Not Every Voice Deserves Your Ear

Solomon received the gift of wisdom. The praise of the Queen of Sheba and the wealth and opulence of a golden empire reflect just how extraordinary that gift was.

Yet his life was wrecked by competing priorities that pulled him away from God. He married a thousand women whose values did not match his own. Those voices pulled him away from what was right. Even the wisest man who ever lived discovered that not every voice deserves your ear.

Some wisdom can only be gotten from bitter experience — even if you are naturally intuitive about life. I know this firsthand. I am educated and technologically savvy, yet a scammer almost got to me. The lesson had to become personal before it truly stuck.

Ecclesiastes is the compilation of Solomon’s bitter experience. Over the next few weeks, I want to explore what we can learn from his hard-won wisdom.

We live in a world full of opinions parading as truth. The Dunning-Kruger effect defines our current moment. People with little knowledge in an area overestimate their own expertise — and then confidently explain what they don’t actually understand. Talking heads on media, both broadcast and social, shout to be heard over their own self-created noise. Self-proclaimed influencers dispense wacky medical and lifestyle advice, their expertise existing only in their own eyes. And we all know the hallway conversation where someone holds court over the news of the day, confident far beyond what their knowledge warrants.

Solomon saw this coming three thousand years ago.

“The words of a wise man’s mouth win him favor, but the lips of a fool consume him. The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talk is evil madness. A fool multiplies words, though no man knows what is to be, and who can tell him what will be after him?” — Ecclesiastes 10:12–14 (ESV)

So what do we do with the noise?

Start with Scripture itself. Preachers can tell you what they believe God means — but don’t take their word for it. Go to the Bible itself. Avoid gossip and online news stories designed to manufacture anxiety, content engineered to keep you reading rather than to inform you. When pundits tell you what to believe, set their opinions aside and find the unvarnished facts from a reliable source.

And when you encounter foolish talk — don’t wrestle with it. Don’t get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get muddy, but the pig likes it.

Let go of opinions, even your own. As Solomon asks, “who can tell him what will be after him?” If something is true, life will bear it out. If it is false, nothing will come of it. Sift everything for verifiable facts. Treat all ideas like a Thanksgiving turkey — eat the meat and spit out the bones.

Most importantly, sit with God rather than with the noise of men. Listen to his quiet voice and let it drown out society’s racket.

When you do that, you get peace and clarity.