Today, we are announcing an exciting new focus for this blog. No longer just generic posts, now it will be called: Ecclesiastes Workshop.

So far, I’ve been posting miscellaneous articles in this space, simply to jumpstart Substack and resolve some workflow issues. These past articles will probably be deleted at some point, and from now on, all the articles will be focused on how Ecclesiastes is relevant to our lives today.

Some years ago, Paul Earnhart and I were sitting at my kitchen table talking about Ecclesiastes, and I said, “In my opinion, Ecclesiastes is the Scriptural prolegomenon to the gospel.” A bright light flashed into Paul’s eyes, and he almost jumped out of his chair with excitement when he said, “Yes! That’s precisely the right word for it!” (It is indeed a very Paul-Earnhart-kind-of-word, is it not? It really flipped his switch!)

I’ll be unpacking this prelude to the gospel and talking about how Ecclesiastes opens our minds and makes us ready to hear Christ. So maybe this can be your new vocabulary word for the year: prolegomenon — and the plural, in case you ever need it, is prolegomena. ;-)

This will take the form of a “workshop” where I’ll be “thinking out loud” about Ecclesiastes. With a view to writing a book-length project about it a few years from now, Lord willing, this will be the place where I’ll hammer and chisel away at ideas and insights related to Ecclesiastes. In a very real sense, you’ll be watching me figure out what I want to say about this part of the Scriptures. I always go through this process with a new book; the only difference this time is that I’ll be doing it “in public.” You’ll be able to watch me work my way up from vague, first-impression ideas to ones that are more clear and beneficial.

I’ve always agreed with the writer who said, “How can I know what I think until I see what I say?” It is in the painful labor of writing that I clarify my understanding. So welcome to my literary workshop. Who knows what insights are waiting to be discovered in the sometimes mysterious arguments of Ecclesiastes? Buckle your seatbelts.

Next Up: “Unsatisfied, Yet Too Satisfied”

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com

“For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29).

Suffering is a part of life in this world. It can’t be avoided. Some of a Christian’s suffering will result from his relationship to Christ, and some will just be the pain that everybody experiences. Yet no matter what kind of suffering it is, the Christian has a decision to make: with what attitude will our hardships be endured?

It would be beneficial if we chose to suffer simply for the sake of Christ, as Paul recommended in the text above. This means adopting an attitude that says, in effect, “I will bear this hardship for Him, desiring above all to glorify Him by the way in which I bear it.”

When Christians were persecuted by the Roman government in the early days of the church, unbelievers often marveled at the way Christians went to their deaths. Just as the soldiers were amazed at how Christ died (Mark 15:39), many people were moved by the manner in which our brothers and sisters in the days of the apostles embraced their persecutions. They were able to be so brave only because they wanted to suffer their hardships in the same way their Lord had suffered His. They counted it a blessing and privilege “not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.”

I suggest that this attitude can be applied to any kind of suffering. We don’t have to be persecuted or put to death before we can think this way; we can decide that whatever we have to endure, we will suffer it in a way that glorifies Him. We will be strong for Him, accepting every pain and difficulty because we love Him, offering our steadfastness to Him as a gift we are glad to give.

When Paul found out that his thorn in the flesh was not going to be removed, he accepted the verdict admirably: “Most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). That, my friends, is an attitude to emulate!

Today, we have it pretty easy. We don’t have much opportunity to glorify Christ in hardship. But before we die, we will all suffer a little, and when we do, we should want, like Paul, to “fill up in [our] flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24).

“Hast thou no wound? No scar? Yet, as the Master shall the servant be, and pierced are the feet that follow Me; but thine are whole: can he have followed far who has no wound nor scar?” (Amy Carmichael).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com

Righteousness will go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps our pathway.
(Psalm 85:13)

A path can be a valuable thing to have. Especially in unknown territory, a path can make the difference between life and death. For that reason, the pathway of Jesus’ life is crucial. How He lived His life is of more than historical interest; it shows us what a perfectly human life would look like, in terms we can understand.

If we know the “abstract” principles of right and wrong, we should follow them. However, I have found that studying Jesus’ life brings those principles to life in a “personal” way. He is our great Exemplar. When I follow His footsteps, I am doing things not just because they’re right in theory but because that’s what He did!

Occasionally it takes wisdom to discern what Jesus’ example teaches and what it does not. The fact that He wore sandals does not mean they are the only footwear acceptable to God. Yet as we grow in spiritual maturity (Ephesians 4:13-16), we find that we do a better job of seeing what Jesus was teaching us by His example.

Like many of you, I’ve been studying Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John since I was a child. In recent years, however, I’ve enjoyed studying these books in a better way, as if I had never seen them before. For one thing, I love my Lord as I never did before, and that has pulled me into the gospels with a hunger for every bit of knowledge about Him that I can glean. There is no incident of His that does not fascinate me and no word that fell from His lips that I do not love.

