A More Meaningful Kind of Social Distancing

October 21, 2020 at 10:49 am | Posted in Biblical Kinds, Joshua | 8 Comments
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And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.

Joshua 3:1

The fact of Joshua’s early rising is probably noted to emphasize his prioritizing of spending time seeking to hear from God, and how seriously he took his leadership responsibilities.

The people moved from the acacia grove to a place nearer the river.

And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host; And they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore.

Joshua 3:2-4

This early example of “social distancing” served two purposes. It allowed a large group of people (probably millions) to all see what the priests were doing and the way they were going, but it also reminded the people of God’s holiness and the danger of frivolously approaching the visible symbol of His presence by those not specifically authorized to do so.

And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the Lord will do wonders among you.

Joshua 3:5

Based on previous Biblical instances, this sanctification involved bathing, changing clothes, refraining from marital relations, and possibly confession and offerings for sins. God was setting up a memorable spectacle indicating that He was about to do something miraculous.

Joshua 3:15 gives us some information to indicate that, while the two spies were able to cross the Jordan River, this large group of people with their children, livestock, and possessions would not have been able to do so successfully. The flood plain in the spring time could be up to a mile wide and covered with tangled brush. The river was around 100 feet across and 3 to 12 feet deep. Because of a drop in elevation between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, the river was not a peaceful stream, but a racing rapid.

And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.

Joshua 3:6-7

This was another important reason for the solemnity and awe-inspiring nature of what would take place. Joshua would be reinforced as God’s appointed leader in front of the people, who would be expected to hold him in the esteem with which they (should have) held Moses.

And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites.

Joshua 3:10

Joshua is a book of courage, carnage, and conquest. In Chapter 3 the carnage is yet to come, but there is a preview of it here. The Canaanite tribes would not be “driven out” peacefully. In fact, the “driven out” sounds more irenic than what God had specifically commanded, which was something more akin to total annihilation. Carnage means physical violence, bloodshed, and death. Why had God commanded that these people be condemned to slaughter and death?

  1. These people were exceedingly wicked. They had been given more than ample time by God to repent, and had only increased in wickedness and cruelty instead.
  2. If allowed to coexist with God’s people, their influence would pollute and corrupt the Israelites.

And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap. And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people; And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,) That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho.

Joshua 3:13-16

The action of the narrative freezes with the priests standing in the middle of the Jordan, holding the Ark, and the people passing over, while the point of what God wants to emphasize in this spectacle is discussed. This is a common literary device in Joshua. It occurred in Chapter 2 with Rahab. A cliffhanger is created and the action of the story pauses suspensefully, while the central point of what the Holy Spirit really wants us to learn and memorize about this is stressed.

And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.

Joshua 3:17

The Jordan River was miraculously stopped by the power of God 18-20 miles upstream, and the streams that fed into it downstream from where it was dammed up were also stopped, so this was not a coincidental natural landslide, as some have supposed, but a true miracle. The ground was immediately made dry so that upwards of perhaps two million people and their livestock and possessions could cross in one day. In Joshua 3:17 the priests are standing there holding the Ark in the middle of the river bed, and in Joshua 4:10 they are still there!

The Double-Layered Meanings of Three Kinds of Reproof

April 29, 2020 at 12:41 pm | Posted in Biblical Kinds, John | 2 Comments
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And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

John 16:8

The “He” in that verse is the Holy Spirit.

Of sin, because they believe not on me;

John 16:9

The secondary layer of meaning in this statement is that Jesus’s Crucifixion would prove the sinfulness of mankind, but the primary meaning is that the Holy Spirit will demonstrate objective morality and convict the world of moral relativism.

Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;

John 16:10

The secondary layer of meaning in this statement is that Jesus’s Resurrection would prove that His life had fulfilled all righteousness. The primary meaning is that the Holy Spirit will convince people that they need Jesus’s alien righteousness.

Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

John 16:11

The secondary meaning is that Jesus’s Ascension would prove His victory over Satan and his worldly kingdom. The primary meaning is that the Holy Spirit will prove that God’s children can defeat Satan and overcome the world.

