Author Topic: Solomon's World View (Read 2829 times)

Olde Tymer · « **Reply #26 on:** January 30, 2019, 08:56:37 am »

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● Ecc 7:10 . . Don't say; How has it happened that former times were better than these? For it is not wise of you to ask that question.

The problem with the good old days is that we often conveniently forget the bad parts and sometimes invent good parts to take their place; viz: the good old days are often a combination of poor memory and a good imagination.

Lyrics in Carly Simon's song Anticipation say: "I tell tomorrow, these are the good old days". Get her point? You are living in some good old days right now, this very moment; and in the future you'll look back on them with the same wistful fondness that you are now looking back on earlier good old days. Carly's song was released on an album in 1972, some 40 years ago as of 2012. Was she right? Were those days good old days for her?

Sometimes there's no denying the good old days really were better than our present lot in life. People with serious illnesses and handicaps were certainly better off before those problems degraded their quality of life. I think a young girl with Herpes and/or an unwanted pregnancy would agree that things were better before.

Myself, I would have been dead with appendicitis as a teen-ager were it not for modern medicine. And yet again in my 40's with a kidney stone. And yet again in my fifties with Grave's Disease (hyperactive thyroid). I think anyone would agree Americans are far better off today economically than the 1930's. So not all the good old days were good. Some of those good old days would have been fatal for many of us-- not only in health, but also in hard labor and low pay.

● Ecc 7:11-12 . .Wisdom is as good as a patrimony, and even better, for those who behold the sun. For to be in the shelter of wisdom is to be also in the shelter of money, and the advantage of intelligence is that wisdom preserves the life of him who possesses it.

Solomon's comment is for those who "behold the sun" as opposed to those who behold the face of God.

Wisdom isn't just an accumulation of information like a journal or an encyclopedia. Wisdom is a combination of knowledge and understanding gained through experience. That's why so many young people are air-heads. Although they're better educated; they just haven't lived long enough to really know the score.

But youth isn't necessarily an indicator that somebody hasn't got any sense. If young people are fortunate enough to have the benefit of a mentor, like say a savvy parent or a connection in the Big Brother program of their town, then they have on tap the wisdom of an older person who knows many ins and outs of life. However, too many young people are vain, conceited, and arrogant, and tend to have the attitude of a know-it-all. For them, a mentor serves no purpose because those kinds of young people are of the sort who want to find out everything for themselves, rather than be instructed.

Wisdom is a far better inheritance for a young person than money and property. Wisdom will enable a wise youth to get the money and property later. But no amount of money will enable a dunce to attain wisdom.

"What good is money in the hand of a fool to purchase wisdom, when he has no mind?" (Prv 17:16)

Good sense is far more important than money. A young co-worker of mine, who had been out of work for quite a while, took his very first paycheck to a sound shop and spent the entire thing on a $700 stereo system for his car. The car was an old clunker and the stereo was actually worth more than the car. Now there was a boy who seriously needed some counseling.

"There is desirable treasure, and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man squanders it." (Prv 21:20)

● Ecc 7:13-14 . . Consider the work of God; for who can make straight what He has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him.

Solomon's references to a God are mostly rhetorical in the book of Ecclesiastes. When he says "consider the work of God" I suspect he's just referring to the natural order of things under the sun.

The Scottish poet Robert Burns noticed that life sometimes throws a curve ball at you in spite of your best precautions. Fate often casts its long shadow when human beings set about planning their lives.

Burns was out one day plowing in the field and uprooted a mouse's underground nest who was all set for the oncoming winter. The mouse had picked a fallow field as the site for its winter retreat thinking it would be safe and snug; unmolested during the cold. But it didn't (or maybe we should say it couldn't) know the workings of powers higher than itself-- in this case, human beings and their farm machinery.

But, mousie, thou art no thy lane
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men [Oft go awry]
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain for promis'd joy.

Take for example Job (Job 1:1-3). He was all set to enjoy retirement when of a sudden, without the slightest warning, his world fell apart even though he was the most righteous man of his day and deserved only the best of luck rather than bad. But completely unknown to him were higher powers-- God and the spirit world --in a contest of loyalties; with 'ol Job right smack in the middle of their contentions. Consequently; he lost everything-- his family, save for his (un)loving wife, his livestock, all his houses; and his health. In very little time, Job went from wealthy retiree to disabled pauper.

Job surely knew he didn't deserve the bad luck that came his way. But like Robert Burns said: The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. Why? Because as Solomon indicated; you can neither predict nor fathom the ambitions of powers and circumstances beyond your control. The spirit world is a higher power than Man, just as Man is a higher power than mice. However, as mice cannot control the ways of Man, neither can Man control the ways of the spirits. Therefore; both men and mice are subject to the whims of powers beyond their control so that neither one is superior to the other in that respect.

It's not uncommon to see property owners forced out and/or displaced because of Eminent Domain; the power of a state, provincial, or national government to take private property for public and/or economic use. So then, like the mousie in Burns' poem; your land is never really your land. Higher powers are at liberty to condemn your property and take it away from you at will for what they inevitably categorize as the so-called "greater good".
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Author Topic: Solomon's World View (Read 2829 times)

Olde Tymer

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