Solomon’s Safety Pin

Solomon’s Safety Pin

Bible Blast: Read Ecclesiastes 2:18-22

Some people work wisely with knowledge and skill, then must leave the fruit of their efforts to someone who hasn’t worked for it. This, too, is meaningless, a great tragedy. Ecclesiastes 2:21

When someone needs a safety pin, it’s usually an emergency! For example, a woman may be getting ready to give a speech in front of thousands of people and just before she walks out onto the stage, the button on her skirt pops off. She grabs her skirt just before it falls to the floor and frantically says, “Does anybody have a safety pin? I need a safety pin now!”

Ironically, the safety pin was created in an emergency situation. Walter Hunt came up with it in just a few hours. He created it to pay off a fifteen-dollar debt to another guy. That guy ended up giving Walter four hundred dollars for the safety pin and the rights to re-create it. Of course, he went on to make millions with the invention while poor Walter could only watch and weep at what might have been.

King Solomon (who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes) understood what it meant to work hard and create something, only to leave it in someone else’s care. Solomon had worked hard for seven years of his reign to build God’s Temple, and he was wealthier than any other king had ever been or ever would be (see 2 Chronicles 1:12). Eventually he realized that all he had worked for would just be left to someone else to take care of after he was gone.

The book of Ecclesiastes is full of Solomon’s thoughts about how pointless it is to strive after money, things, positions, or anything temporary. At the conclusion of the book he says, “Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

The wealthiest man to ever walk the face of the earth understood that honoring and obeying God was worth more than any amount of riches.