Year 5, Day 332: Ecclesiastes 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Appetite

• Appetite: We all have needs that need to be filled.  When we allow ourselves to be filled with the people and things that God brings into our life, we will be satisfied because our In will be in proper focus.  But when we try to fill ourselves with our own desires we end up frustrated by an insatiable hunger.

In this chapter, Solomon struggles with three issues: having stuff, having wisdom, and work.  I think in all three circumstances Solomon is talking about appetite.  Let’s examine each one.

The first one is clearly an issue of appetite.  Solomon is saying that getting everything you eye desires is just not satisfying in the end.  That’s an issue of appetite!  It is not good for us to binge on anything.  We need to learn self-control.

The second one is harder to see as an issue of appetite.  Solomon is saying that wisdom and folly are equally vain.  More precisely, Solomon is actually saying that wisdom can save us no better than folly can save us.  In the end, the wise die just as often as the fools do.  In this we can see the appetite issue, although keep in mind that Solomon is not saying that there is no point to gaining wisdom.  The reason that this is an appetite issue is because of the reason we are gaining the wisdom.  If I am seeking the wisdom for my own benefit and for my own gain, then it is an issue with appetite and I am in the wrong.  Where wisdom can be beneficial is when I seek wisdom that can benefit the community around me.

This same logic can be applied to the third area: work.  There is nothing wrong with work.  Those of us who have sat around for a few days being unable to do anything know that feeling of being cooped up and useless.  But work for the sake of work is not good, either.  We should work because it is good for us to provide for ourselves.  Yet we should not work just because, either.  Neither should we work for the stuff that it provides.  After all, that would take us back to the first of Solomon’s trio of vanities in this chapter.  Work is good, but it is only good why our appetite is truly turned towards God and what He wants for us.

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