Money is the answer for everything

 

“Woe to you, O land whose king was a servant and whose princes feast in the morning.

Blessed are you, O land whose king is of noble birth and whose princes eat at a proper time – for strength and not for drunkennes.

If a man is is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks.

A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything.”

Ecclesiastes 10:16-19

I have trouble with this. Is he truly saying that money is the answer for everything? My study Bible suggest that this was the attitude of the carousing princes of the day. It references verse 16.

Today, it seems that money is the answer to all problems. Just throw more at the problem and it will go away. However, when there is no more money, what do we do? Do we stop throwing? No, somehow we borrow from our future, like some sort of game.

I am not claiming to be an economist any more than I claim to be a preacher, but it seems to me that we have a deficit of love for God as much as we have a deficit of money.

When you have a problem with a spiritual matter, what do you do? Do you just throw more words at it? What happens if we run out of words? What if we are at a deficit of words? Aha, I think we’re getting back to an earlier point:

“Words from a wise man’s mouth are gracious, but a fool is consumed by his own lips. At the beginning his words are folly; at the end they are wicked madness — and the fool multiplies words.”

Ecclesiastes 10:12-14

What happens when we combine our monetary deficit to our spiritual deficit? Oh my, what a predicament we’ve found ourselves in.

What’s the solution? I don’t know, but I like the sound of this:

“The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.”

Ecclesiastes 9:17-18