The Special Relevance Of Ecclesiastes For Contemporary Culture

By John E. Johnson

[John E. Johnson is Associate Professor of Pastoral Ministries, Western Seminary, Portland, Oregon, and Senior Pastor, Village Baptist Church, Portland, Oregon.]

Few books of the Bible have prompted such a strong reaction as Ecclesiastes, both positive and negative. Some love its candor, its relevance to life’s situations, and its guidance for godly living. Others are offended, believing its message is inappropriate for Christians. For them, Ecclesiastes is nothing more than the musings of a quirky eccentric, the rant of a dissatisfied narcissist. They would have likely agreed with an ancient rabbi, who once quipped, “Solomon wrote Song of Solomon in his youth, Proverbs in his maturity, and Qoheleth in his senility.”[1]

Most would agree Ecclesiastes is an unnerving book, just by its sheer homiletic challenges. As Kreeft comments, “Compared with the neat little nostrums of comfort-mongering minds who cross our t’s and dot our i’s, Ecclesiastes is as great, as deep, and as terrifying as the ocean.”[2] The themes and structure tend to scare off both preacher and congregant. Its message can seem unfocused and its relationship to other Old Testament traditions strained.

Added to the homiletic challenge is the alleged negative tone. Given what Qoheleth wrote about mankind’s limitations to know or control much in life, one might suppose his conclusions about life are as depressing as those of philosophers such as Camus.[3] Others read Qoheleth as “a pathological doubter of everything,” stemming from some drastic emotional experience, perhaps even a psychological disturbance![4] Who needs to hear this from the pulpit?

The complexity, tone, and message of Ecclesiastes have discouraged both preachers and listeners. Martin Luther lamented that the book in his time “has lain in miserable neglect, so that today we have neither the use nor the benefit from it that we should.”[5] John Calvin referred to Ecclesiastes only a few times in his writings, and Ulrich Zwingli paid little attention to it. Charles H. Spurgeon, out of his thousands of sermons, preached only a handful from Ecclesiastes. Many preachers today bypass the preaching of the book.[6]

This article is written to challenge many of these assumptions. The conviction here is that Ecclesiastes is one of the more important books for today. Congregants need to be exposed to its careful exposition.

Why Pastors Must Preach Ecclesiastes

The following are six reasons why pastors should preach this book.

Its Form Suggests It Was Written To Be Preached

Ecclesiastes was composed in an ancient Near Eastern culture, where observations on world order and occasional treatises on life were given.[7] The very title suggests that it was composed as a treatise on life, a lecture to be presented. Luther entitled the book Der Prediger (“The Preacher”), for Qoheleth is the title of a convener, someone who assembles the community. He has convened an assembly (lh'q…, “to assemble, gather”) to preach to a congregation.

It Is The Word Of God

Pastors should preach Ecclesiastes because it is a part of the counsel of God. Part of the reason Ecclesiastes has not often made the preaching calendar goes back to a long-held suspicion that it does not belong in Scripture. Ecclesiastes has been viewed by some as a “canonical misfit,” a book lacking any good news. Some have even accused it of being the Bible’s most heretical book.

Though its place in Scripture was questioned because of its alleged pessimism, it was nonetheless recognized as an integral part of God’s Word as early as the second century BC. Delitzsch commented that if one were to view Ecclesiastes as any less than Scripture, it would be to read the book without intelligence.[8] Qoheleth’s faith in God stands “firm as a rock, against which all the waves dash themselves into foam.”[9] In the patristic period various church fathers held to the legitimacy of the book, including Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, and Augustine.[10] Early on, Origen set the standard for exegesis on Ecclesiastes.

Like every book of Scripture, therefore, it has its place in the pulpit. As with all of God’s Word, it was inspired, revealed, and preserved by God to make the man of God complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Hence one is not at liberty to marginalize or ignore its message. If pastors conform their preaching strategies to the whims of many congregants, they may never preach this book.

