Studying and Learning

What’s the Point of Studying and Learning?

Ecclesiastes 1:12-18; 2:12-16

     This week we will be thinking about one of the most practical issues of each of our lives, i.e., how we know the wise thing to do in those complex or difficult situations that come to us day by day.  On this Mothers’ Day 2016, the question I have for parents is: When you are dealing with those challenges that come to you in parenting, is your only alternative to go to the parenting section of the bookstore to discover what the self-help authors are recommending?  Or, is there something more that should be your main focus when you have made a decision to follow Jesus as Lord.  Does your faith in Jesus help you make wise decisions in everyday matters?

     In the verses we’ll be focusing on in Ecclesiastes, Solomon evaluates what happens when you make these decisions without any reference to God.  As I read Eccl 1:12-18, I envision King Solomon, near the end of his life, telling us that he had devoted his life “to exploring by wisdom all that is done under the heaven (1:13).”

     When he used the word “wisdom”, Solomon was speaking of something very, practical and very significant for the lives of his people. The word “wisdom” included both what we refer to as “street smarts” and “book smarts”.  Don’t miss this: To understand this message, remember that Solomon was speaking about gaining great knowledge and great practical skills “under the sun (1:13 & 14)”, i.e., without reference to God.  So, in this passage, he’s not speaking about God’s wisdom; he’s speaking about human wisdom apart from God.

   Remember also that Solomon, was a man who was considered by everyone to be the wisest of all men in the ways of the world.  If you would like to read about him, 1 Kings 4:29-34 describes the wisdom of Solomon.  God had given him the gift to discern how to live and how to make decisions.  As we know, and as he sometimes confesses in Ecclesiastes, he didn’t use always use that gift in a way that was surrendered to God.  And in our passage today, Solomon tells us unequivocally that a gift for wisdom without surrender to the God of wisdom is meaningless. 

     Let me show you how he went about this.  It’s clear to me that he wanted to talk about two related things: The Two Aspects of Wisdom

1) The practical aspect of wisdom (1:12-15) – what we often seek when we go to counseling or ask for advice from a friend or from books.

2) The intellectual aspect of wisdom (1:16-18) – what we seek to do when we devote our selves to learning, or to higher education.  

    Let’s follow what he said and then consider what God wants to say to our lives in this part of his Word:

Point 1: “Under the sun” those who teach you how to live still don’t know how to change your life (1:12-15).  I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens…I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

     As king over Israel in its most successful era, Solomon could have chosen to do almost anything he wanted to do.  So, what he chose to do was explore how people find lived their lives.  When he spoke in v. 13 of “exploring by wisdom all that is done”, he meant exploring what happens after people seek advice from counselors, read self-help books, etc.

     In the ancient world, the life of providing wisdom for others – for helping people discern how to live wisely rather than foolishly – was considered the highest and most respected of all callings.  That was true in almost all cultures.  And, Solomon was considered to be the wisest of all wise people.  Solomon was the original Dear Abby – the first Dr. Phil. If anyone was ever equipped to answer life’s difficult questions on his own, it was Solomon. After all, he was the one in 1 Kings 3 who gave the wise advice to the two women who each claimed that a certain baby baby was hers.  (Do you know the story?)  The story of his wise advice is so well known that the phrase “the wisdom of Solomon” is still used in many cultures.

     But, Solomon considered it all and said in v.14, that trying to help people live wisely is a “heavy burden”, meaning a “lousy job”. “All my advice makes no difference” he said.  Solomon concluded trying to live wisely without God was like “chasing the wind”, i.e., you can never catch it; but if you do, you don’t have anything anyway.

     To make sense of his words, you need to grasp that the language in Eccl 1:13-15 takes us back to Gen 3:12-19 when sin entered the world and negatively affected everything. Telling people how to live well and change their lives is a lousy job, Solomon says, because the whole world is messed up by sin.  So, God might give us the calling to live well and in keeping with his wise morals, but, says Solomon, ever since sin entered the world, everything is bent, twisted. So, he says, it is a “heavy burden” to try to live a good life – and, in v.15, he says that even the best human advice seems to make no difference in such a twisted world. 

