Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ecclesiastes 1-6.

I generally find Ecclesiastes a bit depressing.  However, the writer makes some great points that we need to remember.  He writes that there is nothing new under the sun, everything that is has been and that which has gone away will come back.  When he writes that he is not referring to things like airplanes or computers.  Rather, he is talking about human behavior and motivation.  I have heard it argued that certain biblical passages do not apply today because the writers did not understand how people would behave, or think, or feel, today.  They claim that people today are different than they were two thousand years ago.  The writer of Ecclesiastes told us that such thinking is mistaken, and a careful study of history (and a closer examination of how people behave today) shows that he was correct.  A little further in he writes:
“What is crooked cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.”
I never really thought about what that meant until this morning.  This morning it hit me that this reminds me of something I have been asked from time to time by people overseeing me when I am planning a project. “What haven’t we planned for?” I always struggle with that because if I knew the answer to that question, I would have included it in the plans, which is the point the writer is making here.  We cannot say, “Well, there are seven things we haven’t included in our plans because we don’t know what they are.”  The only way we can know there are seven things is if we know what they are.  We cannot know what we do not know.  The writer is referring to the things which Donald Rumsfeld referred to as “unknown unknowns” in one of his famous quotes. “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.”  People made fun of that quote, but to me it made a lot of sense.  There are things we know, there are things we know that we do not know (for example, I know that there are apples at the grocery store, but I do not know how many apples are there, or even how many types of apples are there), then there are things we do not know that we do not know.  I cannot give an example of that last one, because if I could it would move into the category of “known unknowns”.  The writer is referring to those things we do not know that we do not know when he writes “what is lacking cannot be counted.”  

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ecclesiastes 1-6.

The writer of Ecclesiastes begins by declaring that everything is meaningless.  Really, a large part of what he has to say can be summed up by what he writes in verse nine of his first chapter:
What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;
    there is nothing new under the sun.
This counters the arguments of many who say that certain biblical teachings should no longer apply because things are different now than they were when the Bible was written.  I am not going to go into the different things where people make that argument, but a study of history will show that they are mistaken.  We may have different technology today than they had in the past, but human nature has not changed.  The author studied to expand his wisdom and knowledge.  He discovered that as he gained wisdom and knowledge he merely increased his sorrow and grief.  So, he chased after pleasure, which he found to be just as empty and meaningless.  That led him to pursue great projects, and after much toil those also led him to feel empty and unfulfilled.  He concluded that wisdom was better than folly, but that it still provided no meaning.  Ultimately, he says that we should toil at the work God has given us and strive to serve God and do good while we live.  Only that which is of God will endure.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ecclesiastes 1-6.

The Book of Ecclesiastes begins with a statement with which I have struggled, but which helps us deal with many arguments made today.  The writer, who tells us that he is King Solomon (and I have no reason to doubt him), says that everything is meaningless.  Solomon explains that everything that happens today happened in the past.  No one remembers what was done by those who came before, even if we try to teach people to record what they have done, those who come after them will forget them.   Truly learning the truth that this passage teaches us allows us to deal with those who claim that biblical teachings no longer apply because things are different now.  However, if you spend some time studying history you quickly find that things are not as different as people would like to think.  In fact, things have not really changed all that much, if at all.

So, the fact that things do not really change all that much is an important thing to learn from this passage, but how do we deal with the existential depression which the writer expresses.  Solomon writes that nothing we do really makes a difference, nothing we do changes things.  Whether we act wisely or foolishly, we are all going to die at some point.  And if we work really hard to acquire great amounts of wealth and build great monuments, when we die we will hand them over to someone who may not work to maintain them.  Even if they do, what difference does it actually make?  I could continue to write on this, but Solomon tells us “the more the words the less the meaning.”  So, I will conclude with what Solomon says in Chapter 3.  There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity.    There is nothing better than to be happy and do good while we live.  God made us for that and everything He has done will endure.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ecclesiastes 1-6.

The writer tells us that everything is meaningless, but he also tells us that there is nothing better than to do what is good and be happy.  He writes that there is nothing new, that everything that happens has happened before.  One could argue that when the first man walked on the Moon, that was something new.  But that misses his point, he means that human nature does not change.  People today are neither better than they were in centuries gone by, nor are they worse.  Sometimes we look around and think that people today behave much worse than they did in the past.  But, if we study history, we will quickly see that there have been times in the past when people were every bit as depraved as they are today.  The same is true when we think that people are better today than in the past.  The writer tells us that nothing we do today really changes anything, which makes all of our effort meaningless.  Everything we do is only temporary and we will all die, sooner or later.  Yet, he sees that a part of us focuses on eternity which leads him to conclude that there is nothing better in life than to be happy doing what is good.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Ecclesiastes 1-6.

I always find the Book of Ecclesiastes challenging.  The writer tells us that everything is meaningless, that there is nothing to be gained from striving, and yet strive we must.  However, he also tells us that there is nothing better than to be happy and do good.  Perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from today’s passage is that there is nothing new under the sun: human nature does not change.  People argue that traditional morals have become obsolete because times have changed.  They argue that we should not follow the rules laid down in the Bible because they applied to a different time and place.  However, a study of history reveals that whenever it appears that human nature has changed it is because the majority of people are following the moral code revealed in the Bible.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ecclesiastes 1-6.

While I find the Book of Ecclesiastes slightly depressing, I also find it very insightful.  When the writer tells us that we do not remember what happened in the past and that those in the future will not remember what we did, he is challenging us to break that pattern.  As a result of our failure to remember what happened in the past we think that we can reject the lessons which have been passed down to us from that past.  From time to time people think that they have come up with a new and better way to do things then have ever been thought of before.    If they had a better understanding of the past they would realize that they were mistaken.

The writer goes on to tell us that we should be content in the lot God has given us and take pleasure in it.  There is a balance in life.  I really like how the writer sums that up in the first eight verses of chapter three.  There is a time for everything.  There is a time for the good things in life and a time for those which are less pleasant.  We should not reject the times of laughter just because we experienced a time to cry, and we should not try to turn the time for grief into a time of dancing.  During the time of war and division we must remember that there will come a time for peace.