It Is Great Literature

Also expositors should preach Ecclesiastes because of the beauty of its form. While no clear literary structure is evident in the book and no single genre governs the book, there is a profound splendor in its literary style that sets Ecclesiastes apart from most books in Scripture. Ecclesiastes includes autobiographical references, theological reflections, philosophical musings, and proverbial instructions.[11] Its rhythmical prose repeatedly soars to the level of poetic form.[12] Themes are unpacked by means of stunning poetry. The words dive beneath the surface of prose into the depths of reality. The author thickened the language, using metaphors of bread and water to talk about risk, flies and oil to talk about sin, and almond blossoms and shattered jars to talk about aging.

George Bernard Shaw once compared Ecclesiastes to Shakespeare. Novelist Thomas Wolfe put it this way: “Of all that I have seen or learned, that book seems to me the noblest, the wisest, and the most powerful expression of man’s life upon this earth, and also the highest flower of poetry, eloquence and truth. . . . I could only say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound.”[13] Therefore why should preachers hold back from presenting such artistic beauty?

It Is Necessary For Pastoral Work

Ecclesiastes is also a vital part of pastoral work. Peterson refers to Ecclesiastes as foundational, as one of the five necessary “stones” for doing ministry. He writes, “Pastoral work gathers expertise not by acquiring new knowledge but by assimilating old wisdom, not by reading the latest books but by digesting the oldest ones.”[14] Ecclesiastes is part of that older wisdom.

Pastoral work begins with the preacher. And preachers, as much as anyone, need the wisdom of Qoheleth. In exegeting the book expositors are cleansed, purged, and moved to repentance. As Peterson puts it, “The pastor reads Ecclesiastes to get scrubbed clean from illusion and sentiment.”[15] Only then can the pastor declare its message, challenge naïve optimism, train people in the skills of living, and demonstrate the vanity of anything that is severed from God.

It Speaks To The Times

Also Ecclesiastes addresses the many bewildering issues of today. Ecclesiastes was composed when a modern/postmodern shift of its own was taking place. The writer clearly had modernist instincts, for he was a man obsessed with achievement, wealth, and status. If it was written by Solomon, it was authored in a golden age of advancement, a world caught up with itself and its attainments and burdened by its successes and excesses. But as with many modernists, those achievements left the writer skeptical, shriveled in his soul, confronted by the painful emptiness of it all, and humbled by the fact that success is not under one’s control. Rather than a book full of answers, Ecclesiastes is a work full of questions.

In each chapter the author exposed the “fractures in the modern edifice,” unmasking the claims of progress, the assumptions that humans can manage the vapor of time, the complexities of society, and the laws of nature. Like other deconstructionists, the writer swung a huge ax at life and its structures, exposing the shortcomings of modernity.[16] Solomon reinforces what people today need to keep learning—that they can make state-of-the-art vehicles run by computer chips, but they still end up with sticking accelerators that make them lethal. They can market powerful wonder drugs that bring relief to painful symptoms, but with each commercial, there is an extended warning of possible side effects—liver damage, extreme vomiting, and sudden death.

Ecclesiastes is the clearest biblical statement that people are not gods who control life’s events. As chapter 1 painfully declares, the world goes its own way and is carried by its own laws. In His time, in His way, God rules over all.

It Is A Realistic Appraisal Of Life

Ecclesiastes states what people already know—that life is a profound mystery. The book mentions many things that people neither understand nor can control.[17] It exposes what is sometimes hidden; it rips away some romantic notions. Some like to believe the myth that the grass is greener on the other side, but Ecclesiastes shows patches of brown on both sides.

Qoheleth was a realist. He stated, for example, that while adultery appears alluring, it is a forbidden fruit that also has its brown spots. He noted that for evil to do its worst, it must look its best, that if a person scratches certain itches, he will only itch more; and that the more self-absorbed a person becomes, the less there is to find absorbing (e.g., 7:23-29). This is the nature of wisdom.[18]

Qoheleth takes his readers to the edge, putting into words some of the deeper bewilderments humans face. To put it another way, if wisdom is base camp, Qoheleth is an explorer willing to go beyond to the dangerous summit.[19] Qoheleth noted that life is a strange mixture of unexpected delights and bitter disappointments, of profound discoveries and overwhelming disillusionments (e.g., 6:1-7). People’s days are a combination of serenity and anxiety, life and death, joy and grief. Human achievement is vaporous. One’s ability to take control of life and explain it is severely limited. As Leithart puts it, “This windy little world will not stay put in the little labeled file boxes we make for it.”[20]

Ecclesiastes shows the hard, paradoxical reality of life. It asks unnerving questions like, “What does the laborer gain from his toil?” (3:9, NIV). If people are honest, sometimes they ask the same questions.