   Look at v.15.  In it, Solomon gives us this Hebrew Proverb: What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted. He’s saying that the entirety of our world is so bent that it cannot be straightened out fully through human wisdom and strategizing. Some problems in this world cannot be solved even if we pool all the wisdom of all people. Have you found that to be true? 

     Putting that proverb into my own words: Human wisdom can neither straighten everything out nor add everything up in our world.  Why not?  The sin that began with Adam and Even has affected everything in our world.  Here’s what Solomon is saying:  Something has gone wrong in our world so that no matter how many organizations we form to stop injustice, no matter how many hospitals we establish, no matter how many good people we get elected, no matter how much money we give away to good causes, no matter how many protests we hold, no matter how many bad guys we lock up, the world will remain crooked and messed up. We may want to straighten things out in our world but we cannot do it.  And, the real problem is that not only is everything in our world messed up but every person in our world is messed up.  Those of us who most want to straighten things out need to be straightened out ourselves!

 It’s like Alvy Singer in Woody Allen’s movie Annie Hall, “I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, the sick people, the crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable.”

     Solomon says that we don’t have the power to correct the horrible and miserable things in our world.  We are imperfect people in a messed up world.  If that’s all there is and there is no God, then think about where that leaves us:  Crooked people cannot straighten out a crooked world. 

     Dustin Kensrue of the group Thrice has captured Solomon’s message well in his song, All the World Is Mad: Something's gone terribly wrong with everyone. All the world is mad. Darkness brings terrible things the sun is gone. What vanity, our sad, wretched fires

We can't medicate man to perfection again. We can't legislate peace in our hearts. We can't educate sin from our souls. It's been there from the start.  

     Here’s what we need: We need someone who is not crooked to get us, and everything else, that is crooked straightened out.  In a crooked world, if all that is is a crooked world “under the sun”, where might we find that kind of person? Nowhere!  Our only hope is that there might be a “Someone” above the sun who is willing to enter in and change things.  At this point, we see Solomon pointing us to the kind of Rescuer from outside our twisted world that the Bible, and the Bible alone, points to, i.e., a God who knows the trouble we are in and loves us anyway.  A God who might be willing to enter in and make straight all that has become crooked.  So, we remember John’s words in John 1, “The Word (Jesus, the one through whom the world was made) became flesh and lived among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son of God...”

     And we hear the words of Jesus in Jn 3:17: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.”  Only he can make straight what is crooked.

Point 2: “Under the sun” those who know much don’t know much (1:16-18).

I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.”Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind…

     In 1:16-18 Solomon turns our attention toward the intellectual pursuit of learning. He considers, “Maybe the problem is that we don’t know enough yet.  That might be our answer to living wisely.” In these verses, he speaks of the pursuit of meaning in life through gaining more and more knowledge. So, listen carefully: In the Book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon wants us to think, to learn and to discover what life is about.  In fact, the Bible in general wants us to ask the hard questions and to use the minds we have to pursue what is true and good. This makes me think of a wonderful Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Calvin wanted to find out the meaning of life “under the sun” but Hobbes has no interest:  https://cafewitteveen.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/q4sxj.png

     Be assured of this: The Bible is not anti-intellectual and is not skeptical of education.  In Jn 14, Jesus said he is the truth.  Jesus was quite certain that when we diligently seek to know what is true, we will end up coming to him!  When you become a Christian, you don’t leave your mind out in the foyer and just trust Jesus with no concern for the truth.  Instead, when you seek the truth, the kind of truth that helps you make sense of the world you live in, Jesus was quite sure you will end up trusting him.  And, that’s the message of Ecclesiastes too.  When you ask the big questions – the questions about what really matters, you will know that there must be more in this world than is what is under the sun.  There must be a God “over the sun.” 

     However, even in saying this, the Bible is also clear that even studying and learning can become a “god” – a false idol that can make us proud.  The Apostle Paul, one of the best educated people of his entire society said that our knowledge can “puff us up” and keep us from love in 1 Cor 8:1.  And Solomon lets us know here that we can be the best scholars in the world and that scholarship under the sun will still leave us knowing that there is more to existence than we can grasp “under the sun.”.

