Vanity Fair: Lessons in Humility

When we hear the word “vanity” today, we usually think about somebody who's obsessed with their appearance, status, attention, or how impressive they look to everybody else. That's part of why Ecclesiastes can be misunderstood because when the ESV repeatedly uses the word “vanity,” the Hebrew word behind it, hebel, literally carries the idea of vapor or breath and can communicate something fleeting, temporary, or difficult to grasp. Ecclesiastes isn't simply warning us to stop being vain. It's forcing us to face the uncomfortable reality that so much of what we spend our lives chasing doesn't last and can't give us the lasting meaning we keep expecting from it.

Ecclesiastes 1:2 (ESV) opens with, “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” If we read “vanity” only through our modern definition, we can make the entire book sound like a warning against being conceited. That's not what the Preacher is saying. Ecclesiastes wrestles with the temporary and often puzzling nature of life “under the sun” and asks what lasting gain human beings actually get from all of our work, pleasure, possessions, accomplishments, wisdom, and striving when death eventually comes for everybody.

That's a whole lot heavier than telling us not to be materialistic, and Ecclesiastes spends a lot of time testing the things human beings still chase today. Ecclesiastes 2 describes the pursuit of pleasure, impressive accomplishments, houses, vineyards, possessions, wealth, entertainment, and greatness. Ecclesiastes 2:10 (ESV) says, “And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure.” Then comes the evaluation in Ecclesiastes 2:11 (ESV): “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind.”

That should make us uncomfortable because thousands of years later, we're still convinced the next thing will finally do it. We think we'll be satisfied when we make more money, get the promotion, buy the house, change our body, get more followers, take the trip, receive the recognition, reach the next level, or finally become successful enough that we don't need anybody else's approval. Then we get the thing we were positive would change everything, enjoy it for a while, and eventually start looking for the next thing. Ecclesiastes forces us to recognize how fleeting that entire cycle is because what we thought we could finally grab onto turns out to be vapor in our hands.

The point isn't that accomplishments, possessions, work, pleasure, or enjoying life are automatically sinful. Ecclesiastes actually tells us repeatedly to receive ordinary joys as gifts from God. Ecclesiastes 3:12 through 13 (ESV) says, “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil, this is God's gift to man.”

There's a massive difference between enjoying what God has given you and expecting those gifts to do what only God can do. You can enjoy your career without making your career your identity, appreciate what you own without allowing possessions to own you, celebrate an accomplishment without needing another accomplishment to prove your worth, and enjoy being recognized without becoming dependent on recognition to feel valuable.

That's where some of the other biblical examples we sometimes connect with vanity need to be handled differently. Solomon certainly accumulated extraordinary wealth, and 1 Kings describes hundreds of gold shields along with enormous amounts of gold, horses, possessions, and royal splendor. Scripture later criticizes Solomon for multiplying wives and allowing them to turn his heart toward other gods, but the gold shields themselves aren't presented as a simple biblical lesson about personal vanity. The larger story raises serious questions about excess, misplaced desire, disobedience, and where Solomon's heart eventually went.

Saul shouldn't be reduced to “vanity” either. His story includes pride, fear, jealousy, insecurity, disobedience, concern for his public honor, and an increasingly destructive obsession with David, but saying Saul's entire existence was defined by vanity goes further than Scripture does. His story gives us something more serious to wrestle with because Saul repeatedly shows what can happen when insecurity, fear of people, jealousy, and disobedience start controlling a leader.

Samson is another example where we need to be careful not to put something into the text that isn't there. Scripture tells us about Samson's extraordinary strength, his Nazirite calling, his relationships with women, his impulsiveness, his violence, and his repeated disregard for boundaries, but it doesn't tell us he was preoccupied with his physical beauty or masculinity. That's an interpretation we shouldn't present as biblical fact.

