Unified Theory: Ecclesiastes 7:15-29

“The majority in Western culture have long ago ceased to believe that empirical inquiry is only a limited inquiry into the universe God made…and have come to think of it as an all-embracing method that enables us, stone by stone, to demolish the wall that separates us from true and complete knowledge, to arrive some day on the other side.” [Iain Provan, The New Application Commentary: Eclesiastes/Song of Songs, p.158]

Scientific inquiry is avidly seeking a unified theory of all reality. But in reality, all of us are seeking a unified theory, a personal one, a way of arriving at complete control of the outcome of our lives. This is the heart of every human because we feel so incapable of trusting God. We’re on our own, as we see it, and we creatively and sinfully develop our unique strategies for making life work. The Preacher is still exposing our insufficient strategies.

In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them. Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city. (Ecclesiastes 7:15-19, ESV)

Is it really possible that we would think being righteous is a way to guarantee God’s blessing on our life (translation: only positive things in our life)? It is highly possible. This is the “sin” that Job’s friends committed, trying to assure Job that it was his sin that led to the horrendous suffering in his life. It is the view I heard in a friend who was mad at God because she had abstained from pre-marital sex and still her marriage turned out to be horrible. Don’t be overly righteous thinking that will make your life work out.

But don’t get confused and think that therefore I might as well throw caution to the wind and try foolishness as the way to “success” because that will certainly lead to exactly the least positive outcome for your life.

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out? I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things— which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. (Ecclesiastes 7:20–29, ESV)

If we try being righteous as a unified theory of guaranteeing our future will be positive, we have to consider that there is no one righteous enough to accomplish that. In his individual search the Preacher found very few men who could even begin to measure up to the “perfection” required for true righteousness, and found even fewer women. This strategy is destined for failure. The “one who fears God” knows that no unified theory exists for how to make our lives always turn out good. There is no working out in this life, no guarantees. There is only “coming out” from self-devised strategies that simply trust the Lord with all of it.