Eat, Drink, and Be Merry – Ray Ortlund Book Review

This book is a call for wise, bold enjoyment. Is it this? Well, mostly. Bold enjoyment certainly shines through. As for wisdom, sometimes I think that gets lost in the mix.

I don’t think that this is because Ortlund is wrong in all that he’s trying to say. He’s right that nothing God made is evil, and that what God has given for us to enjoy should be received with faith and thanksgiving (chapter 6). However, the “wisdom” Ray provides isn’t exegetical (from the text). It’s founded primarily on experience, albeit his Christian experience.

Ray certainly does exegete in parts of the book. Often at the start of a chapter, and especially the first five chapters as he explores Ecclesiastes 11:9-10. At first, I thought the problem was that he wasn’t doing exegesis at all. Then I realized that the problem was more subtle. I think Ortlund exchanges the contextual wisdom of these verses (contextual wisdom being the rest of Wisdom literature) for something else, namely, his life experience of God’s grace and his own progress in the faith.

Reading this book feels like reading an edited version of Ray’s journal. Chapters feel like blog posts, stitched together. It’s like a set of passing thoughts from another Christian, useful to think through, but not something to build the Christian life on. Is this bad? Not necessarily, I’m sure some readers will resonate with it. The problem is it struggles with coherence, and I can see people reading this book and coming to wildly different applications of it.

Beyond exegesis, I’m not sure his understanding of Ecclesiastes as a whole is accurate. Ray writes, “…God gave us Ecclesiastes to convince us that we really can walk each day in his ‘newness of life’ (Rom. 6:4).” I’m not sure I agree with that at all, but that’s worth a far longer post than I want this to be! I’ll just leave this here as a passing thought for you to consider.

Still further, past all this, there’s a deeper, more theological problem.

Throughout the book, delight in Christ as primary is affirmed. Yet enjoying Christ above all, like wisdom, seems to get lost in the mix. I don’t think enjoying Christ is the driving force behind Ray’s point. The enjoyment of God’s creation (God as Creator) is primary. This appears most clearly in chapter 3, where Ray talks about enduring hardship. His answer to the how to endure hardship isn’t centred on Christ. It’s centred on what we realize about ourselves as God has created us (see my comments below on chapter 3). Don’t get me wrong, enjoying God’s creation in every moment is a very overlooked and glorious truth. I actually think Ray does a good job explaining and defending it for most of the book. It just loses its lustre if Christ is set to one side.

Chapter 5 and 6 are an attempt to realign the focus, but I think they’re insufficient. In chapter 6, Ray summarizes the Gospel, and the level of this to-one-side-ness is concerning:

Here is the gospel: Because of God, everything created is good. Because of us, everything created is marred—including our responses to everything created. Because of Christ, everything created can be redeemed.

That’s true, but I think it’s imbalanced. I wonder if you agree?

Another major theological imbalance comes at the end of chapter 7 and the conclusion. Talking about heaven, Ray says that humans are constantly seeking joys beyond what they have now, and then he says that heaven is the place where we will “obtain gladness and joy.” So far, so good. But then comes there lines…

If we were pleasure-seekers in this life, we will be deluged with holy pleasures. If we were money-lovers in this life, we will inherit true wealth beyond all calculation. If we were power-hungry in this life, we will stand tall with majestic royalty. Everything worthy will be given to us forever, wave upon wave of endless happiness as our “new normal.” We will obtain gladness and joy as solid, personal realities, gladly given by Jesus, with overflowing abundance.

I can see an argument that Ray is saying that only those things that are “worthy” will be enjoyed. That the “pleasure” he refers to is “worthy” pleasure. Though, I don’t know how one makes that argument with money and power. What justification or clarification does Ray give for this? A footnote referencing Jonathan Edwards:

I take these thoughts from Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, “Persons need not and ought not to set any bounds to their spiritual and gracious appetites,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 14: Sermons and Discourses 1723–1729, ed. Kenneth P. Minkema (Yale University Press, 1997), 548.

