I was reading this this morning by Philip Yancey, and I thought it spoke well to much of the current discussion/thought process.

"Is it possible that God permitted the entire tragic experiment of Israel's nationhood in order to prove a point about the visible kingdom--about any visible kingdom? Solomon, with every advantage of wisdom, power, and wealth--all good gifts from God--led his nation to destruction. Did God grant Solomon those advantages in order to put to death illusions and thus prepare the way for a new kingdom? Kingdoms of this world are built on intelligence, beauty, wealth and strength. Yet even at their best, their Solomonic best, such human attractions fail. Has not history born out that truth again and again, world without end?

A later king--one greater than Solomon, he claimed--established his rule instead among the lame and poor and oppressed and ritually unclean. He belittled Solomon's glory by comparing it to that of a common day-lily. He offered no rewards other than the prospect of an executioner's cross. Solomon's kingdom succeeds by accumulation; Jesus' kingdom succeeds by self-sacrifice. 'You must lose yourself to find yourself' was Jesus' most-repeated proverb. The world was still not ready for Jesus' kind of kingdom. Even when he returned to earth after resurrection the disciples did not grasp the difference: 'Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?' they asked, still yearning for the visible kingdom of Solomon.

The kings of Israel who followed Solomon did not learn, the disciples who followed Jesus did not learn, and what of us? I can envision the Teacher of Ecclesiastes standing before the magazine rack of a modern newsstand. 'All these body-building magazines--Shape, New Body, Muscle and Fitness--do you think flesh lasts forever? Have you no thought for the grave? These business magazines--Success, Inc., Entrepreneur--what are you scrambling for? Do you truly believe you will find satisfaction there? Mad, Lampoon, Atlantic, Harper's--I tried folly as well as wisdom, and both lead to the same place. To the grave.' In Jesus' cryptic words, which could stand as a summary for the message of Ecclesiastes, 'What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?'

Ecclesiastes has an eerily modern ring to it because we have not learned its most basic lessons. We too chase the allure of the visible kingdom."

From "The Bible Jesus Read," by Philip Yancey