Episode Details

What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? It’s a question that has perplexed and troubled people throughout history. Philosophers have spent lifetimes searching for the answer, scientists have searched under microscopes and probed the heavens. World religions are full of seekers, all searching or thinking themselves to have found the answer. Some say there is no answer.

But let me begin by asking you: What is your answer? Why are you here? Do you know? Have you ever seriously considered the question? As we launch into our passage, this is exactly the question that the Preacher seeks to raise, and it’s one he will continue to explore throughout the book. This is what he sets out to do, as we look at the world around us, he says, what does it all mean? How can we make sense of it all? Take a look in v12: “I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven.”

You can see it there can’t you? What Solomon proposes to do here is to apply his heart, and to search out by wisdom everything that us done under the sun. In other words, he proposes to apply his great wisdom in an attempt to make sense of the world, to see what meaning he can find. This is where he starts the journey in Ecclesiastes.

We’ve been using the motif of a labyrinth to understand Ecclesiastes. For those of you who have ever walked into a maze, you know what to do first don’t you? You start exploring. You start trying to orient yourself, making sense of where you are and how you can get to the middle. Now entering into the labyrinth of Ecclesiastes, we don’t actually have to do that, because as soon as we enter, we find that there is a guide waiting for us in verse twelve. So let me introduce you to him: “I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven.”

Our guide is none other than King Solomon himself, the king of Jerusalem, and what he’s saying here is that he’s been on a quest, a quest to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. In other words, Solomon has used his wisdom to try and make sense of life. And as we enter the maze for the first time, this is what a wizened Solomon is saying to us: “I’ve seen it all,” he says, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun” (v14). He’s gone walking down the passages and pathways of life’s possibilities, he’s observed all the various activities of life, he’s considered the pathways of this labyrinth.

Now an obvious immediate question here is this: Why should we listen to Solomon? Besides the obvious answer that this book is in the Bible, and therefore part of God’s revelation, let me impress upon you why Solomon himself is a particularly good guide. As we read the words of this book, we are listening to a man who, scripture says, was wise beyond any who were before him, and any who came after him. There was no one in history quite like Solomon. This was a man who was supernaturally gifted with the wisdom of God, as we learn in 1 Kings 3. In that chapter we read about how God granted any request that Solomon cared to ask, and here is what Solomon asked of the LORD: “Give your servant …an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” And Scripture says that God was pleased that Solomon had asked for this, therefore God said: “Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.” And so our guide is a man supernaturally endowed with the wisdom of God. Sounds like someone worth listening to!

And Solomon reminds us of this again, and this is one of the reasons why we know that this is Solomon speaking in the book. You won’t find Solomon’s name in the book of Ec