     It’s interesting how Solomon gets at this in v.17 when he says, “I applied myself to the understanding 1) of wisdom, and 2) also of madness and folly.”  What he’s doing is comparing the one who studies diligently to the one who foolishly chooses not to learn anything at all.  And, if what is “under the sun” is all there is and there is no God, then both the PhD and the elementary school dropout have the same fate, i.e., what they do will not really change things, their accomplishments will soon be forgotten and ultimately death will take away everything from both of them. In v.17b, he says that either way, if they leave God out of their lives, the scholar and the non-scholar alike will find that whatever they are living for is like chasing after the wind.

     To nail down his point, Solomon tells another proverb in v.18:  With much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.  He’s saying here that sometimes it’s better not to know so much – not if there is no God and no life after this life. I have found this to be true.  The more that honest scholars learn about their fields, the more they realize how much more there is still to learn.  As T.S. Eliot said in his Choruses from the Rock: “All our knowledge only brings us nearer to our ignorance.”  The more we know, the more we realize how much we do not know. In his proverb, Solomon says that knowing this only adds to the burden of living -- if life “under the sun” is all there is to learn, then even learning will prove to be meaningless.

What Might God Be Saying to You?

     In vv.12-15, I’m quite sure that God is not saying that you should give up being a therapist or give up going to counseling.  The knowledge we can gain from good counseling about how we human beings function, about where relationships go wrong, and about how they can begin to be made right again – that’s a gift from God.  And, I know there are many great books about friendships and marriage and parenting that can provide hope and new directions for your life.  We seek to provide or direct you to good counsel all the time here at LAC.

     But, Solomon is saying that all the good counsel you might receive will, at the end of the day, leave you empty if you do not have God at the center of your life.  Good counsel is like so many of the good gifts God has given us in this world.  Received as a gift from the God who is at the center of your life, good counsel can help heal and help you function.  But, acted on without reference to God, it will leave you “chasing after the wind.”

     And, in vv.16-18, in talking about the futility of gaining knowledge “under the sun”, Solomon is not telling you to quit school if you’re a student or to quit doing great scholarship at places like Cal Tech and Fuller Seminary.  But, he is saying that we must always surrender not only our wills – but also our minds – to God. The first commandment is “There shall not be any gods before me” – and that includes our scholarship.

     But the main thing I want you to consider today is how to bring God into the center of your life’s decisions.  One point in this, of course, is I want you to learn a way of life in which you become aware of the fact that God is always with you.  When you become more and more aware of that, you learn to commit each matter that happens to God.  This is what Paul meant when he said, “Pray without ceasing.”  The longer I follow Jesus, the more I am learning how to stop and say, “Lord, you are with me. What would you have me do?”  “What is the most loving thing for this person I am talking to?”  And, sometimes I just pray, “Help me, Jesus.”

     In addition, I find that coming regularly to worship with your church family is a key to living wisely – when you come with an eager desire to hear something from God, and not just out of obligation or to be entertained.  If you come longing to hear from God, then when God’s Word is opened and proclaimed faithfully, you will hear from him – even if the preacher is not especially engaging or exciting. When you are with your church family wanting to hear from your Father with them -- and the Word is taught -- you will hear God directing you.

     Finally, you need a smaller group of people who will walk through life with Jesus together with you.  Mothers, you need some other mothers who really want to live for Jesus that you can talk with and learn with.  Or, you need some older mothers who have walked with the Lord through the kinds of situations you are facing.     If you ask, “Where can I find a group like that?” -- we can help you if you will let us. 

     And this same principle applies not just to mothering but also to many walks of life.  Business people who want to honor God:  Read good business books – but also find a community of Jesus-loving business people you can walk with and learn from.  I say the same to teachers, scientists, underemployed, pastors…

     We should not simply follow the wisdom under the sun.  Solomon said that without God, that wisdom will be meaningless.  We need someone “greater than Solomon (Mt 12:42).”  That one has come in Jesus.  He has given us his Word, his Spirit and his church.  Learn all you can from the world – but make sure you are seeking God first.  I think that’s the main point of Ecclesiastes for you today.

