Mark Hallock serves as President of the Calvary Family of Churches, a family of churches committed to planting and replanting churches for the glory of God (thecalvary.org). He also teaches Applied Theology at Tennent. He is grateful for 17 years of marriage to his wife, Jenna, and loves being a daddy to their kids, Zoe and Eli. He is a graduate of Denver Seminary (M.Div) and Westminster Theological Seminary (D.Min), and the author of several books, including The Shepherd Preacher, The Underdog Church-Planter, and Replant Roadmap.
Ecclesiastes doesn’t seem to get a lot of air time these days. It has the reputation of being negative, difficult, and obscure. Why did you choose to preach through this book?
One, we want to preach the whole counsel of God at our church, and this was a book we felt we needed to tackle. But it’s also a really practical book. We started about five or six months into the pandemic, when folks were really struggling trying to figure out life. A lot of broken dreams, unmet expectations… we knew Ecclesiastes would hit some of those things.
Now that I’m on this side of it, I think there are five main reasons why every pastor at some point should preach Ecclesiastes.
Number one, it’s brutally honest about the emptiness of things in this world apart from Christ. Zack Eswine, in his commentary on Ecclesiastes, says Ecclesiastes describes life after Eden and before heaven. It’s this in-between world as we await Christ’s return, as we await the new heavens and the new earth, living in this fallen place with all of its quirks and challenges, fears and unknowns. Given our context of the last year, people can relate to it.
Here’s a second reason—it deals honestly with the reality of death. Solomon, who wrote it, had it all. He sees not only the emptiness of the world—“vanity of vanities, all is vanity”—but he’s also getting older, and sees the end coming. It puts things in perspective.
At the same time, Ecclesiastes celebrates the joy of ordinary things. I love that! In the midst of the gloom, it shines light. For instance, in chapter 9:7-9, it says, “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days (NIV).” So there’s a sense in which it also brings into perspective the blessings God has given us, to enjoy those good gifts in the midst of challenges.
A fourth reason I believe we should preach Ecclesiastes is for evangelism and apologetics. We want to equip people to engage their non-believing friends. For those who say, “life is meaningless—what’s the point?” this book reveals the emptiness of the best things in this world. It allows you as a preacher to ask honest questions and get people thinking. “What is the point? You are going to die. Where is your hope? Why are you so miserable? Why is joy so fleeting?” It doesn’t always give you the answers, but it gets the conversation going in a way that’s brilliant.
All of that brings me to the fifth thing, which is that Ecclesiastes points us to the Savior, to Christ as our hope. As an evangelistic piece, Ecclesiastes uses questions as a springboard to consider why we find our hope in Christ. But also for believers, specifically this past year, when so many folks are discouraged, losing their jobs, hopeless—how do you deal with the difficult realities? This is a chance to name reality, to lament, as a way to better connect with and trust God in the midst of pain. Our church did a whole seminar on lament in the middle of this, something which came out of our time in Ecclesiastes.
I believe William Barrick calls Ecclesiastes the “Philippians of the Old Testament.” You don’t think of it being a joyful book, but over and over it hits on joy.
Interesting! This is where it’s so important how you preach Ecclesiastes. There definitely are moments of joy, but there are chunks where it’s tough. But if you’re gospel-centered, all of it's a springboard to our joy in the Lord: Jesus is better, Jesus transcends all this, Jesus is our King and he reigns over all these things.
What were some of the challenges in preaching through this text?
There are several, but here are three that rose to the top:
One, from a preaching standpoint, it does hit many of the same things over and over. It reads like a journal, not a letter, in that it’s not very linear. It can be hard to follow Solomon’s train of thought at times, and there are times when you wonder, what is going on in his head right now? How can I find a big idea in these verses that seem so disconnected from each other? The exegesis is hard work—so much reading, prayer, wrestling, chewing, in order to preach in an accurate and helpful way.
Here’s a second challenge: it can be a total downer. We joked that Solomon is Captain Negative. You just want to give the guy a hug! But that’s what cool about what Barrick said. You can live in the pit in Ecclesiastes, where it’s actually pretty hopeless, unless you see it as a springboard to point you to Christ and the gospel. Ecclesiastes does help us to lean into lament. What do you do when there is so much darkness and despair? You have to deal with it rightly, and grieve. Whereas Philippians, for me, was pure joy every week, with this book, I had to fight for joy.
The third challenge is from a hermeneutical standpoint. Wisdom literature is different. Whenever you’re teaching proverbs (within Ecclesiastes or elsewhere), interpreting them well, applying them helpfully, takes thought. Proverbs are not definitive statements, they are pithy statements about general truths that apply to life. You can misrepresent the author and the text if you’re not careful.