Solomon pushes his readers to painful realities, reminding them they are mortal. The words of the wise are likened to painful goads, embedded nails (12:11). They comfort, and yet they can rip. They encourage people to keep moving along on the journey toward wisdom.[21] Ruthlessly the convener moves from one theme to the next, from one reality to the next. He is deconstructing so that he can construct. He is affirming uncertainty in hopes of enticing readers to address their doubts to God. He is forcing people to face life head-on so that the gospel will have credibility. Melville was right when he called Ecclesiastes “the truest of all books.”[22]

Clues To Preaching Ecclesiastes

Commit To Work Hard

Ecclesiastes is a demanding book to preach. One must do the necessary exegesis, becoming immersed in the flow of the book and pressing to its end. Each part can be understood only in the context of the whole, for it is an intellectual search for meaning, and most of the search is aiming toward the conclusion where the true meaning is discovered.[23] The listener is also obligated to the hard work of careful listening and perseverance. Like a journey on a ship through difficult waters, one must stay on board until reaching port.

Read In The Context Of Wisdom Literature

Preaching wisdom literature effectively takes into consideration the message of all the wisdom books. Proverbs, Job, and Song of Songs make their own signature contributions, but they also integrate into a whole message.[24] Ecclesiastes is not presenting an alternative worldview. Instead it is affirming the need to possess wisdom and to fear the Lord. Proverbs presents a more rational, ordered approach to life; Job and Ecclesiastes present the exception.[25] Ecclesiastes broadens out the observations of Proverbs, observations that were not meant to be hard promises.

Welcome Rather Than Avoid The Conflicts And Apparent Contradictions

Expositors must maintain a certain discipline when preaching Ecclesiastes. They must avoid making the text say what they want it to say rather than letting it speak for itself. Ecclesiastes declares in one part of the book that the dead are more fortunate than the living (4:2). Later the statement is made that a living dog is better off than a dead lion (9:4). Which is it? Qoheleth affirmed the value of wisdom over folly (2:12-14), but then he cautioned against being too wise (v. 15). But Qoheleth was not contradicting himself so much as he was observing inconsistencies in the world. His intent was not to resolve; rather he described and bemoaned, searching for wisdom to navigate through life’s inconsistencies.

Another way to make this third point is to look for trouble. Lowry actually encourages preachers to find the weird, the strange, the sentence that does not flow easily, the “something that just feels wrong.”[26] That is not difficult to do in Ecclesiastes. The task is to explore the conflicts and complications, to mine out the things that turn sideways, to explore the mystery and doubt for all they are worth. This is when Ecclesiastes becomes both unnerving and thrilling. Preachers, like artists, must have a thirst for chaos and conflict, for living life on the edge of the abyss.[27]

Preachers should see Ecclesiastes as a great homiletic challenge—not so much to fix—but to expound and discover where Qoheleth is taking its readers. When preaching the book, expositors should guard against trying to tame the radical features of the book. Their task is not to resolve the tensions and align the Scriptures with their expectations, needs, and understandings. Rather, they should come to Ecclesiastes intent on aligning with and submitting to the text. As Murphy underscores, “The cutting edge of the book has to be retained.”[28]

Find The Exhortation

A key part of the work in preaching is summoning the listeners to action. Ecclesiastes, like all of Scripture, is written to persuade. So expositors do well to look for the imperative. Even in the self-reflections and the proverbial sayings, Solomon was being directive. Preachers therefore must discern where the text is going, to note its sequence, and the challenge being given to the heart.[29] Ecclesiastes was written not to inform but to transform. Behind the realities of time, for example, is the exhortation to seize the moment (chap. 3). With the proverbial fly in the ointment is a call to watch for the little things that can trip up life (chap. 10).

