Wisdom

Passage

Ecclesiastes 7:1-29

‍Sermon Summary

Wisdom is better than folly, as long as you accept your real limitations. Chapter 7 presents the Preacher as wisdom’s outfitter, offering a storehouse of precious resources. Wisdom leads us through the temptations of distraction, impatience, anger, naive nostalgia and youthful ignorance. Wisdom reminds us to be joyful when things are good, but to resist the impulse to bust through the brick wall of human finitude. Wisdom protects us from ironic extremes and exposes our insistence on finding “the scheme of things” as sin against God. But when we receive God’s love letter of persistent pursuit, supremely in the person of Jesus, we can accept our limits as one of his gifts, while eagerly applying every tool of wisdom he provides.

‍Discussion Questions (choose any—you don't have to answer them all!)

1. [Optional starter question] What stood out or stuck with you from the sermon?
2. Describe your experience with funerals, cemeteries and death. How do you deal with it? How can you lean into the “house of mourning”?
3. How do you feel about the brick wall behind the velvet curtain? Where in life do you try to bust through it? Where do you see it as a gift?
4. Which piece of wisdom do you want to apply more consistently in your life? Consider their symbolic objects: snail, fire extinguisher, videotape, helmet, gold-medal noose, brick wall?
5. Read Genesis 3:1-7. Why is our desire to know the ultimate scheme of things sinful?
6. Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-24. What makes Jesus and his Gospel the pinnacle of wisdom?

Prayer Prompts

• Thank you, Father, for these gifts of wisdom__________
• Forgive me, Jesus, for resisting these specific limits of mine__________
• Help me, Holy Spirit, to apply wisdom in this specific way __________

Resources Consulted

Reccommended for laypeople:

• Everything is Never Enough, Bobby Jamieson
• A Table in the Mist, Jeffrey Meyers
• Rcovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes, Zack Eswine
• Living Life Backward, David Gibson
• The Message of Ecclesiastes, Derek Kidner
• The Bible Project videos on Ecclesiastes

Other resources consulted

• Africa Bible Commentary, ed. Tokunboh Adeyemo
• NICOT Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Tremper Longman
• Reason for Being, Jacques Ellul
• A Time to Tear Down & a Time to Build Up, Michael V. Fox
• Ecclesiastes for Everyone, John Goldingay
• NIV Application Commentary on Proverbs, Ecclesiastes & Song of Songs, Ian Provan
• The Wisdom Books translation and commentary, Robert Alter

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