Ecclesiastes 4:4-6 – Godliness with contentment is great gain

To live a life fully and meaningfully requires that we seek to know the better way and then to live it out. They say there are many ways to row a boat, knowing the best way to row it will certainly make our rowing more effective. The preacher here shows us three ways to have a more effective life. In verses 4-6, he urges us to live with contentment. Then in verses 7-12 we are urged to work in partnership with others.  And finally, in verses 13-16, we are encouraged to cultivate a teachable spirit.

In Ecclesiastes 4:4 we can see how people are driven to work hard because they want to keep up with the Joneses. Their discontentment with what they had already attained, resulted from looking at their neighbors and envy what they had. That spirit of not wanting to be seen lesser then one’s neighbor will drive one to strife and toil harder to make one look equal if not better than their neighbors. Ability to work is a gift from God. It’s a blessing from God above. It becomes distorted by our fallen nature. One is often motivated by envy to work hard. The sinful desires make us want to get ahead in life in order to get ahead of others. People are motivated by selfishness. We want to be better than others. Whether in wealth, looks or in abilities we want to be seen one up over our rival. For this reason, many become bankrupt and unable to pay their debts.

In verse 5 we can see another extreme. There are people who give themselves over to idleness. Here we are told “The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.” While one person can be driven and be consumed by work, another can be tempted by laziness till he becomes an idle altogether. The advice given in verse 6 is this: Be contented but don’t be an idle. It says, “Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. Here we see a balance. A contented person is quiet and peaceful. He does not need to strife to prove that he’s better than others. Such a person is also not bitten by an idle bug. He doesn’t fold his hands. He just works hard enough to get a handful of what he needs. He learns to accept his God-given portion in life.

We live in an over advertised world. Everywhere we turn our heads we see commercials of a different sort. We have all sorts of printed advertisements in newspapers, in magazines and news bulletins. In listening to the radio while driving to work, one gets intermittently interrupted by commercials announcing our needs for certain goods or certain services to make life more complete. One cannot watch a good show on television without having to be confronted by advertisement to buy a certain product which is better than what you already have in the home. What about billboards with all its glittering lights. These days we have them on LED penal on the front of buildings. These and many others in all shapes and forms are constantly bombarding our mind incessantly, telling us to get, grab and hoard. 

Jesus advised us in the Gospel that in all our getting, we should get a life, a full and abundant life.  Remember the words of Paul, godliness with contentment is great gain. We don’t need many things in life, we need the Lord. Psalm 23 tells us that if the Lord is our shepherd, we shall not be in want. Allow me to twist the word in a little sanctified way for our benefit. Instead of seeing the first lime of Psalm 23 as, “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” see it this way: “The Lord is my shepherd, that’s all I want.” When this takes place, He will lead us into the richness of His unlimited life. What a life we will have!