Bible Reading Challenge Blog

We cover a lot of ground in this chapter, yet I don’t feel like we make any progress.  The first few verses contain wisdom that farmers have known for years.  We hear that clouds contain rain, don’t let your hands be idle in the evening because your crops may fail, and don’t put all your eggs in one basket.  This is great advice, but it comes kind of in a random, non linear way.  The rest of the chapter is kind of the same.

We find whom we think is the old King Solomon telling youth to enjoy their young age because it will not last forever.  But also recognize that in whatever way you misstep, and however you do not fulfill God’s desires, at some time and in some day that will come into judgment.  In your young days you think you are invincible and that nothing can stop your momentum.  Solomon says that it will all catch up to you.  On that note we will  move on to the next chapter.

This chapter begins with something very small that can ruin a whole lot of good.  Just like it only takes on bad apple, so it only takes on dead fly to ruin perfume.  But he moves on to equate that to our lives as we go about our business there is inherent risk in all that we do.  This morning I went over to a member’s house and helped cut and carry off some wood.  It wasn’t that big of a job, but in all things, even in this, there is inherent risk.

I tend to be more of a risk taker than I am risk averse.  He speaks about a ruler that reigns and is at heart a fool, or as vs.16 states a child.  Vs. 16 can be translated as either a child or a servant.  As vs.9 tells us there is nothing inherently wrong with splitting logs or quarrying stones.  But with all of that, as with all of life, there are inherent risks that come from that exercise.

If a fool is in power then the assumption that is that even in the normal course of life you are more in danger because the person who is in charge, well, isn’t competent.  So you can go about splitting logs and everything would be fine with a strong ruler.  But if you have a fool for a ruler then even when you are splitting logs it can impact you in a negative way.  Something to think about.

I don’t mind the line that we find in vs.4: “But whoever is joined  with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.”  That is as practical and earthy as you can get.  It doesn’t matter who you think you are/were, just be sure that who you are/were has significance in the here and now.  The mighty stop being mighty as soon as their heart stops beating and their mind stops thinking.  Another nugget of truth is this in v s.11: “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong…but time and chance happen to them all.”  There is a sense that no one can feel a sense of entitlement that will last them their whole life long.  Life comes to those who carpe diem.

There is an interesting little parable at the end with a bumbling loud ruler and a wise old man who was poor.  It seems like just out of sheer power the ruler takes the day, even if the words of the wise old man were more true and more accurate to what the ruler was spewing.  But, because of the status of the poor man, he did not have the power to be heard.  The statement we are almost left with is found in vs.16: “yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heeded.”  What a sad state of affairs it is in which we find ourselves.  This is truth spoken within a context where the powerful actually do rule, while the weak and the poor are subject to those in power.

The more things change the more they stay the same…

I got lost in vss.12-13…it has to be the most powerful song for me at this time and in this place.  There is something about the statement “It is Well”, that ties everything together.   Emotively there is also a power in seeing my daughter sing it.  I can’t think of a more worshipful experience than to be in the midst of that.

When you begin this chapter you almost fall into a deep, deep depression.  I mean who says that it is better to die than it is to be born?  I mean who says that it is better to go to the house of mourning than it is to the house of feasting?  I know, a person who is in the final years of their life and sees the vanity of life as a pursuit of tenuous pleasures and knows that there has to be more to life than that.  That really is who Solomon must have become at the end of his life.  But then he throws in vs.18 and we have to pause and say: You go boy!  “It is good that you should take hold of the one, without letting go of the other; for the one who fears God shall succeed with both.”  This is a precursor to Paul’s Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

There is a repetition here of what has been said before.  There is an emphasis on vanity and how the one who works hard never gets to appreciate the fruit of his/her labors.  There is a sense that this is a book of the Bible that kind of discourages a hard nosed work ethic, but rather encourages us to stop and smell the roses periodically.  As Protestants we are known for our work ethic as a result of not thinking that our work will in any way provide a safe-guard to guarantee our salvation.  

I guess I would focus on vs.10 and say that this might be where we see a truth come out.  “Whatever has come to be has already been named”.  There is, again, almost a fatalist perspective that reminds us that our life is to be lived now.  This chapter reminds us that what we do now has an affect on all things, including whether or not we appreciate the gifts that we find in life today.

