Ecclesiastes 10:15 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Ecclesiastes 10:15

Comments

The unbeliever is like someone who misses the most obvious facts about life. If you lived on the land outside the city, your family would make periodic visits to the nearest population centre. As a child, you would accompany your father on these visits, and of course it would be one of your earliest childhood memories. You knew the way from home to the town: everyone knew the way. The city was a most desirable place in ancient times – the opportunity for education and the sophisticated conversation. It was a place where you could buy things not available in the countryside, and so you would go and stock up with what you needed for a few months. Nevertheless, the fool does not know the way. This could have been a proverbial expression about extreme ignorance, but we can imagine a foolish farmer who is in this position. He is unwilling to take advice and ends up doing everything the hard way. In one particular his stupidity is demonstrated: he lives outside the city and needs to visit it to sell his produce, but is ignorant of the way to get there. One might have thought that everyone knew this much, but not the fool. If you never went to town, you could work the land on your smallholding and just about make out by what you produced for yourself, but you could not sell anything to make extra profit. He works hard to produce the goods, but what is the use when he does not know the way to market.

Application

So it is with the one who is a fool in the eyes of God. We are made by God, for God, who is ready to give life, but, like the farmer, we do not know the way to come to God. The Bible is like a closed book to us. The way to heaven is plain but the fool will not walk in it; he will not come to Christ to receive life. There is a heavenly city to which all must come or else perish eternally, but the fool cannot be induced to begin that journey because he cannot be bothered to ask the way. He wants to work out everything for himself and give credit to no one else. Like the farmer, he is too proud to accept advice from anyone. ‘I have my opinions. I don’t want help from you or anyone else.’ Life becomes an endless round of setting goals and working towards them, but with no understanding of its overall aim. Because of his ignorance, the fool makes life much harder than he needs to. He will not take upon him the yoke of him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. The idea of a Saviour appals him because to confess his need of a Saviour is to admit that he is weak, inadequate in himself. Why should he ask God for guidance when he can work out for himself the best route through life? Christ is the way to the city; we must go to him in repentance.

Questions

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Ecclesiastes 10:15 Commentary and Bible Study