Sermon Tone Analysis

Bible

Introduction—Deconversion

Over the last couple of decades there has been a trend that we Christians don’t talk much about: namely, the increasing visibility of something called deconversion—people leaving the faith.

If you spend much time online, you may have read of Marty Sampson, a worship leader at Hillsong in Sydney, who posted on Instagram two years ago:

“Time for some real talk… I’m genuinely losing my faith.. and it doesn’t bother me…

This is a soapbox moment so here I go xx how many preachers fall?

Many.

No one talks about it.

How many miracles happen.

Not many.

No one talks about it.

Why is the Bible full of contradictions?

No one talks about it.

How can God be love yet send 4 billion people to a place, all coz they don’t believe?

No one talks about it.

Christians can be the most judgemental people on the planet – they can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people… but it’s not for me.

I am not in any more.

I want genuine truth.

Not the “I just believe it” kind of truth.

Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion.

Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God.

Got so much more to say, but for me, I keeping it real.

Unfollow if you want, I’ve never been about living my life for others.

All I know is what’s true to me right now, and Christianity just seems to me like another religion at this point… I could go on, but I won’t.

Love and forgive absolutely.

Be kind absolutely.

Be generous and do good to others absolutely.

Some things are good no matter what you believe.

Let the rain fall, the sun will come up tomorrow.”

Marty speaks for many.

At this point I want to emphasize: doubt is not a sin.

Our reaction as Christians to our own or another’s doubt should not be fear-based anger, but love and concern.

If you are wrestling with problems like those Marty wrestled with and the problems we’ll be talking about, you’re a thinking, feeling human being.

That’s all.

There is nothing wrong with wrestling with these issues.

However, these problems do become overwhelming when we take a particular approach to them, as we’ll see.

(By the way, I haven’t found anything online from Marty since this broke in 2019, so I can’t say where he’s at in his faith.

Perhaps he is keeping a low profile because of the hostile and unhelpful reaction that he got to his doubts.)

Now this is not a new phenomenon.

People have been “deconverting” for millennia.

But this is such a significant issue that the Bible addresses it head on by including an entire book written from the perspective of the most famous deconverter of all time.

Purpose of Ecclesiastes

Who?

Who am I talking about?

Why, King Solomon, of course.

While scholars debate the issue, there is no reason not to take the words of this book as coming directly from Solomon.

Both the form of Hebrew used and the historical details are compatible with what we know of Solomon.

So I am going to assume that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes.

Oh, except for a little bit.

As you can see, this verse refers to Solomon in the third person, as a different person from the writer.

That perspective continues up to v. 11, and then starts again right at the end of the book.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the worldview expressed changes dramatically at the same point the writing style does.

The best explanation for this is that an editor took Solomon’s words and wrapped them in an introduction and conclusion as a lesson for us.

We have no idea who the editor was, but he was probably from before Judah’s exile to Babylon.

What?

OK, so Solomon is the teacher, but what is he teaching about?

What is his primary claim?

The second sentence in the book summarises Solomon’s conclusion for us: everything is meaningless.

Solomon, the wisest mind in history, delves into all the wisdom of mankind, and his conclusion is that it’s all meaningless.

Why?

But why?

Why does he come to this conclusion, what question is this the answer to?

Solomon’s burning question was: what profit is there in all our toil?

Now, I should quickly point out, because the NLT Bible doesn’t really bring this out, that there are three key features in Solomon’s question:

First, he isn’t just asking what people get from their work, he is looking for something more than that.

The Hebrew word he uses, yitron, refers to “profit;” something left over after you’ve covered your expenses; something you can save up.

Solomon is asking: does work yield more than survival?

Second, Solomon recognises that life in this world involves more than just work, so the Hebrew word he uses, amal, is a negative word, indicating the unpleasant nature of the work.

This might be better translated as “toil” or “hard labour” than merely “hard work.”

And finally, Solomon is only interested in profits “under the sun.”

Under the sun

The phrase “under the sun” is used 29 times in Ecclesiastes, and no-where else in the Bible.

However, archaeology has found it in other ancient writings, and in these, as well as throughout Ecclesiastes, it refers to what we would call the “material world,” excluding the supernatural.

Solomon focuses exclusively on the material world, and he relentlessly turns his insight on what happens throughout the material world.

This passage poetically summarises Solomon’s recognition of the terrible burden of the endless cycle of material existence.

Human helplessness

But it is not just nature that is trapped in a meaningless, endless, wearisome cycle.

Humanity, too, is trapped in this same cycle.

No words, sights or sounds can ever satisfy us.

History repeats itself and nothing ever breaks out of this toilsome wheel of existence.

History is meaningless and ignored.

Solomon is not alone in this observation.

In Hinduism our lives are bound to the wheel of “samsara,” the endless wheel of existence, and we are reincarnated again and again.

Buddhism claims that this endless cycle is an illusion that traps us.

The whole thrust of those two faiths is to escape this endless cycle, this wheel of samsara.

The necessity of a heavenly perspective

This all sounds so depressing, doesn’t it?

Is this really the Bible’s view?

I think you already know the answer to that, and if you skip to the end of Ecclesiastes itself, you will find the editor drawing a helpful conclusion:

This conclusion brings in something that Solomon has refused to countenance: a heavenly perspective.

You see, God is at work in history, so it is worth remembering the past.

The book of Ruth ends with this triumphant genealogy, demonstrating how Ruth’s hesed lead directly to Israel’s greatest King.

It is ironic that David’s son, Ruth’s great-great-grandson, denies the significance of his own ancestry.

Because Solomon is refusing to look beyond the sun, beyond this material world, he has forgotten that God can do a new thing.

In Isaiah’s prophecy God declares:

God gives a shape to history—he works in people’s lives towards a great work of redemption.

Solomon’s perspective might seem neutral, but by denying even the possibility of something “beyond the sun,” Solomon has denied himself the intellectual, moral, and emotional resources to deal with the unfairness of a fallen world.

In the coming sermons we’ll hear about the depth and breadth of Solomon’s search “under the sun.”

He searched all the paths of worldly life, and found that none of them provided meaning.

Solomon wasn’t wrong about this.