And yes, I’ve got a list of questions I’d like to ask Him when I see His face, questions that I presume my departed friend Paul Earnhart has already gotten the answers to. Once when he and I were studying, he said, “Gary, what do you make of the Lord cursing that poor fig tree? I have no idea what that’s about (Matthew 21:18-20).”

When the people of Israel were getting ready to enter Canaan, Joshua cautioned them to keep a respectful distance from the ark of the covenant but to follow it carefully because, he said, “You have not passed this way before” (Joshua 3:4). Similarly, we are to follow Jesus’ life, for He shows us a way that we have not traveled before. His footsteps are our pathway. We are foolish if we don’t study His life diligently and adhere to what it teaches us.

“The life of Christ is the highest rule for the faithful” (Thomas À Kempis).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com

Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King.
(Psalm 149:2)

How happy God must be when His people sing to Him joyfully! God is love, and if, as I believe, God created us in order to love us, it can’t be anything but a joy for Him to receive the worship of those who are happy to praise Him. In this life, our praise is marred by many imperfections, but even the tiny attempts at worship we are able to offer our Father gladden His heart. If we are but children now, He knows we will one day grow up and praise Him with unmitigated joy, just as His Son, Jesus Christ, has always done.

There is, however, a sobering point that should be made: our praise does not bring gladness to God if it is hypocritical. Nothing is more disturbing to God than the “worship” of those whose daily lives contradict everything worship is meant to be. “One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination” (Proverbs 28:9). To those in Israel who came to the temple to worship, apparently thinking God wouldn’t notice the immoral lives they were leading when they weren’t worshiping, God said, “I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting” (Isaiah 1:13).

Yet when our praises and our personal character are in wholesome alignment, how the heart of God must overflow! He most certainly knows, because He knows our innermost thoughts, that we long for a closer relationship with Him, and He rejoices that we value something that He paid such a high price to make possible for us.

At present, the joyfulness of our praise is based on faith. That doesn’t mean it’s not real; we can praise a God who is unseen, just as we can rejoice over the Son we’ve never seen. “Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). In both cases, we need to feed our faith so that the heavenly realities become our true treasures (Matthew 6:19-21).

A time is coming, however, when faith has become sight and our praises have risen to a new level. If there is as much difference between our praises then and now as there’ll be between our bodies then and now, I expect we’re in for quite a song service!

“You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices, O Son of God, O Giver of Life, and to be glorified through all the worlds” (Phos Hilaron - ‘Gladsome Light’).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com

“For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (Matthew 23:4).

I had asked Google to create an image of a preacher speaking to a congregation. The image provided by Google was usable, but I needed a few changes to the speaker’s appearance. While I was waiting for the modified image to finish, I noticed that Google’s progress update said, “Transforming the Preacher.” What a powerful and telling phrase — on multiple levels!

It occurs to me that the most difficult part of the Lord’s work is “transforming the preacher.” Sometimes he is the one most in need of transformation, the one least in touch with his need, and the one hardest to actually transform, even when he sees the need for it.

I speak primarily of myself, of course. Others will have to speak for themselves, but I look back on my years in the pulpit with complete astonishment. How could I have failed to see the transformation that I needed? I often made the disclaimer that every preacher makes: “Please understand that I need this lesson as much as you do. I’m preaching to myself this morning as much as to anyone else.” But we preachers know that those words, while easy to say, are mostly unverifiable. In all likelihood, there won’t be any tangible evidence whether we did anything about the sermon we preached or not. The congregation will never know whether any real change took place.

For me, it took the complete destruction of life as I had previously known it before the truth finally got hold of me. And I think the need for life to “break” the preacher is not uncommon. John Piper was right when he said, “Preaching becomes deeper only when the preacher is broken, humbled, and made low by their own trials.”

Google can transform the photograph of a preacher, but it can’t transform the preacher himself. Images can be manipulated, but people can’t be changed as easily as pixels. And sadly, a preacher can manipulate his own “image” without making any change in himself.

So, brethren, how long has it been since a member of your congregation had a “talk” with you and you were deeply changed?

“An expert is notoriously hard to influence. He has been the one doing the talking for so long, with everybody listening to his advice, that he’s gotten used to being the smartest person in the room. He’s lost the ability to be ‘talked to’, especially by people he presumes to be less knowledgeable” (C. Walter Perkins).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com

“In imitation of the holy One who has called you — you also must be holy in all your habits of life” (1 Peter 1:15 Weymouth).

Often disparaged, habit is more valuable than we make it out to be. If habit is a pattern of behavior that has become typical within a person’s life, shouldn’t we want obedience to God to become such? When doing what is right has become an established norm, rather than something unusual, isn’t that a good thing?

To keep us within beneficial boundaries, God has given us some rules for our behavior. At the beginning of our lives in Christ, we may find some of these rules unpleasant to obey, but eventually it gets easier. As God’s rules become our habits, staying within His boundaries begins to be characteristic of our conduct: obedience becomes the norm rather than the exception in our lives.

