Grace Fellowship Church

¹⁵ In this mean­ing­less life of mine I have seen both of these:

   the right­eous per­ish­ing in their right­eous­ness,
and the wicked liv­ing long in their wicked­ness.
¹⁶ Do not be over­right­eous,
nei­ther be over­wise—
why destroy your­self?
¹⁷ Do not be over­wicked,
and do not be a fool—
why die before your time?
¹⁸ It is good to grasp the one
and not let go of the other.
Who­ever fears God will avoid all extremes

This pas­sage con­tin­ues to ask (and answer) the first of two ques­tions that are posed in the last half of this mag­nif­i­cent book: “Who knows what is good for mor­tals?” This ques­tion is asked four times and each time the answer is even­tu­ally given “not find out.”

One of my favorite movies to watch with my kids is Nacho Libre. Nacho is a monk who dreams of becom­ing a pro­fes­sional wrestler. In his quest for great­ness he is told that if he eats the eggs of an eagle he will gain that bird’s pow­ers. Of course this part of the adven­ture ends in dis­mal fail­ure as he is soundly defeated in his next wrestling match. In the locker room after the match he exclaims: “Those eggs were a lie…..they gave me no eagle powers…there gave  me no nutri­ents!”

Nacho’s quest for great­ness parallel’s Solomon’s search for mean­ing. He looks for it in suc­cess, wealth, power, women, social wel­fare and each time his answer is the same as Nacho’s…They gave me no nutri­ents! That is exactly the sen­ti­ment Solomon expresses in 7:15.

Chap­ter 7 deals with how we might respond when we are frus­trated at our fail­ures at dis­cov­er­ing what is good for us. We come to a cross­roads where two tempt­ing choices are before us. In light of all the frus­tra­tion and upsets we endure in this (appar­ently) chaotic life Under the Son, should we try even harder or give up com­pletely? In verse 7:16 Solomon warns us that both of these roads are “nutrient-less.”

 Do not be over­right­eous,
nei­ther be overwise—

What a crazy sen­tence to read in your Bible! Don’t be over­right­eous?!! But in con­text Solomon is look­ing down 2 paths that we are tempted to take after the harsh real­i­ties of life have worn us down.

Path 1
Over­right­eous­ness: Solomon is address­ing the stance that many of us take when life is hard or seem­ing to go against us. A lit­tle voice pops up in our head that says: ” these things would not have hap­pened to us if we were more right­eous.” If we were more faith­ful fol­low­ers of Jesus then we could avoid hard­ship in this life. There­fore wis­dom is to be found in a more rig­or­ous dis­ci­pline of religion.

Over­wise: “If I could just fig­ure this life out and under­stand the big pic­ture bet­ter, I can avoid so much suf­fer­ing in this life.” I can’t tell you the num­ber of times that suf­fer­ing has led me to a Chris­t­ian book­store to help me get answers to life’s ques­tions. I’ve browsed for hours in the “self-help” or “lay-psychology” sec­tions of used book shops look­ing for some kind of answer to my problems.

Just like Nacho we think if we can climb a higher moun­tain and search for more mys­te­ri­ous answers then we can get the nutri­ents we need to make life work! Just be more faith­ful. Go to church more often. Pray for hours. Give all you have to the poor….each of these activ­i­ties are good in and of them­selves. The ques­tion Solomon might ask you is WHY are you doing them? Are you try­ing to prove your worth? Are you try­ing to earn God’s bless­ing? if so, then you are being ‘over­right­eous.’ I have spent years of my life on this path, believ­ing that all my prob­lems were due to the fact that I sinned too much or that I just didn’t know enough to get out of the way of life’s troubles.

Solomon is telling me that God is refus­ing to be made into a wwjd bracelet or a pithy state­ment on a church sign. There are no easy answers. Some­times the good just die young while the wicked live a long and pros­per­ous life. Don’t think you can sort all this out with your intel­lect any more than you can do so by your reli­gion. God has set the times of everyone’s life. He has set his eter­nal plan in motion and you can nei­ther com­pre­hend nor change it.

Plan 2

Over­wicked­ness: No, Solomon isn’t say­ing its “ok” to be a lit­tle wicked! When life get’s hard and you have been beaten down there is typ­i­cal sec­ond path that we are tempted to take. Maybe after being “over­right­eous” has failed, or maybe instead of try­ing reli­gion at all, many of us just give up on try­ing all together; that is the over­wicked life. “Eat and drink for tomor­row we die” might be your motto. What a tempt­ing path to take. I think I have trav­eled a bit down this road from time to time.  Much of the first part of Eccle­si­astes has been given as a response to this kind of foolishness.

The “Answer”

Lest I fall into the trap of being “over­wise” I put the word “answer” in quotes because Solomon is not about to now tell us that there is a per­fect solu­tion to all these problems!

It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Who­ever fears God will avoid all extremes.

This is a tough verse for com­men­ta­tors and Hebrew schol­ars alike. Solomon goes on in the rest of chap­ter 7 to give illus­tra­tions and proverbs about this answer and to give fur­ther illus­tra­tion to his state­ments in these verses.

The 2^nd half of the verse is the real clincher though. How do you sur­vive in this para­dox­i­cal life Under the Sun? Trust God and put your­self com­pletely under his care. We do not know what the future holds or even how our present cir­cum­stances will sort them­selves out. All we can do is trust in the char­ac­ter of the God of the Bible and his promises to work all things for the good of those who believe (Romans 8:28). Cling to Jesus. Remem­ber his promises. Be  happy with what you have today and stop fore­cast­ing the future. This is how you live with joy in this crazy life Under the Sun.