I cannot access the full sermon from Edwards (Yale isn’t very nice in allowing that). However, from the quotes I find online, Edwards is speaking about spiritual joys, not the joys of money and power and pleasure (Ecclesiastes 5:10). I wonder if Ray was trying to be triggering in order to get the point of his book across, but I think in actuality, whatever the intent, it’s a poison injected at the end into the heart of his book.

Let’s look at the conclusion…

Ray critiques the Prosperity Gospel and the “Severity Gospel.” He wrote,

If you have settled into his joyous wisdom, you won’t fall prey to “the prosperity gospel.” I mean that foolish idea that, if you believe in Jesus, he promises you health, wealth, and power here in this world. What a slap in our Lord’s face! And what a waste of your life! Prosperity teachings “get” the goodness of this life. They can seem appealing. But they would rob you of Jesus, and they wouldn’t even keep their worldly promises . . . Any “Christianity” that treats Christ as a stepping-stone—the wisdom of the Bible warns you to run from it, as from a doomed region!

…

The prosperity gospel cannot face the futility of this life. The severity gospel cannot accept the pleasures of this life. But if you have settled into the joyous wisdom of Ecclesiastes, you are now following Christ into freedom, gratitude, contentment, adventure, and bold enjoyment—all by his grace.

Now, I wouldn’t have anything to say negatively about this if we hadn’t just read chapter 7. Ray is right – to “treat Christ as a stepping-stone” to other pleasures is a slap in His face, and a damned pursuit. The problem is that Ray adds “in this world.” Are we not anti-Prosperity Gospel not only in this world, but also the next? If I seek for prosperity here on this earth through Jesus, or treat myself severely for Jesus in order to gain riches in the next life, or do neither but set my heart on the pleasures Christ will give me with Him in heaven, do I still not suffer from the poison of the love of money?

One last note. At the end of chapter 7, Ray wrote,

Sadness is temporary, parasitic, defunct. Joy is permanent, ultimate, original. And our happiness will devastate our sadness.

That helps even now, doesn’t it? It can give us a daily, rugged, “gospelicious” steadiness, as we walk through this heartbreaking world, trying to do some good along the way.

There’s a lot I could write about that. I want to focus in on one thing that wasn’t ever answered in the book. What about the sad Christian? What about the melancholy Spurgeon? The suffering Calvin? The depressed Luther? The pressed down but not destroyed Paul? The weak Christian? The frightened martyr facing the fire? What about us? What about the author of Ecclesiastes? What about the time for mourning? What about the one who says that “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad?” What about those who struggle with hatred for their lives? What about those whose lives are full of sorrow and vexation? What of those who cry “Oh so many die!” Or “All that comes is vanity!”

I don’t think Ray gives an answer in this book. He’s advice is to just let joy “devastate” sorrow by enjoying more things as gifts God gives. How can this feel so… off? Ecclesiastes isn’t just speaking to the shortness of life (something Ray seems to restrict it to). It’s speaking to the vanity of it all. Ray doesn’t touch this. It really poisons the whole book. You’d be far better off reading Ecclesiastes.

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Apart from the general review above, let me add some thoughts as I went through, chapter by chapter…

From chapter 1:

The opposite of “the orgy” of the world’s “insanity” is not “legalistic, religious austerity.” Sinclair Ferguson, in his book The Whole Christ wrote,

Perhaps the greatest misstep in thinking about antinomianism is to think of it simpliciter as the opposite of legalism. . . . for antinomianism and legalism are not so much antithetical to each other as they are both antithetical to grace. This is why Scripture never prescribes one as the antidote for the other. Rather grace, God’s grace in Christ in our union with Christ, is the antidote to both.

Does Ray miss this? Not entirely, but I think calling out the idea that they are opposites would do us well. For, as Ray says in the next line, “…both the drunken joyride and the dark monastery will break our hearts.”

From chapter 3:

In this chapter, Ray tells the story of Richard Williams. Williams died of “cold and starvation” on the high seas. Ray included his last journal entry, which read “Should anything prevent my ever adding to this, let all my beloved ones at home rest assured that I was happy beyond description when I wrote these lines and would not have changed situations with any man living.”