     I leave you with some words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man who had to make some hard decisions in a very difficult time in our world.  He found lasting wisdom through faith in Christ and lived out in Christ-centered community.  This is what he wrote in his Life Together:

“The most experienced… scholar in any field related to human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the cross of Jesus. Apart from Jesus, the greatest psychological or intellectual insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the sinfulness of human beings. And so it also does not know that humanity is destroyed by sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this… The Christian brother and sister know that when I come to them: here is a sinner like us, a fallen person who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The brother or sister views me as I am without God and as I become through the merciful work of God in the cross of Jesus Christ.”

     May you discover true wisdom from above through a recommitment to Jesus today – and through the prayers and support of God’s people here at LAC – to his glory.

學習的意義

傳道書1;12-18；2：12-16

                這一周，我們要思考一個在我們每個人生活中都非常現實的問題，也就是，我們如何才能知道，在我們每天遇到的復雜又困難的狀況之中，如何智慧地行事？在2016年的母親節，我要問各位父母的問題是:身為父母，在你處理你所遇到的挑戰時，你唯一的選擇，是否就是去書店的教育子女一欄，去尋找那些作者所推薦的書呢？或者，既然你已經決定跟隨主耶穌，你有沒有更多關註的焦點？你在耶穌裏的信心，是否能幫助你在每一天的事物中做出明智的選擇？

在我們今天所要讀的傳道書裏的經文中，所羅門評估了當人們做決定而不考慮神的因素時的後果。當我在讀傳道書1：12-18時，我想象著在所羅門王的人生即將終結的時候，他告訴我們，他一生都在“專心用智慧尋求查究天下所做的一切事”（1：13）。他的意思是，他走出去察看世人如何在沒有神的情況下努力地生活、做明智的選擇。這就是他所說的“天下”和“在日光之下”的意思。

                當使用“智慧”這個詞的時候，所羅門指的是在世人的生命中非常實際、又特別有意義的事。“智慧”這個詞包括了我們平時所說的小聰明和大智慧。不要錯過這一點：要想理解這個信息，你要記住，所羅門談的是在“日光之下”（1：13，14）得到豐富的知識和出色的實踐技能，也就是在沒有神的情況之下。在這一段經文中，他沒有在談神的智慧，而是在說人類與神分離之後的智慧。還有，世上每個人都認為，所羅門是歷史上最有智慧的人，列王記上4：29-34描述了所羅門的智慧。

                神賜給他知道如何生活以及分辨是非的能力。我們知道，他在傳道書中承認，他沒有常常將這個恩賜交在神的手中。在今天的這段經文中，所羅門毫不猶豫地告訴我們，如果人的智慧不在神的手裏，就是毫無意義的。

                我們來一起探討這個問題。很顯然，他想談兩件彼此關聯的事情：

                                                                                                智慧的兩個方面

1）         智慧的實踐方面（1：12-15）：當我們去做咨詢或從朋友與書籍中尋求忠告的時候，常常是在尋找這一方面。

2）         智慧的知識層面（1：16-18）：當我們潛心學習或追求高等教育的時候，我們所尋求的就是這個方面。

讓我們跟隨所羅門所說的，一起思考一下，在這段經文中，神想對我們說什麽：

第一：在“日光之下”，那些教導你如何生活的人，卻無法知道如何改變你的生命（1：12-15）。我心裏議論說，我專心用智慧尋求查究天下所作的一切事……我見日光之下所作的一切事，都是虛空，都是捕風。

作為以色列全盛時期的君王，所羅門可以隨心所欲。他選擇了研究人們如何生活。他在13節說，他“查究天下所做的一切事”，他的意思是要探究人們在尋求咨詢和自助書籍之後的結果。

                在古代世界，為他人提供智慧的生活，幫助人們辯別如何明智、而非愚蠢地生活，是一個最高和最受人尊重的工作。幾乎在所有的文化之中都是如此。而且，所羅門被認為是所有智慧人中最有智慧的人。所羅門是原版的“親愛的艾比”，第一位費爾博士。如果有任何人有資格回答人生的難題，那就是所羅門。在列王記上第三章中，有兩個女人爭奪孩子，只有所羅門做出了明智的判斷。（你知道那個故事嗎？）在那個故事中，他的智慧廣為人知，直到今日，許多文化中還在使用“所羅門的智慧”這個詞。

