Joel M Bradshaw

13The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.–Ecclesiastes 12, with emphasis

Those of you who have been following the last two weeks, we have slogged through the Philosophy 101 class of the Bible. Qoheleth has progressively let us know that no pursuit ends up paying off, except what I underlined above. No pleasure you can conceive or success you can achieve provides what you are longing for most. It never ultimately pays off. It leads to a meaningless existence for it never provides the kind of meaning that lasts. Qoheleth had all the money, power, sex, and influence of his day. And NONE of those provided what he was longing for.

So he lands the plane with theology. The end of the matter is always theological. Who God is and what He expects of you ultimately matter most.

Fearing God recognizes that God is God and you are not. Fearing God recognizes that therefore you answer to this God are accountable to Him for how you’ve lived your life. Therefore the one who fears also keeps. The primary philosophical and ethical message of the Bible can be summed up with this:

1. Only God is God.
2. Honor God with what you can control.
3. Trust God with what you can’t control.

Qoheleth didn’t have the cross to look back at like we do. He just looked at his life and saw what pursuits mattered and what didn’t. He ends with God for God was all he really had of worth in the first place. God’s opinion matters more than anyone else’s. I need to read that sentence I just wrote again and again. Scroll back up and read the verse I underlined. Read it again. A third time, please. Keep that perspective in mind as you find yourself pursuing everything else. Let Qoheleth’s life and philosophical journey teach you, my friends.–JMB