What have been some of the rewards of teaching Ecclesiastes?
Every week, people saying, “thank you! This was so helpful because it’s so real, so raw. Nobody talks this way—naming how hard life is. This has been my life, and I so resonate with it. I know I need Jesus.” Solomon speaks what we all think, but don’t have the guts to say. It gives us a language to speak what we already feel.
We also have a lot of people in our church who are pretty comfortable, suburban folks who were challenged to assess who and what they really love. Analyzing our loves, our idolatries, was another main theme. When we place our faith and hope in the things of this world, it’s going to be disappointing—they don’t satisfy. I think God used this book to draw many to repentance and humble faith.
Another huge one—it fueled our passion for missions. We’ve planted three churches during COVID. Ecclesiastes lights a fire. Life is really short, the things of this earth do not satisfy, the mission of Christ is what we need to be about, and it’s better than anything.
For a young shepherd, what are factors to consider when choosing a text to preach? What are the pros and cons of using less familiar books (or even unfamiliar genres) of the Bible?
There are several things to consider. What should drive you, first and foremost, is a commitment to preaching the whole counsel of God. If you are too man-centered, then week to week you’ll just reflect whatever is going on in the news. But I think you also want to be in tune with your people. Not the congregation down the street, but where are your people? What’s God doing right there?
We’ve resolved to provide a healthy diet of New Testament and Old Testament literature. We’ll do a topical series here and there, typically about our vision, but other supplementary series we do as classes, not as a Sunday morning option. I think a philosophy of the kind of church you want to grow spiritually is reflected in how you approach preaching.
Part of what we are doing is living out our conviction that the whole of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, is the story of God. We want to disciple our people from every book of the Scriptures. But it’s going to be a lot of work. You have to count the cost. When you are preaching more obscure books, there’s not nearly as much written to help you. Even finding good commentaries can be a stretch, but there’s so much gold to mine.
Let’s talk about biblical engagement. The Barna Group reports an interesting spectrum of Bible engagement among Americans, from “Bible Disengaged” all the way up to “Bible Centered.” As might be expected, the “Bible Centered” category is the smallest portion of the population. How can shepherd preachers help people move along the spectrum from disengaged or “Bible Neutral” to really engaging with Scripture?
Prayer really is step one, that the Lord would break us of our idolatry, and give us a thirst for his Word. Because the reality is, the only one who can stir affections for the Word of God is God himself. Separating the preaching and teaching task from prayer is unwise, unbiblical, and quite frankly, stupid. If we want to see God set his people on fire for his Word, then we need to cry out to him to do it.
Secondly, you can’t give what you don’t have. It’s pretty obvious to people sitting under your teaching week in and week out if you love this book, and if you love the God of this book. It comes through when you substitute expositional preaching with a surfacy, man-centered approach to preaching, filled with a bunch of funny stories and maybe a verse here and there—you’re not creating an appetite in your people for the Word. What you win people with is what you win them to. It’s both caught and taught. So part of it is my passion for the Word. Lord, don’t let my heart get cold!
And if you want people to love the Word, then they need to understand the Word, which means you’ve got to be able to teach the Word. It’s light and heat. You can’t just have passion. You need to be able to instruct, bring the text alive, and mine the depths. That’s why theological training on any level is so important. You can’t fake that.
At the very end of Ecclesiastes, in chapter 12:9-10, we see how a Bible teacher should teach the Word. It says, “Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care.” A couple things that jump out—he taught them knowledge. You can’t give what you don’t have! “Weighing, studying, arranging with great care…” These are God-inspired words. And then, verse 10 says, “The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.” What captures me is the connection between “words of delight” and “words of truth.” It’s not enough to just teach the truth, dang it! We are a people of truth, but we want to preach and teach in such a way that it’s a delight.
How are we going to help people move from being Bible-friendly to Bible-centered? We’ve got to help them delight in the Word of God. As long as it just stays in your head, and doesn’t move to your heart, to your affections and worship and joy, you’re going to run out of steam.
I think the best Bible teachers are those who teach the Word with deep care, as Solomon says, with truth and knowledge, and with a sense of delight in how they teach, teaching people to delight in the truth.
At Tennent, we are passionate about helping believers connect the dots between theology and doxology (worship), between the intricacies of biblical study and the feet-on-the-pavement way we live out our faith. Can you find connections between Leviticus and, say, youth ministry? Between Moses and missions? If you would like to learn more about integrating your understanding of the Bible with your personal worship or your ongoing ministry, check out Tennent’s philosophy of education. We would love to help you worship God with all of your heart and soul, mind and strength.