ECCLESIASTES 9.13-18

13. I have also seen wisdom under the sun on this wise, and it seemed great unto me:

14. There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it.

15. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom [could have] delivered the city; yet no man remembered [thought about] that poor man.

16. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.

17.The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the cry of him that rules among fools.

18. Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good.

The thread continues as Solomon relates a parable about a poor wise man whose wisdom, according to the alternative translation, could have delivered the small city where he lived from the attack of a powerful king -- if only the leaders of the city had remembered or thought about that man and sought his advice in time.

Perhaps the attack on the city was provoked by the unwise actions of the city leaders – actions which would have been different had they bothered to seek out the poor wise man and include him in their noisy debate about what to do. Perhaps the problem was provoked by the one sinner mentioned in the last line, one lawbreaker or one chronic but neglected problem.

A simple lesson along that line, that modern business is learning, is the need to tap the wisdom of even the lowliest members of an organization -- to consult the production line workers, understand and exploit their insights into a problem situation, and listen to their creative ideas for solving it.

Notice that the arrogance of those in authority may be such that the poor man’s wisdom is actually despised – probably for no better reason than where it comes from, a common situation the business world, where expensive outside consultants may end up making suggestions that have already been proposed by employees, but rejected out of hand as unworkable by unwise executives.

The important principle of prevention-rather-than-cure, which may be found here, finds widespread application in matters of health – where the wise man quietly takes basic measures to preserve his health, paying attention to diet and nutrition, taking regular exercise and managing stress effectively. The majority, however, feel that they can safely ignore such maters -- until one day disease attacks, like the king in the parable, with microbes as its foot soldiers, and puts their lives under siege. Perhaps it is too late for wisdom, and in panic they look for weapons of war, the knife of the surgeon and the crude power of drugs, now recognized as a major contributory cause of death.

Many important principles are packed into each one of Solomon’s parables -- and here, for example, we can also find the importance of a definite purpose. Although the king was great and powerful, he evidently saw a need to conquer this apparently insignificant little city, possibly because, as the parable suggests, it was poorly governed and could be a potential source of trouble. As a result its conquest became a definite purpose – and a realistic strategy was drawn up for its capture, no doubt supported by specific tactics. Notice, of course, that the king did not attack the city himself, but as leader of a well-organized and properly trained and equipped team, an army.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war, says Solomon, and Churchill said that “jaw, jaw is better than war, war” -- yet even today protagonist in industrial dispute often seem to prefer conflict to patient discussion and negotiation.

Similarly, cooperation is better than conflict, education and creative planning better than brute force and ignorance and appropriate technology far more productive than manual labour. Nevertheless, in many parts of the world we still find societies racked by conflict, with their uneducated populace held in bondage to mindless manual labour.

Solomon seems, however, to have a more important lesson hidden away in this second parable – one that seemed great to him. One the one hand we see a king, with a highly organized and well-trained arm, skilled in warfare, working together to win a rich prize. On the other hand we see a group of disorganized and rowdy individuals, shouting and rushing about, apparently taken by surprise, unprepared for emergencies and unable to get their act together – despite the existence in their city of a poor wise man who has been ignored, one whose wise advice could have totally reversed the situation and brought them victory instead of defeat.

Taken in conjunction with the previous parable, the key lesson, the principle that so impressed Solomon, may be that success in life is best sought, not as a loner, a striving Koheleth, but as part of a team, a family, a community, a business, an institution, a corporation, a group of like-minded individuals working together in harmony for the achievement of a common goal. Perhaps the length of this section is an indication of its importance in Solomon’s eyes.

Such a group enterprise requires capable leadership and wise management -- one that values the innate creative potential of each member of the group and encourages them to develop their individual aptitudes and skills to the highest level possible. Such, in fact, are the matters that Solomon appears to address in the sections that follow as he explores principles now familiar to the world’s top business consultants, yet still ignored in many businesses, even nations apparently.

Incidentally, it is interesting that the leaders of many powerful and successful modern corporations are not forceful individuals with loud voices, like the foolish leaders of the small city, but more like the poor man in the parable, reserved, low-profile, patient and methodical – and wise.

Perhaps it is significant in the light of these first two parables, which contrast individual and group activity, that a large business is often called a “corporation”, a metaphor that likens it to a living organism or body – just as Paul depicts the Church as the coordinated body of Christ, with the members as the individual limbs and tissue, making up the eyes and ears and other organs, with even the individual cells providing body warmth, all working together in harmony for the achievement of a common good.

Many more principles can probably be drawn from Solomon’s parables. For example, although the poor man was a wise and evidently gifted to be a strategist or planner of some kind, he did not apparently possess the ability to accumulate money for himself. Most of us, it seems, are gifted to work as part of a team.

The poor man lived in a city, which is a social organization with no major goal beyond being a pleasant place to live, whereas the king had a vision and led a trained army on an organized mission to conquer and subdue that city.

In a creative reversal of the kind we are expected to apply to Solomon’s writings, we might ask why the king was attacking the city rather than coming to assist, support and improve it – which is, of course, precisely how he should have been applying his power and entrepreneurial and leadership abilities, and precisely the lesson that those who wish to qualify to rule with Jesus Christ in the coming Kingdom of God must learn, as he himself makes clear when he says, Quote: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” ( Matthew 20:25-28).

Even in business this principle applies, as the best training for a future executive is to learn the business from the bottom up, and to be promoted on the basis of his achievement and service to the company and its customers rather than paper qualifications alone.

Similarly, those who have been enrolled in God’s executive training programme are expect to serve and achieve now, not to try an earn their salvation which no man can do, but to fit themselves for their high calling and to demonstrate their commitment.

Again, Jesus, for whom Solomon’s king is both type and anti-type, makes this clear when he says, Quote: “Then the King will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father – take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Matthew 25:34-36).

Further details of that training programme are given just a few verses earlier in Matthew’s gospel in the parable of the talents -- where Jesus is clearly the wealthy man who went on a journey and entrusted his servants with various amounts of money to manage, five talents to one servant, two to another and one to another. After a long time, a time which has not yet in actuality reality expired, the man returned and rewarded the servants according to what they had achieved. (Matthew 25:14-28).

Additional details again are found in the parable of the pounds, in which the servants are rewarded with executive authority in proportion to what they have achieved, one being given rulership over ten cities and another over five (Luke 19:11-26).