Move From Theme To Theme

Preaching the themes in Ecclesiastes is a good way to expound the book. Commentaries do not agree on the structure. Murphy describes Qoheleth’s thought as “torturous,”[30] and Crenshaw writes, “In my judgment no one has succeeded in delineating the plan of the book, for it certainly has characteristics inherent to a collection of sentences.”[31] Brown adds, “Seeking structure in Qoheleth’s turbid discourse is, frankly, an exercise in frustration.”[32] Garrett concludes that Ecclesiastes has no hierarchical flow but is rather a kind of wandering among several topics doubling back on itself.[33]

Yet this book is not slapped together. Underneath it all is a design and a flow, as well as an intended destination. Each theme should be read in the broader context and preached accordingly.

The following are some of the significant, urgent themes and their summaries that need to be addressed today.

Pleasure (2:1-11). Few passages are as relevant to the present age as Ecclesiastes 2. Many people are on the hedonic treadmill, seeking to find ultimate meaning in wealth and pleasure. If anyone plumbed the depths looking for satisfaction at every level, it was Solomon. As chapter 2 makes clear, he approached pleasure like a scientist, researching to find out if happiness and wealth live up to their promises. His access to assets and power enabled him not only to be the researcher but also the researched. He had an impressive portfolio; in all his possessions he was not surpassed by any other king (2:9).

Solomon built amazing projects. His palace alone took thirteen years to build. He experimented with drugs and acquired servants to take care of his paradise. But as Solomon ran the data and amassed his findings, he discovered the all-too-painful truth that the more a person has the more he wants. Running on this treadmill hollowed out his soul and created disabling attachments.

His conclusion is simple: All one’s efforts and accumulations are futile, like chasing after the wind (2:11). Satisfaction this side of eternity has all the permanence of sandcastles on a beach. Or more like cloud castles on a windy day.[34] Accumulating wealth is futile, absurd, and without profit.

Time (3:1-15). Like most people in today’s Western culture, impressed with time management and measureables, Qoheleth may have assumed time was his to control. Yet looking back, he realized it was not so. God has ordained all things. Each has its rightful time and place. The most momentous moments are completely beyond man’s control. They are His to set. Time is a series of give and take: birth and death, planting and plucking. For every positive, there is a negative: a time to dance, a time to weep; a time to search for a missing hiker, a time to give up the search. For every gain there is a loss. People celebrate a baby’s birth, and mourn the passing of a life. Yet each has a purpose, specifically designed by God.

Solomon was profoundly aware that these moments move in a timely manner. Time waits for no one, consuming choices left unmade. Days are like a handbreadth. Hence life can feel as substantial as a wisp of steam—an enigmatic blur. A worker teaches his classes, runs his route, sees his patients, makes his quotas, preaches his sermons, raises his kids, and prepares for retirement. And before he knows, it all dissolves as quickly as the mist in the morning sun.

What complicates all this is that amidst the transience, there is something of the transcendent, something of eternity in humankind, placed there by God (3:11). People are confined by transience, yet something has been planted that tells them they are more than merely time bound. Something leaves humans restless. They are compelled to seize what moments they have and to let something of the eternal define them.

Relationships (4:7-12). The recurrence of lb,h, (4:7) is a marker to describe another unsettling feature to investigate. Solomon saw what people today often see, the emptiness that comes when a person is obsessed with work at the expense of relationships. These verses could be autobiographical, for Solomon’s life is portrayed as all about career and the pursuit of success. A person gives himself to the chase, and he wakes up one day with the realization that he is a very lonely person.

When it comes to bottom lines and profits, relationships may get someone up in the middle of the night or drain his bank account. But in the end two are far better than one. To have a son who can aid an elderly person when the son is grown is better than living alone. To know someone is there to lift a person when he falls is a great comfort.

