Ecclesiastes 7:15-29

Ecclesiastes 7:15-29 - Daily Devotion - 19 March 2026 St Barnabas Anglican Church Fairfield & Bossley Park 15 In my futile life I have seen both of these:A righteous man perishing in his righteousness,and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.16 Do not be overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? 17 Do not be excessively wicked, and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time? 18 It is good to grasp the one and not let the other slip from your hand. For he who fears God will follow both warnings.19 Wisdom makes the wise manstronger than ten rulers in a city.20 Surely there is no righteous man on earthwho does good and never sins.21 Do not pay attention to every word that is spoken, or you may hear your servant cursing you. 22 For you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.23 All this I tested by wisdom, saying, “I resolve to be wise.” But it was beyond me. 24 What exists is out of reach and very deep. Who can fathom it?25 I directed my mind to understand, to explore, to search out wisdom and explanations, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the folly of madness. 26 And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is ensnared.27 “Behold,” says the Teacher, “I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find an explanation. 28 While my soul was still searching but not finding, among a thousand I have found one upright man, but among all these I have not found one such woman. 29 Only this have I found: I have discovered that God made men upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”REFLECTIONSWritten by Matt RadloffWhat does it look like to fear God? For the Teacher, in verse 18, the one who fears God will follow both warnings in verses 16-17. On the one hand, he warns that being overly righteous and making yourself too wise will result in you destroying yourself. On the other hand, he warns that foolishness results in an untimely end. As I read this passage, I find it easy to agree with the second warning, but I find it harder to understand the first. Of course we shouldn’t be foolish, of course we shouldn’t be excessively wicked! But why warn against being overly righteous? Surely that’s a good thing, right? Righteousness is of course a very good thing. God tells us so throughout the Bible. But we’re warned here that if we chase righteousness out of an expectation in ourselves to be perfect, we are only bound for disappointment and crushing guilt. As the Teacher says in verse 20, “Surely there is no righteous man on earth who does good and never sins”.In a way, the Teacher is half-right. We ourselves can’t expect to be so perfect that we never sin. And if we get that wrong then we will only end up in despair. But there is one man who is an exception to the rule. One man, the righteous one, who never sinned. It’s by looking to Jesus that we see the one man who was perfectly righteous, and perfectly wise. And he was destroyed. Not crushed under his own guilt, but under ours.For us, to fear God is to follow the warning of this passage. To realise that we ourselves can’t be righteous enough on our own. We instead turn to God and his solution. We turn to Jesus, the righteous one. ABOUT THE AUTHORMatt is one of our Student Ministers.