Here are some questions based on last Sunday’s sermon text (Ecclesiastes 9:11-18), in case they’re helpful to you for personal growth or group discussion…

• [11-12] Why do we expect the race to go to the swift, the battle to the strong, the bread to the wise, et cetera? Do you generally live according to the evolutionary doctrine of the survival (and thriving) of the fittest? In what ways, specifically? How do you feel when your assumptions and expectations about how the world should work are overturned, when suddenly something outside your control ruins what you’ve worked so hard for or robs you of what you feel you deserve?

• [13-15] Which person in this example is unusual, a surprise—the great king besieging a little city, or the poor, wise man delivering the city? (Ok, that was a really easy one!) Why is it not surprising that a great king would besiege a little city? Why is it surprising that a poor, wise man could deliver the city from such an attack?

• The poor, wise man is forgotten, and his wisdom is despised. It’s easy to dismiss a wise man if he is poor—what good has his wisdom done for him, if he can’t even make money? But Jesus is the wisest man ever to have lived, and he was poor. Many people dismiss him because of his poverty and the circumstances of his life. Look where his wisdom got him: dead on the cross! Do you know anyone who dismisses Jesus, who despises his wisdom? Have you ever dismissed him or despised his wisdom?

• [16-18] The kind of wisdom that saves people is contrasted here with aggressive power. The mighty are self-made people who look to take for themselves. The wise are those who know the God of love, who know what it means to live in a relationship with this God. Biblical wisdom is the wisdom of self-sacrificial love—the kind of divine wisdom Jesus demonstrated on the cross. “Christ crucified [is] the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23-24). Does this make sense to you? Do you recognize God’s wisdom revealed in Christ? Does it make any difference in your life? Do you wish divine wisdom would help you figure out how to get ahead in life? Are you impressed by stories of “self-made” people? Would you like to better understand the wisdom of Jesus? How would you go about getting more of his wisdom?