Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 – The futility of secular wisdom

Everyone is searching for meaning in life. People would go through great length to look for happiness. Some will go for money, the more the merrier. But we know that money has brought joy to many but also pain to just as many. It is not a good remedy to the search for a meaningful life. Others think it is in friendship. But friends make a good circle but poor center. They have the capacity to disappoint you. Some think that it is found in having a jolly good time. The truth is this: if one party brings meaning to life, then one hundred parties should make life complete. But we know that when the lights are off, man still has to face the loneliness he faces with himself. The issue with seeking meaning and happiness in life lies not so much in how to get it but where one goes to get it.

Going by what the preacher said in verses 12-18, he made it clear that he was also searching for meaning to living. He didn’t hide his intention as well. It is obvious that he began at the wrong place to get it. Though he was a king and a brilliant one too, he obviously did not find meaning in having so much power. So, he set out to look for it elsewhere. He tried wisdom which is a commendable one to begin with. Rather than seeking popularity, pleasure and personal accomplishment, his first attempt was at wisdom, the human sort of wisdom or better termed “secular wisdom.” He wanted to understand the business of life and was baffled by the mundaneness of it. People seem to go about doing life joylessly. And for all the activities involved, there was no concrete conclusion. So, in verses 14-15, he came to his own conclusion in his fruitless search, saying, “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.”

In verse 16, we are told that he set his heart to it. He did not go about casually looking for meaning to life. He stated what was said of him, he was a man of great wisdom more so than all the men from Jerusalem. He was not making an empty boast. He was known for his wisdom and exceptional knowledge. Though he didn’t discover what he was looking for, he did not give up. He was not easily discouraged. Verses 16-18 tell us that he continued and pressed on in the search. Engaging in a frustrating soliloquy, the preacher admitted to himself saying, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly.” His conclusion in the last part of verse 17, “I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.” He found that his search for the “so called” wisdom, didn’t come anywhere nearer the truth. He still failed far short of the answer he was looking for.

What do these verses tell us? Human reason and secular wisdom can only take us to a certain degree but it can never lead us to fully understand God or the things and ways of God. Here is a good advice from Jeremiah 9:23-24. God said, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom … but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me” Lovingly God will never leave us in despair. His promise to us in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 is this: ““What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.” The spiritual world cannot be understood via secular means. Paul tells us that spiritual truths are spiritually discerned. It is impossible to make sense of spiritual truth with merely the human mind. We need to understand it through the mind of Christ. That’s the only way to know God’s liberating truth!