A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. Then said some of his disciples among themselves, What is this that he saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father? They said therefore, What is this that he saith, A little while? we cannot tell what he saith. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye enquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

John 16:16-20

They say that in competitive sporting events every play makes somebody happy. A bad shot doesn’t make the shooter happy, but it makes his opponent happy. An error at second base grieves the second basemen, but it thrills the batter or the baserunner. The only time a play that goes against your team in a game doesn’t make you unhappy is when you are watching a replay of the game, already knowing the outcome, and knowing that all the bad plays that went against you were ultimately overcome. In that instance, EVERY play makes the winner happy. We are going to suffer in the Christian life. It’s just a fact. The world’s system is rigged against us, and we need set-backs, discouragements, trials, and tests to strengthen us and to conform us to the image of Christ. But, knowing that in Christ we WILL overcome the world allows us to find joy even in the setbacks and failures.

A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.

John 6:21

For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God. Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe?

John 16:27-31

Did Jesus become indignant in Verse 31? “Oh, NOW you believe…” Or was He merely being reflective? “Do you? Do you really now believe? I wonder…” Perhaps He was just being literally inquisitive: “Are you sure you’ve got it now?” I vote for indignant, because of what comes after:

Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

John 16:32

Yet He leaves them with this encouragement before beginning to pray:

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

John 16:33

As Christians, we are not stoics, keeping a stiff upper lip of grim fatatlism. Nor are we hedonists, partying with gusto today, for tomorrow we die, believing that the present pleasures are all that matter. No, we have a real hope – a reasonable, logical basis for enduring suffering or difficulty or persecution for Christ.

What Kind of Dirt Are You?

August 14, 2018 at 4:11 pm | Posted in Biblical farming, Biblical Kinds, Luke, parables | 7 Comments
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Luke 8 contains what is usually called the Parable of the Sower or sometimes the Parable of the Soils, because Jesus described four different kinds of dirt.

A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.

Luke 8:5

A farmer went out to plant his crop. As he was dropping his seeds to the ground, some of the seeds fell upon the place between the rows of the garden, or perhaps between distinct fields. These seeds did not fall on the soft, tilled part of the earth where they were intended to land, so they attracted birds that like to eat seeds.

And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.

Luke 8:6

It’s doubtful that a farmer would intentionally drop seeds on rocks, but it would not have been uncommon for a farmer’s field in the ancient Near East to be located partially on a limestone substratum covered by a thin layer of soil. These seeds would sprout “plants-to-be” that couldn’t get their roots down to where the moisture was.

And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.

Luke 8:7

Other seeds fell in places where, before their roots could get down, neighboring weeds robbed their sunlight or water, and they, too, never really became plants.

And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Luke 8:8

A novice Bible-reader, upon reading the Gospels for the first time, might wonder why there were so many people in the days of Jesus’s earthly ministry without ears. Obviously, we know it’s a figure of speech, but it does let us know that not everyone who heard Jesus’s parables were going to understand them. The parables had the power to hide truth and reveal truth at the same time, depending on the spiritual condition of the listener. Even beyond the principle of spiritual tone-deafness, though, you can test this out in a meeting of diverse individuals today. If you hold up a photograph and say, “Here’s a picture of Jason Witten stiff-arming a defensive back,” some people are going to perk up.

If you say, “Here’s a picture of a puppy dog sharing an ice cream cone with a little girl,” other people are going to perk up.

puppy sharing ice cream

They proabaly won’t all be the same people. Not everybody has “ears to hear” every kind of subject.

And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be? And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.

Luke 8:9-10

The parable of the dirt is not terribly difficult for modern readers to understand because the disciples were very helpful. They basically asked Jesus, “Okay, what are You trying to say?” This is what He meant by “those who have ears to hear.” It had been prophesied in the Old Testament that some people – primarily the hypocritical religious leaders – wouldn’t want to hear the truth, anyway, so God was going to increase their condemnation by teaching lessons that they wouldn’t comprehend unless they really wanted to know God.

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

Luke 8:11

This was a very straightforward way of announcing that this parable would be clearly explained to the disciples.

Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

Luke 8:12

Jesus explained why He told them about some of the seeds falling by the wayside, but He also let them know explicitly that, in this parable, the “dirt” is the human heart. That’s important to remember: As human beings we bear the image of God. However, in our humanity, we are “but dust” (Genesis 18:27; Psalm 103:14). We are framed from earth – we’re animated dirt! We are not anything special apart from God’s work and God’s image stamped upon us. Additionally, some people are so worldly and their hearts have been so trampled into hardness by the ways of the world, that the Word of God doesn’t penetrate. When someone tries to give it to them the devil (the birds of the parable) comes and snatches it away, and they have a double condemnation: they were too proud to care, and too hard to receive.

