By Christian / Carmen Joy Imes
In this series, we look at thoughts from the book Being God’s Image – Why Creation still matters by Carmen Joy Imes. As there is unfortunately no German translation, we will at least deal with excerpts from her presentation in the German version of this video. This English version contains the same excerpts, but I recommend that you read the complete book.
As announced in the fourth part, we will only deal with the „path of wisdom“.
The Human Quest
If you were to ask Father Christmas what is most often on people’s wish lists, he would be unlikely to answer: Wisdom. Yet wisdom is actually one of the most important things you should acquire in life.
According to the Bible, we cultivate wisdom in two ways: First, by trusting God as th source of wisdom. And second by carefully observing the way the world works and choosing what is good.
Accordingly, we have the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs in the Bible. Interestingly, the sages are not claiming to speak on God’s behalf.
Wisdom is something we must want. We must love her and spend all we have on her, cherishinig and embracing her. IIf we don’t do this, our story could end like Solomon’s: It proves that wisdom is not an achievement to gloat over but a muscle to exercise. Or as N.T. Wright suggests: „Love is the peepest mode of knowing because it is love that, while completely egaging with reality other than itself, affirms and celebrates the other-than-self reality.“
If you now have the impression that this is a rather difficult task for clever people, then the Bible sets the record straight: „O simple ones, learn to be shrewd; O fools, gain understanding. Listen, for I speak of noble things, and the opening of my lips will reveal right.“ (Proverbs 8:5,6 BSB) Ironically, the key to discovering wisdom is recognising tha twe don’t have the answers and that we are not in a position to know what’s best. That’s really the whole point – that we learn to depend on God to show us the path to life.
Human weakness and mortality do not disqualify us from fulfilling our human destiny. Depence on God through honest prayer is the path to wisdom. The book of Psalms contain many such prayers.
Human Suffering
But perhaps it has already occurred to you that the book of Ecclesiastes is rather depressing: „All things are wearisome, more than one can describe; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear content with hearing. What has been will be again, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. There is no remembrance of those who came before, and those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow after.“ (Ecclesiastes 1:8-9,11 BSB)
And apparently the book of Ecclesiastes does not begin with wisdom but with a clear announcement of what a depressing prospect awaits us: „“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”“ (Ecclesiastes 1:2 NIV) But who said that and did the person really say it the way it is translated?
The person is called a ‚Prediger‘ in German. Hence the name of the book in German. In Hebrew it says Kohelet. This means ‚gatherer, church leader‘. In the Septuagint it was translated as Ekklesiastes, which means ’speaker in a popular assembly‘ and from which the name of the book is derived in English.
What he says in Ecclesiastes 1:2 is: „Hevel, hevel. Everything is utterly hevel„. Hevel means vaporous. It is used as a methaphor. „Everything is like a vapour.“ Ecclesiastes is not saying that everything is meaningless or ‚void‘ as it is sometimes translated. But rather ‚vaporous‘. The wisdom lies in recognising that it is beyond our ability to fully understand the meaning of life. And that if we only ever look to the future, to what we don’t have, to what will pass away, then we overlook the whole of life that is good right before our eyes.
Ecclesiastes urges us to enjoy the journey. Stop trying so feverishly to figure life out, but be grateful for moments of pleasure and satisfaction – food, drink, friends – this are gifts from our Creator.
Humans are not in a position to understand God’s ways. God does not owe us an explanation. He simply invites us to trust him. Bad things happen to good people because we live in a world scarred by brokenness. We need to learn to live with the unknown. Human mortality and the brokenness of our world means that we nee to learn to live joyfully within limits.
This is part of our being today, our destiny to be images of God and to live accordingly. But it won’t stay that way. In the next part, we will look at human in God’s new world.
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