Today’s passage: Ecclesiastes 7:15-29
Helpful thoughts:
- You can be overly righteous (pious) and pursue wisdom to a fault.
- Wicked people may live longer under the sun than a righteous person. But, there is wickedness that leads to an early death.
- No one is righteous but one… (The Messiah)
- In verse 28, Solomon eludes to the one among a thousand he has found. Read Job 33:23 for another reference of the one out of a thousand.
- Jesus is the only possible “one” that Solomon could have found. He even says so in verse 20.
- Cursing and traps are the work of men and women. God made man upright in the beginning. Man destructively schemes in the present.
Questions to consider:
- How can a person be overly righteous? What would have to be the motivation for that righteousness? How does that contradict the message of the Gospel?
- Will it always hold true that the righteous have it “better” than the wicked under the sun? Why should that not discourage us?
- Where must all of your confidence lie concerning righteousness? How does the truth of the Gospel humble us in the best of ways?