They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.

Luke 8:13

The “light” here is exceptional in that it represents, in this instance, persecution instead of truth. Persecution, like intense sunlight, shrivels plants with no roots. This describes people who briefly appear to be converted to true saving faith, but then somebody makes fun of them for being a Christian or suggests that they might not grow in spiritual maturity like they should unless they come to Sunday School instead of sleeping in on Sunday mornings. They find things are getting too “hot” and they reveal that their hearts were just dirt-dusted rocks that only appeared to be real dirt.

And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

Luke 8:14

This third type of “dirt” can’t bring forth fruit because the thorns of worldly cares are choking out the place where the roots would go. These are people who love something in this world, and though they may think that they would like to add Jesus to it, they do not really believe that He is anything more than a life-improvement accoutrement.

But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

Luke 8:15

Hopefully, Verse 15 is you. You’re just “dirt,” but at least you are real dirt – soft dirt – formerly hard ground that has been “broken” and has received the seed of the Word of God, so that you are not just “conformed” or “reformed” but “TRANSFORMED.” Has the seed in your heart come to fruition and actually changed your heart itself?

What Kind of a Friend Are You?

April 4, 2013 at 10:27 am | Posted in Biblical friendship, Biblical Kinds, Social Media Shares and Mass Emails | 4 Comments
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Here we go again. Another well-intentioned burst of drivel has been making the rounds on Facebook. And, once again, there is no surprise that the average person would find a statement like this to be perfectly wonderful. But a professing Christian? Someone who actually claims to believe the Bible? As they say on Monday Night Football: “C’mon, man!!”

I don’t care what you earn, where you live, what you drive, whether you’re gay or straight, fat or thin, tall or short, beautiful or average, rich or poor, smart or not. If you’re my friend, you’re my friend – I accept you for who you are and that’s ALL that matters.

Christian Facebook Fail

There is a classic logical fallacy known as a “category mistake.” Or, as they used to call it on Sesame Street back when I was in preschool: “Which one of these is not like the others?” You know the one: They show you three farm animals and a vine-ripened tomato, and you put down your cup of grape juice, hitch up your underoos, point at the TV screen and shout, “Tomato!” Or they put the number 4 into a group of letters: A,L,Q,4. You clap your hands, somersault out of your blankie, and proclaim, “Hey, you can’t fool me. Get that numeral outta there!” Easy enough, right? So, let’s play the game with the above statement, shall we?

The idea of the quote is that “if you’re my friend, you’re my friend.” When you click “share” or post it to your wall, it’s your way of bragging to the world what a loyal, non-judgmental friend you are. Now, let’s stand it beside the Bible and see how it measures up.

“I don’t care what you earn, where you live, what you drive.” Does Jesus want me to base my loyalty on the robustness of my friends’ bank accounts, how prestigious a neighborhood they live in, or how expensive their car is? Nope. See James 2:2-5. So far, so good.

“I don’t care whether you’re fat or thin, tall or short, beautiful or average, smart or not.” How about this one? Does the Bible support discriminating against people in an unkind way based on their physical appearance or their IQ? Certainly not. See I Corinthians 4:7 and Galatians 3:28. Again, nothing to see here, move along folks. Just a harmless quote about how we should treat our friends kindly despite our circumstantial differences. After all, the Bible says that God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34).

But hold on a minute, I left one out, didn’t I? Remember, we’re trying to spot the category mistake. The “one that’s not like the others.”

“I don’t care whether you’re gay or straight.” Ah-ha, you found it! Maybe it took a little while, but we’re talking about “Christians” posting this on their Facebook page, remember? Christians? Those people that believe that Jesus died to pay the price for their SINS? See, social standing, wealth, height, and home- and car-ownership are not sinful. Identifying yourself as “gay” is. So for me to have a friend who is “gay,” and for me to then say, “I accept you for who you are and that’s ALL that matters,” is completely unbiblical – not to mention cruel and unloving – and certainly nothing to be proud of. Because if I am truly your friend, then what matters most to me is your relationship with God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, I want you to know what the Bible says, and I want to tell you, in a kind but serious way, that Jesus paid the price so that we can be set free from our selfish, sinful desires. I want to lovingly expose the deadly lie that we should proudly identify ourselves with our sin, and seek to be accepted and approved in it. Christians are not supposed to just “have friends” or even “accept their friends.” We are supposed to love our friends. Real love deals in honesty.

Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

Proverbs 27:5-6

Spending Time with the “Right” Kind of People

March 15, 2013 at 10:29 am | Posted in Biblical friendship, Biblical Kinds, Social Media Shares and Mass Emails | 15 Comments
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I suppose I can understand the temptation. You are scrolling down your Facebook feed, checking up on all your friends and relatives, oohing and aahing over the latest baby pictures and commiserating with the complaints about the weather… and suddenly you see it. Someone has shared what looks like an ad from an old-timey magazine with a drawing of a lady in a sunhat sipping an iced tea above a paragraph of prose so catchy and inspiring you feel like you just can’t help yourself from clicking “share!” Before you even realize you are doing it, you have posted something like this:

“Free yourself from negative people. Spend time with nice people who are smart, driven and like-minded. Relationships should help you, not hurt you. Surround yourself with people who reflect the person you want to be. Choose friends who you are proud to know, people you admire, who love and respect you – people who make your day a little brighter simply by being in it. Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. When you free yourself from negative people, you free yourself to be YOU – and being YOU is the only way to truly live.”

I don’t know how to transliterate the sound of one of those buzzers that go off when someone guesses incorrectly on a television game show, but just imagine it here. Unless you are not a Christian, that is. If you’re not a Christian, these kinds of mushy self-help slogans and pop psychology tripe are perfectly understandable. If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, you can stop reading now – or better yet click here for something that will help you tremendously.

Now, for those of you Christians who are still reading, I know it’s asking a lot, but let’s try to think before we “share.” The Bible says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, not the removing of your mind.

Should you “free yourself from negative people?” Not according to the Bible.

Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great [is] your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Matthew 5:11-16

Should you “spend time with nice people who are smart, driven, and like-minded?” Not if you want to be like Jesus.

The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!

Luke 7:34

Is life really “too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you?” If you are selfish, and your goal in life is to make yourself “happy” with a false circumstances-dependent happiness, then it sure is! However, if your goal is to be conformed to the image of Christ, and to love and serve difficult, suffering, and miserable people, then those are precisely the type of people you want in your life.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

Philippians 2:5-7

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were [our] faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Isaiah 53:3

Is “being YOU the only way to truly live?” Silly me, I thought the way to truly live was to die to self and have Christ the Lord live through us.

And he said to [them] all, If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?

Luke 9:23-25

For to me to live [is] Christ, and to die [is] gain.

Philippians 1:21

There is no easy “like” button to click when it comes to sanctification.

The Right Kind of Rejoicing in Marriage

October 5, 2012 at 9:58 am | Posted in Biblical Kinds, Biblical Marriage, I Corinthians | 17 Comments
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Charity…

…[r]ejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

I Corinthians 13:6

Charity is agape love. It is “Christian” love. Within the context of marriage it is self-sacrificing love, active love, love-in-motion, Christ-like love. It is a decision to treat your spouse right, even when you do not feel right about your spouse. It is a giving of yourself for your spouse with two main goals in view:

1. That your spouse receives grace and mercy.
2. That your spouse is directed more toward righteousness (toward conformity to Christ).

There is a meeting point where grace and mercy intersect with righteousness, so that loyalty between spouses is “true” loyalty: a looking-out for the greater good. The greater good is, first of all, the good of Christ, Who is illustrated and advertised by Christian marriage. Second, it is the good of the other spouse, who can not be allowed to rejoice in iniquity.

There are two different words for “rejoiceth” in I Corinthians 13:6. Chairo is singular rejoicing. It is focused on the joy that the one who rejoices receives from an event. Sygchairo (pronounced “SOOG – high-ro”) is the second “rejoiceth,” and it is focused on rejoicing together. Sygchairo is the kind of joy that grabs all the people around you – or whoever is available – and is expected to be contagious.

In I Corinthians 13:5 we saw that love in marriage is supposed to be merciful. It doesn’t assume evil. Now we see that when it is disappointed and finds evil anyway, it does not rejoice. It does not even secretly rejoice (rejoice alone) with the satisfaction of being proven “right.”

