09/08/2026
My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, and I pray you are in Christ.
Ecclesiastes is one of those books we often visit in fragments, a funeral reading here, a familiar verse there, yet when you sit with it as a whole, it speaks with a depth that is almost unsettling. The opening line of chapter one sets the tone: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
Solomon, and I take the Scripture at its word that it is Solomon, is not being dramatic for effect. He is holding up a mirror to the human heart. And before we can understand what he means, we must understand what vanity truly is.
The dictionary gives us the surface meaning: excessive pride in one’s appearance, abilities, or achievements. But Scripture goes deeper. Vanity is the emptiness that comes when we place ourselves at the centre, when our wants, our comforts, our ambitions quietly begin to outweigh the needs of others and the call of God. Tom Wolfe captured something of this in The Bonfire of the Vanities: the chaos that erupts when self preservation becomes the highest law. I often wonder whether he had Ecclesiastes ringing in his ears.
My old Geneva Bible summarises the chapter simply: the uselessness of human pursuits. And the New Testament echoes the same warning. The rich young ruler walked away sorrowful because his wealth mattered more than Christ. The Pharisee in the temple prayed loudly, not to God, but to his own ego. Paul says it plainly in Romans 3: “There is none righteous, no, not one… there is none that seeketh after God.”
Vanity is not just pride. It is the quiet habit of putting self first.
When I look back to August 1976, fifty years ago now, I see a young man who genuinely wanted to follow Christ, but who also, if I am honest, enjoyed the feeling of being seen to follow Christ. I suspect most of us have lived that tension. Very few acts of kindness are entirely free from the little glow of self approval.
But here is the glory of the Gospel: if you stay with Scripture long enough, if you wrestle with it, obey it, and let it shape you, it slowly burns away the “look at me” instinct. The vanity begins to die. You stop asking, “How does this make me appear?” and start asking, “How do I follow Jesus faithfully?”
And following Jesus is not always straightforward. The disciples discovered that it meant speaking the Gospel to anyone who would listen, even those society said they should avoid. It meant breaking religious expectations, crossing boundaries, and sometimes losing everything they once held dear. It meant becoming servants, not masters.
Paul tells us that Christ Himself led the way: “Who, being in the form of God… took upon Him the form of a servant.” (Philippians 2:6–7). If the Son of God chose the lowest place, how can we cling to the highest?
After fifty years, I still fail at this lesson. Vanity creeps back in. Pride whispers. But I persevere. And I commend the same perseverance to you.
Sometimes being second is exactly what God asks of us. Why? Because it shows that He is first.
Ian Thompson
Pastor Bootle Protestant Free Church
