I want to tell you about a book I’m reading. This book had been on my radar for a while. I had heard it referenced on a number of podcasts I listen to, a couple of blogs that I read. People were highly recommending it - that not strange, but what was strange was who was recommending it. People on the left. People on the right. Pastors. Academics. I saw an interview with the author sitting down with pastor Tim Keller, and a review by the Gospel Coalition. Russel Moore of the Southern Baptists called it “the most important book in years.”

The book is called “The Righteous Mind” by Jonathon Haidt. Haidt, a social psychologist at the NYU-Sterm School of Business, is interested in how people think. More specifically, Haidt, a ethnically Jewish, politically left-leaning, and religiously atheist democrat, was interested in why people on the right politically were so irrational. The book is centred around the question of why people on the left and people on the right talk past one another, misrepresent one another, and think that each other irrational. It’s a pretty amazing book. Haidt’s major conclusion after undertaking major anthropological studies across continents, age groups and social classes, is that people think differently - process facts differently, reason differently, and argue differently, not because they are irrational, but because thinking is first and primarily an expression of one’s deeper moral inclination - what Haidt called intuition. How the heart is inclined influences what the mind accepts as rational. The reason Haidt’s book is so influential is that it basically argues against the way that we in the West have been thinking about thinking. Since the enlightenment, we’ve come to think that we are primarily rational creatures - like computers. Data comes in, is processed by reason, and adjustments to our thinking are made. Haidt proves that is not the case. Haidt provides scores of evidence that one’s moral inclination precedes reason, that we use reason not to come to justify the beliefs we are morally inclined to accept. How the heart is inclined influences what the mind accepts as rational.

I was thinking of Haidt’s book as I reflected on this last passage in this book of all books, Ecclesiastes. For Solomon, or since Solomon is referred to in the third person here some people think a later compiler of Solomon’s writings, in any case, this final passage also speaks to our thinking, and the relationship between our thinking and our moral inclinations:

Eccl. 12:9   Besides being wise, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. 10 The Preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.
Eccl. 12:11   The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. 12 My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Eccl. 12:13   The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

These last verses make two major points:

The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning Upon Which All True Understanding is Based: So We should take the practice of loving the Lord with our minds as a serious undertaking, both in how we communicate and receive truth.
The Fear of the Lord is the Conclusion to Which All True Understanding Points: so the love of the Lord with our mind will naturally lead us to proper worship and righteous living

The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Which All True Understanding is Based We cannot separate Solomon’s conclusion to his work from the process that produced it. What I mean is, in arriving at the conclusion that one ought to fear God, Solomon feared God in the process. Solomon understood that the Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Which All True Understanding is Based, in other words, he knew before Jonathon Haidt that one’s moral inclination influences our thinking. In Proverbs, Solomon writes that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge and wisdom

Prov. 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Prov. 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

There it is: the inclination of our heart precedes rationality. If our heart is inclined away from God, we will not receive the things of God, and therefore that which would be wisdom and righteousness and truth will seem to us to be foolishness, wickedness and error. In Romans 1, the apostle Paul explains that because we do not see it fit to worship God we suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and thus, as it says in 1 Corinthians the wisdom of God will seem to us to be foolishness. Thus, the orientation of our heart matters when reflecting upon the wisdom and knowledge of God - the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is why you can be in a conversation with someone, and if they don’t share the same heart inclination, you will find yourself speaking past one another and one persons common sense logic will seem irrational to the other. Haidt is right. Our rationality begins in our heart, with our will. We will not receive that which we do not inclined to believe.

How The Wise Communicate Wisdom

With Thoughtful Words: “weighing and studying”
With Careful Words: and arranging many proverbs with great care”
With Delightful Words: “The Preacher sought to find words of delight”
With Truthful Words: “and uprightly he wrote words of truth.”

Thoughtful words: ‘Weighed and studied” - taken together, “he carefully evaluated” NET. He set all things on the scales of his mind. He knew that a rash word or any hasty, unreflective sentiment would do damage to his cause. The communicator has wrestled with the truth himself. When a new observation is made, it should sink deeply into the depths of what has already been considered. The process of reflection, meditation, reflecting on your field and on your faith. Synthesize knowledge. Internalize it. Especially when it come to knowing and studying God’s word, ask the Holy Spirit to plant God’s word deep within you. Memorize it. Mull it over. Sermon prep process. Christian, are your words thoughtful? Are you a deep and careful thinker?

Careful words: “and arranging many proverbs with great care”: Solomon considered how he presented his reflections on life. He used great care in the form of his writing. Teach the truths you have internalized to many audiences: teach Sunday school, teens, the educated, the blue collar. Christian, are your words careful? Do you choose your words carefully for greatest impact?

Delightful words: The ESV rightly translates “words of delight”. Solomon’s writing is delightful in form. It doesn’t bore. “For of all I have ever seen or learned, this book [Ecclesiastes] seems to me the noblest, the wisest, and the most powerful expression of man’s life upon this earth – and also the highest flower of poetry, eloquence, and truth. I am not given to dogmatic judgments in the matter of literary creation, but if I had to make one I could say that Ecclesiastes is the greatest single piece of writing I have ever known, and the wisdom expressed in it the most lasting and profound.” American Poet Thomas Wolfe. The early church leader, Ambrose, once said to preachers, “Therefore let your sermons be flowing, let them be clear and lucid so that by suitable disputation you may pour sweetness into the ears of the people. . . .”

Solomon’s writing in also delightful in content. Even when cutting us with the daggers of the brutal realities of life, Solomon was there with the balm. Like a sailor looking out at the storm and setting his face against it, knowing that it will be his resolution that will keep him from losing his clarity in the chaos, Solomon described all of the hebel of life, all the perplexities and harsh realities, and concluded, “Be joyful”. Take from the hand of God, eat your fill, drink with merriment and enjoy your family and your work. Delightful. Christian, are your words delightful? Both in form and in content?

Truthful words: Solomon has never shrunk back from telling us the harsh realities of life. He told the truth. Describing the realities of the rebel of our lives. Life is short, perplexing, harsh, unfair, unjust, vexing. That’s they way it is. Life is pain your highness, and anyone who says differently is selling you something.

That’s an amazing filter of all of us who wish to communicate truth. Before you post on social media: Are my words thoughful, careful, delightful and true? Before I preach: Are my words thoughful, careful, delightful and true?

What Truth Does to Those Prepared to Receive It

Truth Goads Us: “The words of the wise are like goads”. A goad is a pointed stick used to drive cattle in the desired direction. It prodded. It hurt. To get to truth we must risk offending and being offended. We’ve supposed the exact opposite in our culture; that the truth must no...