Politics (4:13-16). Ecclesiastes gets past the comforting bromides and gets right to the issues of life. In this passage Solomon unmasks the pretensions and tells what people need to hear. Much of the attention and money to sustain the political election machine is a massively doomed effort at shepherding the wind. People have the mindless tendency to prop others up, only to tear them down. Today’s heroes become tomorrow’s discards. Time and familiarity have a way of taking their toll. Today’s audacious hope is tomorrow’s call for change.

The message for politicians and other leaders is to not get caught up in self-importance. People quickly tire. Position and age have a way of changing kings into old fools. Successors come, loved by the masses, but affections fade all too soon. Solomon was again pointing out the ephemeral character of life, the fleetingness of popular acclaim.

Mortality (7:2-4). This passage confronts one of life’s most painful realities. At first the words seem odd: “Better to go to a house of mourning” (7:2). Really? Who wants to hang out in a funeral home? Mourning in this ancient culture was a very elaborate affair—grief, wailing, tearing of clothes, and sitting on ashes. It seems odd to prefer that over a place of celebration.

However, being in the place of grief can be beneficial. Life is more fully appreciated and evaluated with the grave in mind. Here people are more likely to come to grips with their own fragility and finitude. In a funeral home people can more easily discern what is substantive compared with what is superficial. People are reminded that life is not a dress rehearsal.

Mindful of mortality, self-importance is replaced with God-importance. Wisdom overtakes folly, and people ask, “What will be said at my memorial service? Will they need to embellish my accomplishments, spin the truth? Will words have to be overstated to cover my thinness?” The passage forces reflection like the bumper sticker “Live so the pastor won’t have to lie at your funeral.”

Wisdom (9:13-18). Because Ecclesiastes is part of the sapiential collection in Scripture, readers expect Solomon to speak about wisdom. To him wisdom is the pinnacle, the apex, the end point of the journey. And he makes this point with a story.

In this story he makes the case that wisdom has its own power. It is a force that can take on the world. However, he includes the painful reality that it takes only a bit of folly to cancel out wisdom (9:18). One inappropriate touch, one poor choice, or one badly chosen word can ruin years of faithful ministry. One fly can ruin the ointment (10:1). All the wisdom of the world can be spoiled by just a little bit of impatience, irritability, cynicism, procrastination, and moodiness.

Wisdom also has limitations. While it sheds needed light, enables people to walk as if in well-lit rooms, gives skills for navigating through life, helps people avoid banging their shins and scraping their elbows, wisdom can take people only so far. It cannot explain everything; it is not a divine warranty against pain. Wisdom can give success, but it cannot save from death.

Risk (11:1-6). Ecclesiastes does more than inform, it inspires. This passage compels people to go after life, live large on the stage on which God places them. “Cast your bread on the surface of the waters” (v. 1). Here is an ancient saying from a background no longer known today. But the idea is that people should not wait for life to come to them.

If someone insists on seeing everything first, he will end up in paralysis (v. 4). Storms happen, calamities strike, crops fail, pirates steal, economies tank, and health goes. Life is a combination of smooth sailing and tough sledding. Some might lose it all. But if one always plays it safe, stays stuck in risk lock, becomes a professional cloud watcher waiting for the perfect moment, he will have little to show for life. So he should not get sidetracked. He should diversify his investments of energy and resources, recognizing that all is in God’s sovereign control.

Aging (12:1-8). Here Ecclesiastes warns of the worst sort of procrastination: “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come” (12:1). People ought not squander the moments and put off God. Rather they should remember God while youthful idealism is strong. People ought to live for Him while the heart is robust, the mind is clear, and the body can run at full tilt.

A time will come when one can no longer remember so well. With the passing of years, the calcium will flow from bones into tissues, leaving the bones thin and everything else hard. A time will come when the wear and tear of age will set in, and life will be one physical setback after another. Mortality will stalk everyone’s life. To all who say, “When I finish my goals, I want to get serious for God,” this is Solomon’s saying—“Only fools put off God!”

God (12:13-14). Every Bible book is ultimately about God. He is the center of every book, and He is the focal point of this one. Qoheleth explored life carefully, and now at the end of this long journey he tied the knot that secures all the threads.