                但是，盡管人們認為被賦予如此智慧是最高和最重要的一種工作，所羅門在第13節卻仍然說：這“是極重的勞苦”，意思就是很糟糕的工作。他得出的結論是，這“就像捕風”，也就是說，你永遠也無法抓住它。然而即使你能抓住它，你也沒有得到什麽。

                要理解他的話，你就需要明白傳道書1:13-15的話，這會將我們帶回創世紀3:12-19中，那裏談到罪進入世界，對一切都產生了負面影響。所羅門說，告訴人們如何生活得幸福、並改變他們的生命是一個糟糕的工作，因為罪破壞了整個世界。因此，神可能會呼召我們生活得美好，並保持祂智慧的道德，但是所羅門說，自從罪進入了世界，一切都被扭曲了。因此他說，過美好的生活是“極重的勞苦”，他在15節中說，即使最好的建議，都無法在這被扭曲的世界中做任何改變。

                請看第15節，所羅門在其中說到這句希伯來諺語：彎曲的不能變直，缺少的不能足數。他的意思是，我們的世界整個被扭曲了，任何人類的智慧和方法都無法使它變直。即使我們集中所有人所有的智慧，這個世界上有一些問題也是無法解決的。你覺得這是不是事實？你能想到什麽例子嗎？

                用我自己的話來解釋這句諺語，就是：人類的智慧既不能使任何彎曲的事物變直，也無法在世上加添任何事物。為什麽不能呢？因為從亞當夏娃開始的罪已經影響到世上的一切。所羅門的意思是：這個世界有很大的問題，因此無論我們成立多少機構，多麽想要阻止不公平，無論我們建立多少醫院，選舉出多少好人，為著良善的理由捐獻多少金錢，也無論我們舉行多少遊行，抓到多少壞人，這個世界都仍舊是彎曲和混亂的。我們也許想要改變這個世界，但是我們無能為力。真正的問題是，不單這世上的一切事物都混亂了，每一個人也都被扭曲了。那些最想改變世界的人，最需要改變的就是他們自己！

這就像在伍迪·艾倫的電影安妮·霍爾中的歌手艾薇所說的話，“我覺得生活被分為恐怖和可憐。這是兩種不同的類型。恐怖人生大概是絕癥病人，包括重病的人，殘疾人。我不知道他們的人生是怎麽渡過來的，他們的人生令我感到驚異。而其他所有的人都是屬於可憐人了。所以，你應該慶幸你是可憐人，因為成為可憐人是很幸運的。”

所羅門說，在我們的世界裏，我們沒有糾正恐怖和可憐事情的權力。我們只是處在一個混亂世界中不完美的人。如果世界僅僅如此，而沒有神，那麽想想看，我們會處在什麽狀況之中：扭曲的人是不可能理順彎曲的世界的。

泰斯音樂團隊的達斯汀·肯瑟曾經在他的歌裏很好地表達了所羅門的信息，有一首歌名為“整個世界都瘋狂”：

每個人生命中許多事都可怕地錯誤著，整個世界都瘋狂。

黑暗帶來著可怕的事，太陽已經遠去。何等的空虛、悲哀，悲慘的火焰。

我們無法將人變為完美，我們無法在心中建立和平。

我們無法從靈魂之中將罪除去，它早已在那裏。

我們需要沒有被扭曲的人來解救我們，和世上其它一切事物，使一切彎曲的都被理順。在這彎曲的世界裏，如果“日光之下”所有一切都是彎曲的，要到哪裏去尋找這樣的人呢？無處可尋！我們唯一的希望是，在日光之上“有人”願意進入世界，並改變其中的一切。在這裏，我們看到，所羅門將我們指向來自我們扭曲的世界之外的救贖者，就是唯有聖經所告訴我們的，那位了解我們在困難之中、並且依然愛我們的神，祂願意進入世界並且去理順所有已被扭曲的事物。因此，我們應當記得約翰在約翰福音一章中的話語：“道（耶穌，萬物是通過他被造的）成了肉身，住在我們中間，充充滿滿地有恩典，有真理。我們也見過他的榮光，正是父獨生子的榮光。......“

