TO BEGIN WITH:
My politics
and my personal beliefs have pushed me into unexpected sources of knowledge. My politics made it necessary to learn as
much as I could about the Koran so I
would better understand Sharia law. This hopefully would give me an
understanding of those who would harm others in the name of their Islamic
faith. My personal beliefs put a halt to
this endeavor. I am a convert to
Christianity, but due to a lack of study in my younger years, I neglected to
read and understand the Old Testament and its relationship to my beliefs. I was hit with the fact that I could not in
good faith delve into the Koran without getting through the Old Testament at
least once. One of the other aspects
leading to the discovery of this particular book, The book of Ecclesiasticus, was my return to Catholicism and the
Catholic Bible. The book of
Ecclesiasticus, also known as the Wisdom
of Jesus the Son of Sirach, is missing from many if not all of the Bibles I
read during my trek to Christianity. The
relevance of this book also struck home with me in terms of what is going on
with our society and our national political positions. The more I read in this book the more
relevance I saw. This book not only
spoke to my spiritual life, but even more so, to everyday living
experiences. Many of my writings have
originated out of the desire to pass things on to my grandchildren and of an abhorrence
of the hatreds within our society. This
book speaks to those desires and I hope this writing will prompt you to
investigate its possibilities in your own lives. Due to the enormity of Ecclesiasticus, I will try to limit my thoughts to what I
think may help my progeny and the roots needed for good ethical, productive,
God fearing lives. The need for God in
our lives, to me, is the foundation of Wisdom. Should you disagree, you have that choice.
As our
country and the documents that it was founded upon are being attacked and
disregarded, we might ask why. The
United States has gone through birth, childhood and is now in the state of
adolescence. We are at a critical time
in the life of our nation, a period of growth which runs parallel to one of the
primary aspects of most teenagers, that of rebellion. That rebellion
exemplifies questioning the intelligence and controls put on us by our
parents. As teenagers we all think that
we are smarter, we want more freedom to choose our activities, and we basically
want what we want, and want it now. What
if our country and our society are in the throes of adolescent struggles to
have whatever feels good? Disregarding
rules and beliefs in favor of self-gratification can always be justified by
some form of rationalization.
What if, in
our denial of pathways of the past, we have put our people, our society and our
country in peril? What if the God of the
past was real and held mankind accountable at that time, as stated in the Old
Testament? What if He were the same
today as He was yesterday? What if He
were to hold our nation, our people and our society accountable for the things
the prophets of old warned about? The
book of Ecclesiastes states that there is
nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Is history repeating itself once again?
The God we read
about in the Old Testament gave His people ample opportunities to obey and
follow His precepts. The major problems
seemed to occur time and time again. If
we take the time to compare then to now we can see where in His eyes we have
moved off the path. The people of the Old Testament were blessed when their
feet were on the path and were met with violent retribution when they continued
to stray. If God is real, our world of
today may be in for some tough times.
Suppose that in order to save our country and our way of life, we need
to recognize God, recognize our misbehavior, ask for God’s forgiveness, and
actually change our direction.
What if God
is real and He is not pleased with our current state of divergence? Our form of government was born during a time
of turmoil, not without its own birth pains. In an effort to move from under Britain’s
thumb, the “Fathers” of our country’s government conceived the documents that
allowed for our emergence from the womb.
Not all of them believed in the same definition of Our Creator, but all
agreed to that term as part of our Declaration of independence and within our
Constitution. A belief in God as our
Creator most certainly has an effect upon our sense of Ethics in a positive
manner. An underlying use of the Ten
Commandments as a basis of our law has a similar effect. My own life requires that I seek Wisdom and
that requires truth. One of those truths
is as simple as this:
The
book of Eclesiasticus is a practical guide for an ethical and productive life,
regardless of your beliefs or disbeliefs.