What was Ray’s application of this story?

Williams’s heart was cheering him. Only Jesus can do that. When your supply ship doesn’t arrive and your surroundings press hard on you, he can come to you with his felt presence. He can make you decisive, settled, bold—and even “happy beyond description.”

There’s only one problem. How? This is where I think Ortlund falls flat.

To this point, there’s been no genuine exegesis of Ecclesiastes. He’s quoted the verse, and said what he thinks about it. This isn’t wrong necessarily, but when you’re telling Christians to be “happy beyond description” some good exegesis and a good answer to the How? question would be nice. So what’s the answer Ortlund provides here to the How? question?

There’s a beautiful little line to start with: “God made you. And when God made you, he was having a good day.” That’s true, and actually made me laugh with its good truth. The next paragraph is not so delightful. Let’s just quote it entirely below, then walk through it.

Let that truth sink in. It means God himself has something at stake in your existence. He has a purpose for you, a calling for you to fulfill. It means your foundational, God-created you—your personality, your body, your abilities, your individuality—the you God created is not a problem but a strategy. You exist as you for nothing less than the display of God’s glory here in his world. You—yes, you—are essential to God’s plan for your generation. If you were not essential, God would not have created you. You’re here for a good reason. I’m not talking about your job. I’m thinking about your destiny. God’s purpose for you will outlast the whole world. Let your heart cheer you with that ennobling realization. And never give up!

It is true that we have a purpose. It’s true that God created us from a purpose. It’s true that God made us with intention. However, is God’s strategy really the best way to describe us? Why do you exist? Ortlund responds: Because God wanted to use you strategically to display His glory. Before you get ahead of me, there is truth in this. God’s glory is displayed by all His creatures, and by everything He has made, including us. However, what I’m critiquing here is Ortlund claim that this display is THE reason we were created, and the answer to the How? question.

We’re going to display God’s glory forever. That’s our destiny. That’s the reason, says Ortlund, for our existence. Because of that, we can feel noble, and therefore never give up! See the problem? Facing cold and starvation, the thought that will comfort me is that I was created for the purpose of displaying God’s glory? I don’t think this is the answer to the How? question that the Bible gives.

God displays His glory in everything He has created, but He communicates His glory to His special creation, human beings. In the garden, He did that. Forming man and woman after He had created everything else, so they could enjoy all of it as a gift from Him. He gave them freedom of joy, and walked with them in the garden so that they could know Him personally. He pursued and wooed them when they sinned, and promised them deliverance. That deliverance would be the greatest display of God’s glory imaginable – God the Son, lifted up on the cross. Why is that the greatest display of God’s glory? Because it’s the greatest communication of who He is, of His love. It’s personal, relational not functional. That’s a better glory, and a better motive for joy.

I’ve written extensively about this here, and written a similar critique of Rick Warren here.

From chapter 4:

Good quote:

In this world, good and evil can get mushed together in a confusing mess. God sees that. He sees it perfectly. He is the only one not confused. So in Ecclesiastes, “judgment” is God separating good and evil, vindicating what is right and exposing what is wrong: “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Eccl. 12:14).

From chapter 6:

Good quotes:

Ecclesiastes isn’t like that weird uncle at the family reunion we have to put up with. The whole Bible shouts a hearty “Amen!” to Ecclesiastes.

Our modern worldviews too can be built on conflict as bedrock existence—Marxist class struggle, for example.8 Let’s make sure that darkness doesn’t rub off on us!

From chapter 7:

Good quote:

Why did Isaiah tell us that? Because our joy will not be “worked up” by us. It will come down upon us. Our joy will not be our willpower striving up to God. It will be God’s grace smiling down on us. Our joy will not be a subjective wish-fulfillment. It will be an objective reality.

And we will not have to keep it up somehow. It will keep coming down on us in endless freshness and fullness. This joy will not be our achievement. It will be his bestowment. It will not be our mood of the moment. It will be the endless gift of God.