Godly habits are powerful helpers in our daily walk. When the king outlawed prayer, think how much Daniel’s habits helped him to do what was right: “he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days” (Daniel 6:10). When obedience becomes dangerous, we desperately need the “momentum” imparted by habits of obedience, traits established long before the situation became an emergency.

Of course, sinful habits have their own momentum, and that’s one reason we should break those habits as quickly as possible. If doing certain wrong things has become “natural” to us, we need to get back to where they are un-natural and un-characteristic of us.

As we all know, forming a habit requires repetition. If it’s a good habit, it will take practice and patient training: repeatedly urging ourselves to do things that are hard until they finally become easy. As Hyman G. Rickover observed, “Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.”

Ultimately, it is our habits that determine our character. We all occasionally act in ways that are inconsistent with our character, but it is our habits — our typical behaviors — that define that character. Rules have their place, both God’s rules and our own, but until a rule becomes a habit, the results are going to be minimal. However, when God’s rules become our habits, powerful things begin to happen.

“Habits are safer than rules; you don’t have to watch them, and you don’t have to keep them either — they keep you” (Avery Johnson).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com

“Our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

There are a few things every human being has to have. The question is, where shall we look for these? If we deny there is a God, we’ll have to do the best we can to find these things within ourselves or in the secular world around us. However, even if we profess faith in God and acknowledge Him as the source of our “sufficiency,” it’s possible that we rely on the world just as much as anyone else.

For example, consider four of our most fundamental needs:

SECURITY. What is the source from which we derive our sense of safety, assurance, and confidence? How reliable is that source? Since the choice we make determines our sense of worth and personal identity, the choice is one of life’s most important forks in the road.

GUIDANCE. There is no person who doesn’t need enlightenment, guidance, and advice from time to time. In our overall direction in life, as well as our individual activities and decisions, we can’t steer our course without some set of standards and principles. Where do we get these? From God or from secular sources?

WISDOM. Principles are useless if they aren’t applied, and the skill needed to apply them is what we call “wisdom.” The wisdom revealed by God looks ridiculous from the world’s perspective, so which wisdom do we trust in making our real-world decisions?

POWER. Power is not merely the possession of the high and mighty; it is the capacity to fulfill the demands of our daily lives, no matter how simple they may be. But obviously, there are many kinds of power. When we need the strength to make our own choices and carry them out, what kind of power do we employ?

Who is the most exemplary Christian you know? If you consider that person’s life, you’ll probably see that they not only look to God for all of these things, but they balance the four of them in such a way that they work together synergistically. So, our first challenge is to honestly repent and quit looking to the world for our deepest needs, and then second, to start blending the four things we receive from God — security, guidance, wisdom, and power — into a harmonious whole. It’s a challenge, but what a happy one it is!

“When these four factors are present together, harmonized and enlivened by each other, they create the great force of a noble personality, a balanced character, a beautifully integrated individual” (Stephen R. Covey).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com

“By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Hebrews 11:7).

When we think about the deeds recorded in Hebrews 11, it’s hard to imagine the level of trust those people m…

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“Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed” (Galatians 2:11).

If you know me, you know I love questions. Not long ago, I found myself thinking about the fundamental importance of two questions that, when answered honestly, greatly influence our spiritual growth. I invite you to ponder these with me for a…

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“For who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10).

Sometimes the challenges of life feel overwhelming. The big picture can seem so large that nothing we could put on our to-do list would be enough to make a difference. And when it comes to the building of a godly character, which is one of life’s most important “projects,” we may have fall…

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“This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare” (1 Timothy 1:18).

Being “charged” with a responsibility is a weighty matter. A charge is not an offhand suggestion or wish; it is a solemn duty. It is the delegation of a significant task to one who is ready t…

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“. . . with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men” (Ephesians 6:7).

Too often in our lives, Christ becomes “compartmentalized.” He occupies the “religious” part, but in the “secular” part, we hardly even think about Him — and these days, the secular part has a voracious appetite. With every passing day, it eats up an ever greater percent…

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“I long to depart and be with Christ . . .” (Philippians 1:23 CSB).

Crossing life’s final border will be the ultimate “arrival.” To reach at last a destination we’ve looked forward to all our lives will be a joy that human words can’t describe. Our “eyes” wide with wonder and our minds swept into complete awe by the King’s majesty, we will “set down our …

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Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name;
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
(Psalm 29:2)

How many different ways do you suppose we could glorify God? I’m thinking here primarily of our individual lives rather than congregational activity. The most obvious way would be speaking of God’s glory in the hearing of other people, but I believe some …

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Beautiful in elevation,
The joy of the whole earth,
Is Mount Zion on the sides of the north,
The city of the great King.
(Psalm 48:2)

There is a city. I shall go there one day. Even now, I see it in my best dreams. Its white stones gleam in a warm, welcoming light better than any earthly sunrise. Strength, safety, and beauty bless those whose home is there. …

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