When all has been said, here is the conclusion, the end of the matter, and the final resolution of life’s complications: “Fear God and keep His commandments” (12:13). This is what really matters. This is the totality of life, the summation of man: to hold God with reverence and awe. This is the essence of wisdom (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10). The fear of God is what makes a person truly human.

There is a time after the time under the sun, when everyone will have to give an account of what or whom he has revered. God will bring every act into judgment. On this day everything that has been upside down will be right side up. Meaninglessness will be replaced with meaning, mercy will purge out oppression, and the righteous will flourish. The curse will be behind.

So everyone should live as if the future matters, as if choices they make have great implications.

Move To The Gospel

Ecclesiastes brings readers face to face with their fallen condition. Each chapter underscores the hopelessness that results from the curse, the impossibility of finding ultimate satisfaction and meaning in a broken world. “Qoheleth, from amid his heaps of ruins, shows how necessary it is that the heavens should now soon open above the earth.”[35] There are joys to be found and experienced in this life (2:24), but ultimately God writes this book to push readers to Jesus. He alone can redeem from life’s futility (Rom. 1:18-23).[36]

Conclusion

Like the rest of wisdom literature, Ecclesiastes presses readers to make sure their feet have landed in the real world. The witness of Christians will be more compelling if people see that they grapple fairly with the mysteries of life, the seeming absurdities, as well as life’s fleeting nature. Preaching Ecclesiastes may prompt some severe reactions, but this might affirm that one is getting close to the real pains, the angst that troubles people most. Ecclesiastes has huge homiletic challenges, but when preached thoughtfully and proclaimed powerfully, it can bear some of the greatest homiletic fruit.

Notes

1. James Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), 54.
2. Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989), 16.
3. Edward Curtis and John Brugaletta, Discovering the Way of Wisdom (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004), 204.
4. Craig Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 42.
5. Martin Luther, quoted in James Limburg, Encountering Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 1.
6. Bartholomew, Ecclesiastes, 36.
7. See James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950).
8. C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 183.
9. Ibid.
10. J. Robert Wright, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005), xxiii.
11. William Brown, Ecclesiastes (Louisville: John Knox, 1958), 17.
12. H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Ecclesiastes (Columbus, OH: Wartburg, 1952), 22.
13. Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again (New York: Harper & Row, 1934), chap. 47.
14. Eugene Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 10.
15. Ibid., 155.
16. Peter Leithart makes a helpful contribution on this subject (Solomon among the Postmoderns [Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2008]).
17. Curtis, Discovering the Way of Wisdom, 196.
18. See Cornelius Plantinga, in his chapter “Wisdom and Folly,” in Not the Way It Is Supposed to Be (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 113-28.
19. Derek Kidner, A Time to Mourn and a Time to Dance (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1976), 13.
20. Leithart, Solomon among the Postmoderns, 165.
21. Brown, Ecclesiastes, 18.
22. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (New York: Rinehart, 1948), 421.
23. Terry Carter, J. Scott Duvall, and J. Daniel Hays, Preaching God’s Word (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 277.
24. See Barthomew, Ecclesiastes, 85-92, for a helpful comparison.
25. Carter, Duvall, and Hays, Preaching God’s Word, 274.
26. Eugene Lowry, The Sermon (Abingdon: Nashville, 1997), 94.
27. Ibid., 64.
28. Roland Murphy, The Tree of Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 53.
29. Lowry, The Sermon, 55.
30. Roland Murphy, Ecclesiastes (Dallas: Word, 1992), lviii.
31. Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes, 47.
32. Brown, Ecclesiastes, 15.
33. Duane Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (Nashville: Broadman, 1993), 270.
34. Leithart, Solomon among the Postmoderns, 68.
35. Delitzsch, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, 184.
36. For discussion on what Ecclesiastes teaches about God and man see Roy B. Zuck, “God and Man in Ecclesiastes,” Bibliotheca Sacra 148 (January–March 1991): 46-56. And for additional suggestions on how to proclaim the book of Ecclesiastes see Greg W. Parsons, “Guidelines for Understanding and Proclaiming the Book of Ecclesiastes, Part 1,” Bibliotheca Sacra 160 (April–June 2003): 159-73; and Part 2: 160 (July–September 2003): 283-304.