Doing God’s work: How to persevere in sufferings?
Context: Obliged to please God and to experience the futility of trying to do so by achievements of his own wisdom, man needs to hear that his reconciliation can only be achieved by God’s own work (Ecc 4-5). However, this work of God is gibberish to man, leading Kohelet to conclude that it is unsearchable and hidden (Ecc 3:11). That they cannot desire and receive this gift (Ecc 6) alienates them from people of faith and causes rejection and even persecution, Jn 15:19; 1Jn 3:13. By contrast, God’s grace instructs believers in (godly) wisdom to persevere in their God-given faith (Ecc 7-11) and thereby become partakers in God’s work (cf Ecc 9:10; Jn 9:3-4; Jn 14:12).
Ecc 7 ended with a promise that those who become friends of God by such faith will be changed by it (7:26b). Focusing next on what matters most (hope, faith, love, patience, Ecc 7), Ecc 8 instructs believers how to deal with another major adversity: The injustice of men (Ecc 8:9).
Outline for discussion leader: Believers are meant to discover joy as God’s gift described by chapters 4-6 (Ecc 8:15). For this to happen, wisdom instructs believers that:
- vv1-2: Godly wisdom is necessary to rightly interpret sufferings. Only such wisdom, and not the absence of suffering, will preserve the believer’s new life of faith and its joy in all adversity. In particular, it instructs believers to continue to trust God when facing injustice from authorities.
- vv3-6: Godly wisdom also guides the believer to discern what is worth to stand for and to remain faithful even if the reward is delayed.
- v7: Although faith wins when the time comes for God to administer justice (Eccl 3), no temporal benefit of faith is guaranteed in this life.
- v8: Faith will not exempt from death or war. Nor can evil means justify the ends and suddenly achieve better results with faith than without.
- vv10-11: Faith cannot eradicate the injustice of the powerful in this world, or change the fact that God’s justice will be administered only in his due time.
- vv12-15: Godly wisdom teaches faith to trust that godliness in adversity is better than to be wicked in prosperity.
- v16: Even after God reveals the nature of his work to those who please him, it still exceeds our comprehension.
Warm-up: What helps you more: To know how to cope with sufferings, or to know why God allows it? Why?
Read Ecclesiastes 8
- v1 starts with “Who is like the wise, and who knows the interpretation of a thing?…”. What ‘thing’ did Kohelet have in mind, v9?
- Why is a right interpretation of adversity vital to not give up believing in the work of God? cf Jn 16:1-4; Acts 14:22; Heb 10:38
- vv2-4: How will such wisdom influence how we relate to those in authority? Does Kohelet command allegiance to any king and to uncritically obey any order from any superior?
- Have believers a mandate to help bring down those who use their authority for evil causes ?
- vv5-6: How does biblical wisdom help to become a problem solver?*
- vv7-9 speak of times of war and bereavement. What ‘miracles’ should faith not expect in such circumstances?**
- v10: Who are those ‘wicked people’? How are they described?
- Did Kohelet criticize them for opposing religion? Or rather because their religion opposes God’s work and its teaching how to live by faith? [v10: “in and out of church”, cf Ecc 5:1]
- What were ‘those things’ that they had done? v9
- v11a: What distinguishes such people as ‘bold’ sinners? What makes their sins particularly hard to endure? =>
- Why are they even more reluctant to apologize than average offenders? [v11a: Emboldened by the delay of God’s judgment]
- Does faith in God make it easier, or rather even more difficult, to bear with injustice? Why?
- Hint: Who is more likely to expect that justice on their behalf should be enforced by God’s personal intervention: Believers, or atheists, v14?
- vv12-13: Why should you neither envy such folks for their popularity, nor look down on them?
- How can fear of God ‘”…prolong life like a shadow”? [cf Ps 102:11; 109:23; 144:4 where the length of a shadow describes the duration of a life lived in the light of life]
- Eat and drink: Was his philosophy to seek comfort in affliction merely by indulging our senses?
- Why not?
- If joy must be added to ‘eating and drinking’, can it be the same as the pleasure itself of eating?
- Reminder: How did Kohelet explain previously where such added joy comes from? cf 4:6; 5:1; 9:7b hearing; resting; reconciliation…
- Kohelet has stressed before and now repeats himself that such joy is God’s free gift: What do you think this says about our own role?
- In what sense can no man know the work of God? Categorically no one, or rather that man cannot find out (i.e. by himself)?
- Hint: Was Kohelet himself finally shown the work of God, v17?
- Would he write at length about it only to say that he was clueless?
- What does v17 add to Kohelet’s earlier descriptions of God’s work?
- Hint: Why can no one know?
- Why is it important for believers to understand that the work of God that they believe in is beyond comprehension to natural wisdom?
- Depending on their personality, people are tripped by different kinds of adversity and opposition. Which kind makes it particularly challenging to you to not give up faith in God’s work?
- Are you facing any decisions at the moment where you need an extra measure of wisdom to know “the timing and a way”?
* Faith is not a license to remain a fool, but a door to learn wisdom, which includes the skill to discern godly solutions and to patiently wait for the right time.
** E.g., wisdom teaches here that genuine faith is neither a means to avoid adversity, nor to justify evil or impatience with God’s timing in the name of a good cause.
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