Ecclesiastes: Searching for rest

A couple weeks ago we finished our study through the book of Ecclesiastes. This book is also apart of the wisdom literature in the Bible. Some quick facts:

Ecclesiastes was not written by Solomon as most think, but about Solomon by a man named Qohelet (meaning "preacher" or "one who calls an assembly" in Hebrew).
This book addresses the fact that acquiring wisdom and knowledge alone can deter your faith and lead to a meaningless life if not first accompanied with the fear and experience of the Lord. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Proverbs 9:10)

The book opens up with the words, "Vanity of vanities, says the preacher, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." This is better translated, "Vapor of vapors" and is the same thing in English as saying... more meaningless than the most meaningless thing...vapor of vapors. From the very beginning the book has a very pessimistic feel to it and some may ask why this book is even in the Bible. Well, I'm a simple, get to the point, kinda guy so I won't go into all the details of this book but rather just give you a quick overview of the point that God is trying to make through the writings of this man.

First of all, the main point of this book is that everything is vapor, meaningless, or here and gone the next without starting with the fear of the Lord as stated in proverbs, and experiencing Him in your life. This word experience is very important and Proverbs 9:10 states it "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the KNOWLEDGE of the Holy One is understanding." The word knowledge means experience. So, not only is the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom but also experiencing him in your everyday life. Everything is vapor without first having a relationship with God.

Qohelet starts out basically saying that everything will always be the same, you do not matter, and nothing will ever change so you might as well just get on board..."That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." He never mentions God at all, and this is exactly the point. This is the mentality that people end up with without having God in the picture.

Qohelet starts out in 1:12 saying that he searched for wisdom....and found it. In our day it would be the same as always searching for knowledge, reading many books, getting a degree, doing the right thing, trying to live a "wise" life, worshiping knowledge instead of God. After Qohelet attained wisdom he proclaims that "this also is just like chasing after the wind." In other words it is meaningless without God.

In chapter 2 he decides that since the attainment of wisdom was found to lead to an empty life, maybe wisdom accompanied with partying will satisfy his restless soul. Qohelet says, "I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom." He then moves on to acquiring material things... building a huge house, planting a big garden area, having all the toys to play with such as a big boat, four-wheelers, vacation home, etc... He says in 2:4-9, "I made my works great, I built myself houses, and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards...I acquired male and female servants...I also gathered for myself silver and gold...So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem (insert your city here)...Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them." He then comes to the same conclusion after filling his heart with much partying and acquiring all the material things that he desired...in 2:11 he says, "Then I looked on all the works that my hands had dome and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind." This too was found to be vapor and meaningless without a relationship with God.

Throughout the book he continues to pour out his heart and it ends with this in 12:13..."Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandment, for this is man's all." This is reinforcing the same thing that is said in Proverbs 9:10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  If you are reading this and have experienced all that Qohelet is talking about, I'm sure you too have found that all is "vapor and meaningless"- there is no LASTING joy or satisfaction apart from God.

Class notes: What is evil? What is good?

Today in class we had a discussion about good and evil. Towards the end of the class the professor left the room and told us to discuss amongst ourselves and answer the question, "what is the definition of evil?" When he returned he asked us what we had come up with and we said, "evil is the absence of good, like darkness is the absence of light or cold the absence of heat." Then he replied that this was not necessarily correct, but that a better definition of evil could be found as Augustine quoted, "evil is the deprivation of what is good." I found this to be a better explanation of evil. If you can remember in Genesis God created everything and called it good. Then why does evil exist? Well, just think, if there were no law then the law could not be broken, but with the law comes the possibility for the law to be broken. With truth comes the possibility to lie and with good comes the possibility for evil. Human beings are a special part of God's creation in that we do have the freedom to choose to consciously bring glory to God. If we did not have this choice (if Adam and Eve were created without freedom of choice to disobey God) then we would be no different than the great mountains or the splendor of the sunrise and sunset. These things have not choice whether they will glorify God, but we do. God did not create evil but man has the potential to deprave the good and use it for evil purposes; to twist what is good and make it evil. As we all know what is good can easily be abused and turned into an evil. What is good can become depraved and used for evil purposes, such as alcohol and sex to name just a few.

We also talked about how a person determines what is good. The professor gave a great example and pretended like he had an apple in each hand. In one hand was a fresh, crisp green apple ready to be eaten. In the other hand he had a slightly rotten apple with a brown spot that suggested that a worm had crawled inside. Then he told us that we would automatically determine that the fresh green apple would be the good one. He then suggested that he did not think so, and that he had come to like the taste of the rotten apple; he had acquired a taste for the rotten apple over the fresh one. He now actually preferred the rotten one over the fresh one and called it good. What I say is good can be different than what you say is good, there is no standard. The point of the example is to say that without a standard to measure what is good then what is good can never be determined. Without a standard, what is good or right would always be moving around and one could never achieve moving towards it. It would be like a train trying to get to a particular station or point and never arriving because the station continues to move around. You have to have a standard by which you measure something, and our standard is determined by God himself. Whatever God declares as good is good. This is how we identify what is good and what is not. He is the judge of such things. Remember, everything that God created is good and intended to bring him glory. We should be in the business of coming alongside Christ in restoring what has been twisted for evil purposes and abuse, leading people to him so he can renew their minds. Let us also be careful not to call something that God has declared good an evil. I know there are plenty of things that Christians declare to be evil and reject completely because of the way it has been abused and twisted for evil purposes.

Is the Bible free of error?

Biblical inerrancy: is the doctrinal position that the Bible is considered accurate and totally free of error.

In many of our circles of faith we tend to believe that the Scriptures are inerrant, or without error. Biblical inerrency is true, depending upon what you mean when you say that the Bible is inerrant. Some may say, "it simply means what it says!" But there are actually two different ways to view this subject.

Some literalist or conservative Christians teach that the Bible is without error in every way on all sorts of matters: chronology, history, biology, sociology, psychology, politics, physics, math, art, and so on. This is not true. The Bible does contain errors concerning historical dates and numbers. When encountering this truth, one has to remember that this is not even the POINT in the Bible, to present everything single detail literally without error.

The sense of inerrancy that is most in line with Christian tradition means that the Scriptures are always right (do not err) in fulfilling their purpose: revealing God, God's vision, God's purposes, and God's good news to humanity.