In marriage we should never be happy about iniquity. Our own iniquity and any iniquity on the part of our spouse ought to be detested and dealt with lovingly but seriously. Therefore, rejoicing alone in marriage is a potentially dangerous thing. A warning sign should pop up when there is something you rejoice over without a desire to share it with your spouse. And a double warning sign should appear if your rejoicing over something is dependent upon your spouse not rejoicing over it together with you. If these things occur, the thing you are rejoicing over is almost certainly iniquity.

This might seem elementary, because we would obviously expect that if Christian love in marriage does not rejoice in iniquity, it must rejoice instead in righteousness or at least goodness of some sort. But that is not what I Corinthians 13:6 says. It says true Christian love rejoices in the truth. It rejoices together in the truth because the truth is not being hidden. It rejoices in authenticity or genuineness. And since “the truth” is just that – actual objective reality – both spouses can experience it and enjoy it.

“Honey, I had a great day today [leaving out the detail that I won $800 at the casino].” That’s not real love because one person is rejoicing in iniquity.

“Honey, I love you and I don’t want to assume the worst, but someone told me they saw you at the casino today.” That’s not rejoicing yet, but if it results in the truth coming out and forgiven sin and a turning to more truth, then it will be rejoicing together.

God loves truth. As married couples we are supposed to be a picture of Christ and His love for the Church. Christ’s love is not a pampering love. It is a perfecting love. It is not interested in iniquity or falsehoods. It is interested in real genuine authentic sanctification (in which, by the way, there is real joy).

So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

Romans 12:5

This verse is about the Church, but apply it to marriage. My spouse and I, as a married couple, being one flesh, are members one of another.

Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

Romans 12:9

Love is not hypocritical – it’s not hiding and pretending and covering up. That’s what sin did in Eden – it cost the man and his wife their “unashamedness” – their freedom to be uncovered with each other. God tells us to abhor iniquity. Don’t rejoice in it. Rejoice in truth, and rejoice in the Truth. Jesus is Truth personified. Our marriages can’t be about rejoicing in iniquity and rejoicing in Christ at the same time.

Two Kinds of Heart Medication

August 22, 2012 at 11:32 am | Posted in Biblical Kinds, Ecclesiastes | 5 Comments
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A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.

Ecclesiastes 7:1-5

Can it be that the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth? From King Solomon’s Old Testament, life-under-the-sun perspective, he could imagine a life so filled with struggles, troubles, pain, and sorrow, that leaving this world behind would be sweeter than entering. Of course, New Testament Christians shouldn’t be so pessimistic. We celebrate birth and new life passionately, but there is still in a sense in which it can be said that our “death day” will be better than our “birth day.” For Christians, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and our final breath in this earthly life will mean entering in to the far-superior Heavenly realm to experience the unsurpassable joy of the presence of Jesus forever and ever.

Solomon went on to state that the house of mourning is better than the house of feasting. Can this be so? In a sense, feasting is a celebration of temporal, earthly things, and mourning is the facing of the reality that this world and its finite pleasures will come to an end. Mourning tends to help us face reality and truth, whereas – sometimes – eating, drinking, and merry-making suspend our sense of the importance of eternal things.

Can sorrow be better than laughter? Who would rather cry than laugh? Again, we must temper our understanding of Solomon’s pronouncements by taking a long view of the good of our souls. The Bible does say that a merry heart can be like medicine, but sometimes we need to experience sorrow to diagnose our true ailment.

Can being chewed out be better than someone singing a song to you? It depends on the person doing the rebuking or the person doing the singing. To be entertained by a fool can be far worse than being rebuked by a wise friend who is holding you accountable in truth and love.

This passage of Scripture always reminds me of a poem by A.E. Housman which starts off with the line, “Terence, this is stupid stuff…” One of the points of the poem is that grief and mourning and meditating on tragedy strengthens people for future troubles and trials and difficulties which are sure to come. Housman uses the example of King Mithridates, who is supposed to have intentionally consumed small doses of poison over long periods of time to inoculate himself against assassination attempts (which in ancient times often took the form of poisoning the king’s meat or wine). I don’t endorse all the sentiments of the poem from a Christian perspective – especially since the narrator endorses drunkenness as a valid means of dealing with heartache! But this section of the poem is a pretty good summation of what Solomon was getting at in Ecclesiastes Chapter 7:

And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.

A.E. Housman

Christians find our true joy, peace, and fulfillment in Christ Jesus when times get tough, but we do not live in a make-believe world where suffering, grief, mourning, and tribulations are to be brushed aside with frivolous distractions or vain entertainment.


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