There is a lot in chapter 5 to cover, but I’m afraid I didn’t cover enough in chapter 4.  I want you to look at 4:9-12.  Stacy and I used these verses in our marriage ceremony.  It is a verse on friendship which can also be used for married life.  The value of a friend is crucial, but the value of God in a friendship is priceless.   This is what these verses reflect in the midst of lifting up an attention to injustice in the world.  If you are someone who has suffered injustice, just think of the value of having a friend who walks alongside you during that time.

Now to chapter 5.  There is a truism which is expressed in vs.10 that the lover of money is never satisfied with how much money they have.  I think I have expressed this before that when we were missionaries in Italy and making $800 a month our life was so simple and so devoid of decisions on what to do with the money which we did have.  We did not want more, but we knew for what the money needed to be spent.  We had to buy food, put gas in the car, pay our rent, and…well, that was about it.  Much of that was covered for us.  We lived in an orphanage where our food was paid for as we ate in the cafeteria, our rent was paid for since we lived in the boys quarters, and that left gas and other supplies.  Life was simple.  Not so much now.  We make so much more than that now and inevitably a thought could creep into our minds that wouldn’t it be nice to make a little more…, not because we need it, because we don’t, but just because…  The lover of money will not be satisfied with money.

For some reason I was struck today by the very first verse of this chapter.  “Again, I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun.  Look, the tears of the oppressed – with no one to comfort them!  On the side of their oppressors there was power – with no one to comfort them.”  There is a reality in society in general that if you are in power you are able to get away with things that other people would never be able to advance.  There simply is not a level playing field when it comes to life in any society, and this is especially true in our society.

I was raised in a setting where as someone who represents the majority, opportunities were provided to me that I absolutely know that people just like me, but different in some very small insignificant way, were not afforded.  I know that there are people that I went to high school whose lives are very different because of the family into which they were born, because of the experiences that they had when they were young, and at no fault of their own were in environments which stacked the deck against them from the time that they were born.  

If you are born into a ruling class, more than likely you will rule.  If you are born into a class or a group of people who have been oppressed over time you will, more than likely, find yourself in a reality in society where the cards are stacked against you.  It certainly doesn’t feel like I am at an advantage, and when things happen that put me at a disadvantage I feel it acutely.  But that is simply because my entire life I have been at an advantage so I didn’t when I was a young child growing up in the neighborhood have to worry about people stopping by and hurting me simply because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I have come to realize that many people do grow up at a disadvantage and I am blind to those realities.  The powerful are able to oppress.  The powerless have no one to comfort them.  I have tried to spend my life giving voice to the powerless, but I don’t often do it well enough simply because I like the position in which I find myself.  You have to give that up at times in order to have a voice for the powerless.

So, this is from where the words of this song came.  It is a pretty well known song and one that I have always enjoyed, and it comes straight out of Ecclesiastes in this third chapter.  

There is more to this chapter than just a song by the Byrds.  There is also the very well known statement that it is from dust that we come and from dust we shall return, vs.20.  This is a direct reference to how we were made in the very hands of God as we find in Genesis 2:7-9.  We also find in this chapter a statement by the author as he focuses on the uncertainty of the future so one might as well: “eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.” vs.13.  This chapter does focus on the here and now.  His statement that all is vanity is focused upon his view that what happens after this life is uncertain, so make sure that you take all you can from this life in regards to how you live it.

There is some truth in that, but there is also  a greater truth that we believe  in an eternal life which comes to us as result of a relationship with Jesus Christ that encourages us to live a certain way which is not to focus on our own hedonism, but rather the need that our neighbor might have.  

We have to start this chapter with vs. 24.  “There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil.”  Now that is a verse to live by!  The author states the obvious when he notices that the life and the death of the wise and the foolish are the same.  He wonders what the point is  to be wise, or we can also say to be good, if both the good and the bad, the wise and the foolish end up in the same position?  

He lists all of his works which were better and more impressive than anyone else who came before him.  He states, and I don’t think he is bragging simply because he is trying to make a point, that whatever he wanted he allowed himself to have.  It was at this point that he realized that all that he did and all that he pursued was vanity.  This word vanity describes our living our lives for ourselves and for our purposes.  This word vanity describes a life of pursuits as opposed to a life of pursuing the Lord.  When we live a hedonistic life, then it is completely vanity.  Now, we don’t always think it is hedonism, because we don’t think we are living with ourselves, but it is.

But if our pursuit is to please God,  then that is all different, but he does call even that vanity.