COMMENTARY
REGARDING ECCLESIASTICUS CHAPTER 1
1 The
Prologue of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach. Whereas many
and great things have been delivered unto us by the law and the prophets, and
by others that have followed their steps, for the which things Israel ought to
be commended for learning and wisdom; and whereof not only the readers must
needs become skilful themselves, but also they that desire to learn be able to
profit them which are without, both by speaking and writing: my grandfather
Jesus, when he had much given himself to the reading of the law, and the
prophets, and other books of our fathers, and had gotten therein good judgment,
was drawn on also himself to write something pertaining to learning and wisdom;
to the intent that those which are desirous to learn, and are addicted to these
things, might profit much more in living according to the law. Wherefore let me
intreat you to read it with favour and attention, and to pardon us, wherein we
may seem to come short of some words, which we have laboured to interpret. For
the same things uttered in Hebrew, and translated into another tongue, have not
the same force in them: and not only these things, but the law itself, and the
prophets, and the rest of the books, have no small difference, when they are
spoken in their own language. For in the eight and thirtieth year coming into
Egypt, when Euergetes was king, and continuing there some time, I found a book
of no small learning: therefore I thought it most necessary for me to bestow some
diligence and travail to interpret it; using great watchfulness and skill in
that space to bring the book to an end, and set it forth for them also, which
in a strange country are willing to learn, being prepared before in manners to
live after the law. All wisdom cometh from the Lord, and is with him forever
. ECCLESIASTICUS 1:1
This is an acknowledgement by the original
translator that holds true universally when seeking the truth of what we are
discovering, what we are being taught and what we imagine. When we absorb information into our belief
structure that will dictate our future action or inaction we need to understand
the frailty of our interpretation. It is
almost impossible for any of us to correctly understand another person’s truth
because it is made up of so many different life experiences. The only thing that we can really take as
Gospel is just that, Gospel. When we
listen to what our teachers, our parents, friends and leaders say we need to
listen and relate it to what we see in their lives and in their history. We have so many interesting studies of
dichotomy available to us in today’s society it is as if the Son of Sirach were
talking to us face to face.
We need to be
constantly aware that teachings are most generally colored to agree with the teachers’
beliefs rather than the facts and truth. Do not be afraid to
question and seek alternatives.
Beliefs are frequently formed by ideological propaganda and
then passed on as truth. We see that in
our national discourse on a variety of topics.
In the days that this book, (Ecclesiasticus), was originally written the
spread of prevarication, propaganda and miss information was at the pace of a
tortoise where as today it is at the speed of thought. Most of us do not have or do not take the
time to research the avalanches of information that bombard us daily. Just try and imagine the volumes of
information that we live our lives by, and forming opinions that are truly fallacious. We can choose to be living a life of
ignorance or one of informed study of the probability of factual basis for our
beliefs. Our perceptions of truth are weakened and turned throughout our lives
and it is by chance that we stumble upon factual truths.
A fact of life is that we live a good portion of our lives on
faith, acting on what we know cannot be proven by any of the five senses but
just because it makes more sense to believe it than to doubt it. Sometimes those faith based belief systems
are stronger than what we experience sensually.
In my own case it is very difficult, I believe in God not because I have
seen, touched or heard him but because of enough faith based evidence. I have seen prayers answered, and I have seen
needs addressed with and without prayer. I see a universe that exists without
any means of origination other than that of creation, which would require a
creator and for all practical purpose most of us call that, God. There are other indicators of Gods existence such
as the order of life, and the evolution of plants, animals and organisms that cannot
honestly be explained by happenstance. That
puts my reliance on faith based beliefs at odds with my habitual search for
factual truth and it also feeds the bit of skepticism that forms my
questions. Once again God answers my
needs way before I knew I had them.
Throughout the first chapter the theme is
strongly put forward that true knowledge
is really only available to God, the rest even scientific knowledge, is not
known in totality. (There
is one wise and greatly to be feared, the Lord sitting upon his throne.
ECCLESIASTICUS CHAPTER 1:
(see v 1 above)
30 Exalt not thyself, lest thou fall, and bring
dishonour upon thy soul, and so God discover thy secrets, and cast thee down in
the midst of the congregation, because thou camest not in truth to the fear of
the Lord, but thy heart is full of deceit.
