Ecclesiastes 10:3 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Ecclesiastes 10:3

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This is not the same kind of fool as in the previous verse. The word used here refers to someone who is intellectually weak. The preacher gives us yet another view of unbelief from heaven. It is like someone who, sadly, is a simpleton. This verse says nothing about how we should regard those who are lacking in some mental capacities which they have no control over; it is an illustration to teach us about the way we look as viewed from heaven when we refuse to seek the Lord.Walking along the road, he tells everyone he is a fool. He doesn’t say it out loud, but by his antics he shows that he is mentally weak. As you watch him, you see him rushing up to cars and peering through the windows, and he goes along the street with one foot in the gutter and one foot on the pavement. When he catches the eye of a passer-by, he grins vacuously at them about nothing. He wanders along the road aimlessly, inspecting things as if he has made some great discovery. By this behaviour he says to everyone he is retarded in some way. If a child were to do this, you could understand and say he is just a child. But when an adult does it, there is something wrong. He can’t help it; he is lacking in some mental capacity.

Application

How are we like that simpleton before we come to Christ? Our minds are focused on banal things, trivial things, things that do not warrant their attention. The person without God may be into every fashion, easily swayed and not thinking where they are being led next. We are very trusting of this world, and convinced that it has something substantial to give us. We are highly vulnerable to deception, easily intrigued by little things that are part of this world that is passing away. We look into every little thing we come across as if it was something marvellous, and we gawp at this and at that. Heaven sees the devil making fools of us as we do as we are tempted. We amble along life’s pathway as if we had all the time in the world, and as if there were no dangers around us. We embark on all manner of disastrous moral adventures, not considering the consequences, our actions driven by a whim. As creatures of appetite, we have no principles to life, no values, no deep taste to guide us. God sees how foolish we are, because we have only to look up and consider the universe or look at ourselves to know there is a God. Certainly, from heaven, you will come across as a fool, and all Christians will see you and wince at what you are doing – playing with sin and thinking you can get away with it. It is like a child that plays with a Pitbull terrier, with no awareness of the danger.

As God observes us, he sees creatures that he has made capable of knowing him and understanding his purposes. He has given us mind able to think his thoughts after him, to relate to him and learn from him, but instead he sees us chose the most senseless banal things in this world. We think a good time is jogging up and down and gawping at the other sex. As God sees us, we swap deep things for the shallow things of life. ‘I don’t want to know the meaning of life, or understand God’s plan; I want the trivial’, so we spend our hours sending superficial texts to one another. You need some depth to your life. How trivial are we? No depth, no meaning, no future with him in heaven? Come to him and don’t get smaller and smaller.

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Ecclesiastes 10:3 Commentary and Bible Study