我們聽到耶穌在約翰福音3:17中所講的話語：“神差他的兒子降世，不是要定世人的罪，乃是要叫世人因他得救。”只有祂能將彎曲的理直。

第二：那些“日光之下”知識豐富的人，所知道的並不多（1：16-18）。

我曾經歷過許多智慧和知識。我又專心察明智慧、狂妄和愚昧，乃知這也是捕風...。

在1：16-18中，所羅門把我們的註意力更多地轉向了我們當代所說的追求學問之中。他認為，“也許問題在於我們所知道的還不夠。這可能正是我們明智生活的答案。”在這些經文中，他談到了通過獲得更多的知識去追求生命的意義。所以請大家仔細聽：在傳道書中，所羅門要我們去思考、學習和發現生命的真實意義。其實通常來說，聖經希望我們問尖銳的問題，並用神所賜給我們的頭腦去追求真理和良善。這使我想到一個美妙的卡爾文和霍布斯連環畫。卡爾文想找出“日光之下”生命的意義，但霍布斯卻沒有興趣：https://cafewitteveen.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/q4sxj.pn

請了解這一點：聖經不是反智慧的，也沒有對教育持懷疑的態度。在約翰福音14章中，耶穌說祂就是真理。耶穌肯定地說道：當我們努力尋求真理時，我們最終都將會走向祂！當你成為一名基督徒之後，你不應當讓你的頭腦對真理毫無思考地憑空相信耶穌。當你尋求真理，也就是那幫助你生活得更有意義的真理時，耶穌非常確定，你最終都會信靠祂。這也就是傳道書的信息。當你提出一些重大的問題，比如什麽才是最重要的，你就會知道，在這個世界上一定存在著比日光之下的事物更重要的東西。在“在日光之上”一定有一位神。

然而，即使這樣說，聖經也清楚地指明，研究和學習也可能成為“神”，也就是說，它會成為一個可以令我們驕傲的虛假偶像。使徒保羅是當時的社會中受過最好教育的人之一，他在哥林多前書8：1說，我們的知識會“讓我們自我膨脹”，並使我們離開林前8章1節中所說的愛。所羅門在這裏也讓我們明白，在日光之下，我們可以成為世上最好的學者，並且我們仍然能夠知道，在“日光之下”存在的東西遠遠少於我們所能理解的。

有意思的是，所羅門在17節中說，“我又專心察明智慧、狂妄和愚昧。”他在將一個勤奮學習的人與一個愚蠢地執意不去學習任何東西的人作比較。並且，假如“日光之下”的一切就是人生的全部，如果沒有神，那麽無論是博士和小學輟學了的人，都將是同樣的命運，也就是說，無論他們做什麽都不會改變任何東西，他們的成就很快會被遺忘，最終死亡會奪去他們兩個的一切。在17節的後半句，他說，無論是學者還是非學者，無論以哪種方式活在世上，如果他們的生命中離開了神，就都將發現，他們的生命都是捕風。

              為了要闡明自己的觀點，所羅門在18節中說出了另一個諺語：因為多有智慧，就多有愁煩；加增知識的，就加增憂傷。他的意思是，有時最好不要知道這麽多。假如沒有神，今生的生命就此完結，那麽還是不要懂得太多。心理學家和精神科醫生知道的越多，他們就越確定，我們想要改變自己是多麽的困難。他們明白，教育和良好的咨詢技術並不能醫治人類的心靈。

一位學者在她自己的領域裏知道得越多，她就越會意識到，還有更多的東西需要繼續學習。正如T.S.艾略特在他搖滾樂的合唱曲中所說：“我們所有的知識，只能使我們更加接近我們的無知。”我們知道得越多，我們就越意識到我們有多少不知道。在所羅門的箴言中，他說，如果“日光之下”的生命就是所有的一切，那麽，知識只能加重人的負擔。

神有可能對你說些什麽呢？

在12-15節中，我很確定，神並不是說，你應該放棄做治療師、或放棄去做心理輔導。我們可以從好的心理咨詢中獲得有關人類如何運作的知識，知道人際關系在何處出問題，以及如何能正確地重新開始，這都是神所賜的禮物。而且，我知道有許多關於友誼、婚姻和養育子女的好書，可以為你的生活提供希望和新的方向。我們力求隨時在教會為您提供有益的咨詢或指導。

