Ecclesiastes: Introduction and Themes

Introduction and Themes

Ecclesiastes 1:1-3 , 12:7b-8, 13

How much of your life is spent chasing after the wind? How much energy? How much anxiety? Think about the things you were so anxious about a yr ago that no longer matter at all, 5 yrs ago, 10. What is the point of all that you do? Of all your hustling? What’s the point, whats the end? Do you like to people watch? Mall or watch cars go by, and think every one of them is hustling somewhere for some thing . . .

How many of the things that are on your mind this morning are going to be significant in a year, much less longer? How many things on your mind today are nearly as big of a deal as you have made them out to be? What things going on in your life are you really giving too much priority? Too much anxiety?

Living a life like connecting the dots, moving from one thing to the next, never stopping to ask what picture we are drawing…

This book is one of my favorites, largely because of its continual persistent relevance to every passing culture. I hope you will be reading the book along with me, the plan is to move through it chronologically…

Most think Solomon wrote, but we don’t know for sure. The words of the Preacher, or the Teacher…

Hebrew – Qohelet Greek – Ekklesiastes Ekklesia – Church, Assembly àWords for the People of God

Qohelet probably isn’t the author, he is more like a character … introduces us to the Preacher, and summarizes

All I want to do today is introduce you to the Big Themes that We will Be Filling In as we Go

WE WANT CONTROL AND CANNOT HAVE IT

The main obstacle to living well in the world is that mortal beings consistently refuse to accept their mortality and finitude, that we are temporary, will die, and that we have very little impact on anything or control over anything really. Qohelet sets out to convince

The Bible sees the entirety of human existence largely as a failed human attempt to become “like God.” Doesn’t mean primarily we want to be big and shiny, it means we want control. We are not satisfied with the freedom God has given us, we want the freedom that God alone has, ultimate freedom, absolute freedom, control over all things, control over our lives, over our futures, over our loved ones safety, over our finances, over our security, over our relationships, CONTROL!

This problem derives chiefly from a refusal to accept divinely ordained boundaries. We see that God has placed fences around us, and think that God is holding out on us, but the opposite is true. WE GET IT HONEST.

Eden – Freedom to eat of every tree in the Garden except for one, but that wasn’t enough freedom, we wanted more control.

“You will be like God, knowing good and evil” – Ah, control, I will know more, I will have more control

Imagine if you lived out in boondocks, as they say… The kids then look at the fence and say, YOU ARE LIMITING OUR FREEDOM! WHY DO YOU GET THE CONTROL! I WANT IT! I DESERVE TO GO WHEREVER I WANT TO. I GET TO CONTROL THOSE DECISIONS, NOT YOU, but I know as soon as they leave that fence, it will be to their demise - - - Am I limiting their freedom? YEP… HUMANITY, since the beginning, has hated those fences, convinced that God is holding out on us, wanting ultimate freedom, wanting ultimate control

Control is not something that God has granted you, he has granted you much, so so much, but not control. If you think you have control over your life, you haven’t lived long enough. He alone has that, and He alone is capable of doing the right thing with it. You don’t want a world where you have control. If you have total control, God does not. If God has it, you do not.

It is against this background that Qohelet speaks, seeking to persuade his hearers of the futility of this ongoing human quest for control and thus to save them from a life that is itself defined by such futility.

ALL IS “HEVEL”

Ecclesiastes 1:1-3 , 12:7b-8, 13 AGAIN

38 Times in this book as the Key Metaphor

Vanity, Meaningless are attempts to get at the idea of the word. VAPOR or BREATH - PICTURE WORD, METAPHOR

Soap Bubble

Temporary and Fleeting & Life is a Paradox – like smoke, appears solid but cannot be grasped…

Do good get good, (GRABBED) but then . . . Train child in way he should go and goes well (GRABBED), but then. . .

Parenting – Coen – child 4, was perfect, kind, obedient, positive, loving…

My parents and the Williams - - - My brother was a difficult kid.

You ever have that happen – You think you have a grasp of something and then something happens…

Qohelet said essentially everything is like that, fleeting, and uncontrollable

We spend most of our time investing energy and emotion into either trying to control things that we cannot control, or into things that ultimately have no significance, eyes always on the future, rarely really on the present.

ACCEPT THE HEVEL, ACCEPT THE LACK OF CONTROL

The ever-more frantic pursuit of such things is accompanied by spiritual emptiness and world-weariness, as people strive to achieve what they can never possess.

Imagine dropping a mouse into a maze where you put cheese in the very middle so the mouse could smell it, but there was actually no path to the cheese. Frantic! And eventually, Depressed. This is the life of the majority.

As long as you believe that life is malleable… and long for control, you will never enjoy the gift of life that God has given you as He intends

We are like a kid on a rollercoaster who is frustrated the whole time because we can’t steer the thing, look, there’s going to be some ups and some downs whether you like it or not.

Qohelet says – The universe we inhabit comes from God’s hand and comes to us as His gift. Our lives are a gift, offered for a short period and then taken back once again. Embrace life for what it is, rather than what you would like it to be. Live it out before God, reverencing and obeying him. This is the pathway on which joy lies, EVEN THOUGH puzzlement and pain will also be found there, and there are never guarantees about how things will turn out.

We don’t like this – maybe most clearly in the matter of salvation. We want it to be like every other transaction, I pay, earn the reward.