Now as we approach God's word and our time together, let's pause and just ask for His grace to move through these moments. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life and breath and for your word. Jesus help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. And Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in Ecclesiastes. As we read these words, let these words of yours read us and humble us and rebuild us in Jesus' name. Amen. The first way that Ecclesiastes 8 breaks down our sense of control and knowledge is through the category of power in the first nine verses. Here we see the enigma of power figures,

whether they be kings or rulers or bosses, they're using their power to hurt instead of heal, to rule over people for their personal good instead of for the good of others. This tension comes to a climax in verse 9. All this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.

For Ecclesiastes, this is a puzzle in the world that we can't fully solve. It's trying to reveal, our limitations when it comes to ensuring the just use of power. It's slowly breaking our sense of control and certainty. The process of being broken and humbled continues as we press into verses 10 through 14. So here we see another enigma by way of contrasting the lives of the wicked and the lives of those who fear God. Let's pick up in verse 12. Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better for those who fear God,

who are reverent before him. So the teacher of Ecclesiastes acknowledges the reality, that sometimes the wicked seem to prosper. But in God's world, there's more than that. There's more at play than meets the eye. We keep reading in verses 12 through 13, I know it will go better for those who fear the Lord, who are reverent before him. yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them and their days will not lengthen like a shadow. So yes, those who don't love God and love others, they seem to be winning here and now. It seems like they're living fuller, longer, more flourishing lives. This is the reality that we often see with our eyes. And yet the teacher unveils the other dimension that's harder to see with

our eyes, yet is even more true than what our vision suggests. It's far better to fear God and live with awe before him and all that we do. That's the key to having a real lasting kind of flourishing. And yet, even though that's the deepest truth, it's not always the reality that we see in our day-to-day experience, in our day-to-day existence. Our knowledge is confined. And for the teacher, that's a puzzle. This puzzle reaches its greatest height in the last verse of this chapter, verse 17. And for some biblical scholars, this verse is the key to the entire book of Ecclesiastes. So here in verse 17, we read this, 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 and seeking, he will not find it out,

even though a wise man claims to know he cannot find it out. So here the teacher has observed everything and yet can't understand everything. Yes, the wise person may claim to have perfect knowledge and control and certainty, but there's something missing in that claim. Old Testament scholar Craig Bartholomew explores the way that this certainty is broken on the floor. In verse 17, Bartholomew says this. This verse alerts us to the hubris and limits of the teacher's epistemology, his sense of self-reliant knowledge.

Hubris, because it is arrogant to imagine that the works of God are confined to what the teacher can observe, and limits because his epistemology can never take into account God's work of creation and redemption. So this chapter in Ecclesiastes, and the book as a whole, it breaks any sense. of confidence and self-reliant knowledge. Ecclesiastes 8 is breaking us on the floor because our perspective is confined. But here's an important question that we have to consider. Why does Ecclesiastes do this? What's the point? Is it just to have our certainty broken? Or is there something bigger at play? To answer that question, let's go back where we started with the Yale Political Union. Here's the thing about being broken on the floor of a debate.

It's not just about changing your mind. It's about changing who you are. Alan Jacobs says it this way. Being broken on the floor makes you vulnerable to changes of your mind. And changing your mind could lead to a different you. I love that way of portraying the impact of being challenged and humbled. Ecclesiastes 8 presents us with these key things. tensions and enigmas to change us. And remember the emphasis on fearing the Lord, on honoring him and

living in all with him back in verses 12 through 13. Being broken in humility leads to a rebuilt life with a renewed love for God as our creator and our recreater. We also get a little sense of that life change in verse 15 where the teacher states, and 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. So Ecclesiastes, it's full of so many puzzling enigmas. Sometimes when we encounter them, we want to answer them, solve them, maybe even escape them. For sure, we want to control them. Of course, having answers to address these big issues, it's important and it's faithful. But this part of the body,

is challenging us to not simply solve the enigmas, but to be shaped by them, to be the kind of people whose sense of control and certainty is broken and rebuilt with joy and awe before God. But the only way for that to happen is for us to be humble, to be open to having our confident certainty broken. And when we do that, we not only think differently, we live and love differently, everywhere we go. Heavenly Father, would you humble us and graciously, out of your love, break our sense of self-reliant hubris, pride, and certainty? Holy Spirit, through the Word of God and through the people of God, would you not only confront us with our limits,

but also change us through our limits? Jesus, would you rebuild our lives with joy and awe as we live into whatever you have for us today? Amen.