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The Improbable Truth
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Monday, July, 12, 2010
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by John Fischer
Has it ever made anyone curious why the Bible questions its own answers? Take the book of Ecclesiastes, for instance—twelve chapters dedicated to the propagation of the meaninglessness of life. And this is not just the author having a bad hair day. This is an investment of a wise king's entire life seeking the meaning of his existence. Every attempt to answer the big question is meticulously pursued, and with all the resources to make it legitimate. If Solomon wanted to pursue wealth, he had wealth to exceed the richest kings at the time. If he wanted to pursue pleasure, he had a thousand concubines at his bidding. And in his pursuit of wisdom, his wisdom was unparalleled in human history.
King Solomon was no armchair philosopher. He had the opportunity to try out each one of his solutions, and every time he came up with the same conclusion: "Meaningless, meaningless… Everything is meaningless" (Ecclesiastes 1:2). And even when he does concede, in the end, that the only reasonable thing to do is to fear God and keep His commandments, it's not like he's ready to celebrate this final discovery (Ecclesiastes 12:13). In fact, it reads like a resignation. You finish this book and you want to go, "When's the next Tony Robbins seminar? I need some cheering up!"
Actually, the fact that Ecclesiastes is in the Bible does two things for me. First, it gives me confidence that the rest of the Bible is true. If Christianity were a construct of the human mind, you wouldn't find this stuff in its portfolio, that's for sure. What propaganda features differing views? Who includes the opposing arguments in their literature, and even makes them look good? And yet the Bible declares life meaningless, it shows bad people having a good time and good people having a miserable time. The hero of the whole book dies a brutal death in the end, for heaven's sake, and then He calls His followers to come and die with Him! Well, whoopee! Where do I sign up? I'm sorry, but to all those who say someone made up Christianity, I have to say, based on what? Certainly nothing I know of in human nature.
Secondly, it makes me look more deeply into things. Maybe the reason following Christ doesn't magically make this life a party is because there is something more than this life to consider. And maybe Solomon was so old and spent by the time he finally got to it that he couldn't really enjoy what was enjoyable about what he found. And maybe, just maybe, the reason God put his story there was for us to benefit from his life's search, take his word for it, and start living where he left off.
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