Ecclesiastes 9:11–10:20 | Wisdom, Unpredictability, and the Choices That Define Us

Week ten of our series through Ecclesiastes finds us in some of Solomon's most honest — and most unsettling — territory. Life doesn't always go to the swift, the strong, or the smart. Sometimes the net drops without warning. Sometimes the snare comes out of nowhere. So what do we do with that?

In this episode, Mike sits down with Josh and the pastoral staff to unpack Sunday's message from Ecclesiastes 9:11–10:20. The conversation ranges from the surprisingly warm response Broadmoor has had to this often-overlooked book, to what it actually looks like to pursue wisdom before the battle starts — not in the middle of it.

The team also gets personal: What do you do when life doesn't turn out like you hoped or planned? Does wisdom come from experience, or does it come from truth — and is there a difference? And how does the gospel reshape our pursuit of wisdom, especially for those of us who are already looking back at foolish decisions we can't undo?

They also tackle one of the more provocative lines in the whole passage — Solomon's statement in chapter ten that money answers everything — and what he's actually saying (and not saying) there.

Plus, with mission teams in Phoenix, Atlanta, the Appalachian Trail, and England, the staff reflects on what it means to carry the gospel message into contexts far outside the Sunday morning comfort zone. And yes — the cat and the rotisserie chicken make an appearance.

Ecclesiastes 9:1–10 doesn't let you off easy — and neither did this conversation.

In this episode, we dig into one of the Old Testament's most honest passages, where Solomon stares down the reality of death and somehow lands on a call to live fully. We wrestled with what it actually looks like to trust God's sovereignty while still making wise, intentional decisions — and how that tension shows up in everyday life and ministry calling.

From there, we explored what Solomon really meant when he wrote that "the dead know nothing" — is he making a theological statement about the afterlife, or something more pastoral about the urgency of the life we have right now? The conversation gets honest about mortality and what happens when we actually let that awareness sink in rather than keeping it at arm's length.

We also sat with the central tension of the passage: death is certain, and yet Solomon's response isn't despair — it's an invitation to embrace the life in front of you with everything you have. And we closed where it counts — asking what this passage would say to someone in our congregation who's just going through the motions, present in body but checked out in heart.

If you've ever felt the gap between knowing God is in control and actually living like He is, this episode is for you.

We all have someone over us. A boss, a board, a government, a difficult relationship. And most of us have spent at least some energy resisting, resenting, or raging against it. But what if ancient wisdom had something better to offer?

This week, we dig into Pastor Josh's sermon on Ecclesiastes 7, where Solomon lays out a surprising curriculum for learning wisdom — and the classroom isn't where you'd expect. We talk about why Solomon says dying, mourning, crying, and rebuke are better teachers than their opposites, and what that means for people who are wired to chase the good vibes and avoid the hard stuff.

From there, we unpack Solomon's warning about anger and nostalgia — two things we don't usually put together but that are referred to as the fuel of a fool's fire. We explore how both are really attempts to control a life that isn't ours to control, and why our smoky existence often has more to do with how we respond to the world than what the world does to us.

We spend time on one of the sermon's most challenging ideas: that God entrusts us with hard days just like He entrusts us with good ones, and what it actually looks like to trust His sovereignty when you can't understand it. That leads us into the passage's most surprising warning — "be not overly righteous" — and an honest conversation about the checklist trap, where good spiritual habits become tools for trying to earn God's favor instead of resting in it.

We close with the New Testament connection from Ephesians 5, and what it means to live from love rather than for love — that obedience flows from being loved by God, not from trying to get Him to love us more.