5 Best Investments For Your Life? (Ecclesiastes 11-12)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

How should you invest what you have?

A quick scan of Ecclesiastes 11 seems to indicate it’s nothing more than some tidbits of investment information. Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 says, ^{1 “}Send your bread on the surface of the water, for after many days you may find it. ² Give a portion to seven or even to eight, for you don’t know what disaster may happen on earth.”

Put another way, we might substitute the preacher’s words with phrases like, “Diversify your portfolio,” or “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” But there is an additional message we should consider.

When you put these words in the context of all the preacher wrote before this point, there is a juxtaposition to what he says. On one hand, it’s simple. Invest what you have so you can see a return. But these words come on the tail of some tremendous regret. So, on one hand, the preacher seems to offer a clear path to financial wealth. But on the other, he recognizes the fruits of such a pursuit are fleeting.

We can’t help but read Ecclesiastes 11 without a warning label. Yes, invest, increase what you have, diversify your portfolio, but never lose sight of what really matters.

Investments came in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, they were as simple as a goods-for-goods exchange. Other times, these goods were exchanged for a desired service. In more extreme situations, one might invest in exchange for no war and the promise of peace.

To the committed merchant, sending their bread on the waters was a commitment to a lifestyle fraught with risks, uncertainty, and promise. And the same choice merchants in the preacher’s day had to make is a similar one we have today. Sure, we may not have a ship we’ll load with goods to sail overseas, but each person has some measure of bread at their disposal. Everyone has something of value to invest. 

Where, when, and how a merchant invested told much about them. It was a statement about what they owned, valued, and the relationships they trusted. To keep it memorable, we could say that bread represented a merchant’s:

• Beliefs | Bread revealed their confidence in the process of investing and their probability of seeing a return.
• Resources | Bread demonstrated what they owned and how they earned their livelihood.
• Energy | Bread symbolized a tremendous investment of man-hours and the thousands of hours that went into filling a ship full of goods.