There are always keys to understanding Scripture, and as keys have a habit of doing, they also get misplaced from time to time. When they are recovered there is an aha experience – clarifying, comforting and satisfying, even life changing. The same principles hold for secular materials of study through history. Culture is a vital factor (key) in interpreting meaning, as the archaeologists clearly demonstrate. Culture is a key in evaluating events of history, so advising against arrogance and stupidity in the conclusions of an advanced or degraded generation relating to some other. Even God permits his own interpretation to use this culture key to evaluation. (Acts 17:30) How did mankind seem to leap so recently to civilization?
A key to extracting the statements of Solomon relates to his preoccupation with the words, under heaven. What does he mean? He is referring to Common Grace in all human experience so to adjust to the ignorance, the limits of mankind and nature, related to our humanity and development, or the lack of all. It is an attitude of fairness by God so to overlook some things in humanity. Humanity is not fully instructed; and, by restrictions of nature is unprepared and incompetent to meet that unchangeable Divine Culture of God. Once this is understood, and the implications are put into the calculations, the insights of Solomon become greater in our evaluations than we might have imagined without the proviso that Solomon provides – under heaven. For example, the proverbs of Solomon relating to marriage, say of the reference to the brawling wife (nag) (Proverbs 21:9; 25:4) – are understood in the culture that expresses main points in masculine language, that is now perceived by many to be prejudicial if it is used, or presumed to be used, to denigrate one gender to another. We are as faithful to the meaning of the proverb in our culture to say that experience with a brawling husband to a wife provides similar unhappy context for the family. Language from God opens to fair meaning. What is true about one equal entity is true of the other equal to the point.
In this light Solomon presents his list of opposites – a time for peace and a time for war; a time to get and a time to lose; and. so he proceeds. He does not say that either item in the list is good or bad – they just are. That’s the way the world functions. We know that there will be drought and rain, sorrow and joy – it is in the nature of earth. There are cycles of order and disorder. The wise person knows that there is order in all that God does, and that order, when violated, acknowledges the disorder. Under God, we manage. When we do, the disorder is somewhat defused. (Note the story of Joseph in Egypt working the results of seven good years for the ensuing seven bad years. Even his brothers and aged Jacob may not have perceived the pattern.) Essentially there are good things and bad things. The image of God for at odds with something troublesome in mankind and nature that is simplified and captured in the word sin. That pervasive competition of opposites explained in the concepts of sin and righteousness means that persons will function in a tug of war between what is preferred (blessing) and what is objectionable (cursing). We oscillate between the extremes (or part way into either option) and often seem unable to steady matters. I found extensive illustrations of the natural conflict in the life of Henry Clay. He and his colleagues in government went through several periodic depressions and recoveries. They could not get along with the banks or without them: with internal improvements or without them. And – so the story goes. Egos and politics often overcame them. Our spiritual lives tend to follow a similar pattern from healthy to sickly; from mountain to valley, from faith to doubt – and back around again. Everyone will need renewal to recover balance. God does not prefer clumsy teetering. Scripture makes clear how Christians may flourish in their times, or failing, recover. The Apostle Paul clearly understood the context, and instructed well about it. The Apostles did not veil the weakness of human beings in relation to each other and to God. The Apostle John, in The Revelation, was quite straightforward in faulting the churches for this or that – that should not have happened. Whatever was wrong was not God’s fault. We do not judge the Church (spiritual) on moral failure of the church (institutional). We are in awe of meaning as discussed by the Apostles. That higher ideal ought to motivate us. The Christian relates, or ought to, to the institutional church as it relates to the spiritual Church, born of God *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020