然而，所羅門的意思是，如果神沒有在你的生命之中，即使你得到很好的咨詢，在一天結束的時候，你也會一無所獲。好的咨詢就像是神在世上所賜給我們的許多好的禮物一樣，如果將它當做是從你生命中心的神所得到的禮物，那麽，好的咨詢就能夠幫助你盡快康復，幫助你恢復正常的運作。但是，如果這一切都與神無關，那麽你所剩下的就只有“捕風”。

在16-18節中，所羅門談到“日光之下”獲取知識也是虛空的時候，並不是要讓學生去退學，或者讓學者放棄在加州理工學院和富勒神學院所做的重要的學術研究。他的意思是，我們不僅要將我們的意誌，也要將我們的頭腦都交托給神。十戒的第一條說，“除了我以外，你不可有別的神，這也包括我們的學識。

但是今天，我主要想讓你要思考，如何讓神在你生命的決策中占首位。其中的一個要點，當然是要明白，神是永遠與你同在的。當你對這一點越來越了解的時候，你就能學會將每件事都交托給神。這就是保羅所說“不住地禱告”的含義。我跟隨耶穌的時間越長，我就更多地學會如何停下來，說：“主啊，你要讓我做什麽？”“這個人最喜歡的是什麽？”，有時我只是禱告，說“耶穌，求你幫助我”。

另外，我發現，按時來敬拜神是智慧人生的關鍵 ---- 如果你迫切地想要從神那裏聽到一些信息，而不是僅僅出於義務或者娛樂消遣。假如你渴望聽到神的話語，那麽當神的話語被打開，並被忠實傳講的時候，你就會聽到從神而來的信息，哪怕講道者不是特別具有吸引力或令人興奮。當你與教會的人一起敬拜，想要從天父那裏聽到祂的話語，而牧師也教導了這些話語的時候，你就會聽到神對你直接的引導。

最後，你需要與小組裏的人們一起在耶穌裏同行。身為母親，你需要和另外一些與耶穌同行的母親們一同談話和學習。或者，你需要一些與你面臨相似境況的年長母親們的幫助，如果你問：“我去哪裏能找到這樣的小組呢? 假如你允許，我們可以幫你找到這樣的小組。

而這個原則也同樣適用於許多的其他人之中。想要榮耀神的商業人士：你可以閱讀好的商業書籍，但是你同樣也需要找到一個熱愛耶穌的商業人士的社群，可以讓你與他們交談和互相學習。對於教師，科學家，無業者，牧師...，我也有同樣的建議。

我們不應該單單地在日光之下追求智慧。所羅門說，如果沒有神，智慧將是毫無意義的。我們需要一個“比所羅門更偉大的人（太12章42節）。”那人就是耶穌。

我在這裏引用潘霍華的幾句名言，他曾經在一個非常困難的時期做出了非常艱難的決定。他藉著相信耶穌找到了永恒的智慧，並在以基督為中心的社群中活出了這樣的智慧。以下是他在他的著作“團契生活”這本書中所寫的片段：

“任何研究與人性有關的領域之中最有經驗的學者，對人性的了解，都遠遠不及一個生活在耶穌十字架之下的最平常的基督徒。如果不認識耶穌，即使是最偉大的心理學或最智慧的洞察力、能力和經驗都不能把握這樣一件事：罪是什麽。屬世的智慧會讓人知道什麽痛苦、軟弱和失敗，但卻無法知道人類的罪性。因此也就不會知道，人性是被罪破壞的，並且只能通過神的寬恕得到醫治。只有基督徒知道... 當我去到基督徒的兄弟姊妹那裏時他們知道：這是一個像我們一樣的罪人，一個願意悔改、渴望得到神的寬恕的人，也是在耶穌基督十字架前面對神的審判與憐憫的人。

願你們藉著再次委身於耶穌，並通過教會中神的子民的禱告和支持，而從上面找到真正的智慧，並將榮耀歸於神。

榮耀歸給神，

Greg Waybright 博士

主任牧師