The Preacher tried many experiences afforded him by his royal position to gain personal fulfillment, but he still felt incomplete (1:12). His search for lasting value remained unrewarded. Still, he continued.
He sought to improve his mind by exhaustive study (1:13). By length and breadth (“seek”) and by depth (“explore”), he determined to discover the meaning of life by experiencing all that life could offer. He discovered, however, that problem solving as a life pursuit countered God’s desire that we should learn and grow. They were incompatible. He concluded there was more to life than collecting knowledge and experience (1:14). That was vanity because all he accomplished was to raise more questions than answers. Reality presented too many twists, turns, and gaps (1:15). Data entry did not constitute life.
His search was exhaustive and produced a wealth of wisdom, yet failed to reveal the desired result (1:16). His life was not enhanced. He could observe, yet only discovered description was easier than prescription. Charles Dickens wrote about a man who gave himself solely to learning. The man died one morning of a stroke. There he lay for eighteen months. Everybody thought he had gone out of town. Facts do not always lead to appropriate conclusions because all of the facts can never be known. Too much attention to the intellect led the Preacher to “overvalue” an intellectual approach to wisdom.
If the search for all knowledge failed, perhaps extreme experience held the answer (1:17a). He “set his mind” to engage extremes of human
experience in two directions. Pursuing intellectual wisdom took him in one direction. Its opposite, acting rashly and immorally, lay in the other. His conclusion: There is no lasting value to experience (1:17b). Why? He found many learning experiences also produced unwelcome pain, increasingly so (1:18).
Elton Trueblood wrote, “It is the vocation of the Christian intellectual to be both tough-minded and tender-minded, and to be both at the same time.” Gaining wisdom through experience is one thing. An experience in rash and immoral behavior is quite another and leads to grief. Experience is valuable, for we know God by religious experience, but not experience for its own sake. Experience not balanced with godliness and common sense is destructive, often dangerous. As the Preacher regularly repeats, the proper approach to life is to fear God and keep His commandments. God’s wisdom and its pursuit can never be overvalued.