The Bible gives us plenty of warnings about pride, greed, status, appearance, wealth, selfish ambition, and the approval of people without needing to force those themes into stories where they don't belong, and the bigger question is what those warnings expose in us. We're living in a culture where comparison is available twenty four hours a day, and we can compare our bodies, houses, careers, relationships, vacations, clothes, parenting, accomplishments, ministries, lifestyles, and bank accounts before we've even gotten out of bed. Social media didn't invent pride, greed, envy, or the desire for approval, but it gave all of them one hell of a distribution system.

That's where Ecclesiastes still punches pretty hard because it forces us to ask how much of our lives we're spending chasing vapor. There's nothing wrong with wanting to accomplish something, earn money, own nice things, travel, take care of your appearance, build a career, or enjoy what you've worked for. The problem is expecting temporary things to provide permanent meaning. If your identity requires constant achievement, you'll always need another accomplishment. If your worth depends on attention, you'll always need somebody watching. If possessions are supposed to make you content, there will always be something newer, bigger, nicer, or more expensive waiting to convince you that what you already have isn't enough.

The Christian response isn't to reject ambition, stop buying things, delete every social media account, or pretend we don't care how we look. The harder work is examining what those things have become in our lives. Can I enjoy something without needing it to define me? Can I celebrate somebody else's success without immediately comparing it to mine? Can I accomplish something without needing everybody to know I accomplished it? Can I be grateful for what I have while still working toward something more, or does somebody else's blessing immediately make mine feel smaller?

Gratitude matters here because greed has a way of convincing us that enough is always one thing away. Gratitude forces us to recognize what's already in our hands without pretending we're never allowed to want anything else. 1 Timothy 6:6 through 7 (ESV) says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.”

That's a reality we spend an incredible amount of energy trying not to think about because everything we're collecting stays here. Ecclesiastes doesn't allow us to avoid that reality either. Wealth doesn't beat death, achievement doesn't beat death, intelligence doesn't beat death, and popularity doesn't beat death. You can build something incredible and eventually somebody else will own it, run it, change it, sell it, or forget who built it.

That isn't meant to make life meaningless. It's meant to destroy the illusion that temporary things can carry eternal weight.

Humility becomes important for the same reason because pride makes us believe we're a whole lot more permanent and important than we actually are. Romans 12:3 (ESV) tells believers “not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.” Humility isn't pretending you have no strengths, accomplishments, or value. It's seeing yourself accurately enough that you don't need to make yourself bigger by making everybody else smaller.

Wisdom matters too, but biblical wisdom isn't just collecting more information or gaining enough life experience. Proverbs 9:10 (ESV) says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” You can be incredibly educated and still live foolishly. You can know Scripture and refuse to obey it, know money can't buy lasting satisfaction while spending your life chasing it, and know comparison is destroying your contentment while opening the same app twenty times a day to compare yourself again.

Knowing better doesn't mean much if you refuse to live differently.

Ecclesiastes eventually brings all of its wrestling with work, pleasure, wisdom, injustice, time, aging, and death to a conclusion in Ecclesiastes 12:13 (ESV): “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

That's where the book refuses to leave us staring hopelessly at the vapor. Life is short, temporary, unpredictable, and impossible for us to completely control, but that doesn't mean it has no meaning. It means we need to stop demanding that temporary things give us what they were never capable of giving. Enjoy the gifts God gives you, work hard, build things, learn, travel, laugh, eat good food, love people, celebrate accomplishments, and be grateful for opportunities, but don't confuse any of those gifts with the One who gave them.

Take an honest inventory of what you're chasing and ask yourself what happens if you actually catch it. How long will it satisfy you before you need the next thing? How much of your identity depends on somebody noticing what you have, what you look like, or what you've accomplished? How much peace have you traded trying to keep up with people who are probably comparing themselves to somebody else too?

We're all spending our lives on something, and Ecclesiastes keeps reminding us that the clock is moving whether we're paying attention or not. Make damn sure you're not spending yours chasing something that turns to vapor the second you finally get your hands around it.