Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
Monday 15th August
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labours
at which they toil under the sun?
You may be surprised to find these words in the Bible. You might even wonder why these words are allowed in the Bible in the first place. And yet they are. Imagine that you go to visit someone and they talk like this, declaring that nothing makes sense and wondering what the point of it all is. What would your first instinct be? Would you want to fix the problem? Would you see it as faulty thinking? You might think that it is much wiser not to speak in this way. Some Christians of my acquaintance are like this – there is no room for despondency, no room for doubt in their worldview. They think that Christians must always be positive, must always be certain.
The inclusion of Ecclesiastes in Scripture gives us permission to have bad days, and to express doubt. If we pretend that everything is fine all of the time then we are fooling ourselves and everyone else, and the people we are trying to reach out to will see through us. Pray that God will help us to have a real, genuine faith which allows us to be real and genuine with others.
Tuesday 16th August
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
How are you with routine? Some people love it – they feel unhappy and insecure if they are pushed out of their routine. Others get bored very quickly and want to have lots of change in their lives. They like a bit of adventure! The writer of these verses is a bit out of sorts. He’s bored. He wants something special to happen. And yet the very thing that he is bored with is very special indeed! The rising and setting of the sun is a miracle, the wind blowing is a miracle. If these things didn’t happen then we would all be in deep trouble – as we are beginning to find out with regard to climate change. If the streams don’t have water in them – we are in trouble! So what do these verses say to us? First, it’s OK to voice our feelings (although we should watch out about complaining too much – it can become a habit!) Second, our feelings can lie to us. Have you ever experienced this? It is possible to be out of sorts when there is nothing really wrong.
In our culture, feelings seem to be king – we are always being asked how we “FEEL about things! Sometimes we can be in thrall to our feelings, they get the better of us. But if we listen to them too much we can get ourselves into trouble. What do you do when your emotions take over? Praise God that no matter how we are feeling, we can rest in the fact that he cares for us.
Wednesday 17th August
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
The writer seems to have reached a stage in life when nothing seems new anymore. He has seen it all before. New ideas come up and disappear again. A young person, full of enthusiasm, thinks that something is a new idea while someone who is older remembers a time when exactly the same idea was in vogue! It’s easy for an older to person to dismiss a new idea saying “we tried that, and it didn’t work!” and it can be really frustrating for the younger person to hear that! On the other hand, it can be really troubling for an older person to see someone making the same mistake they made when they were young. The dilemma is this: do I say something, or just keep quiet, so that they can learn from their mistake?
If you are (fairly) young – how do you react when an older person does not seem overly impressed by something that you think is great? How do you react when you want to introduce something new and an older person seems to dismiss it saying they tried that before?
If you are older (relatively speaking!), how do you cope when someone much younger than you is heading to make a mistake that you made when you were young? Today, let’s ask God to help us all live in the light of the truth that “there is nothing new under the sun”.
Thursday 18th August
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.
When life becomes too perplexing, what do you do? Do you try to find things out or do you try to hide and ignore the questions? This writer decided he wanted to find out for himself, and so he set about to study as much as he could. He set out on an adventure of study, and discovered that there were more questions than there were answers! It looks like he was also puzzled as to why has God hasn’t given us the answers! We might be tempted to stop learning and stick with what we think we know and understand. But think for a moment about the Christians you know. Whom do you admire more – someone who thinks that they know everything or someone who is willing to listen and learn?
The proverb in verse 15 reminds us that we can never know everything, and that we will never fully understand the world we live in. Are you able to live with the fact that there are some things you will never understand? Why do you think God has made things this way?
Friday 19th August
16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.
These verses are full of irony. The writer (who is known as Qohelet) is, I think, laughing at himself. He started out as a young man thinking that he would become wise and then discovered that this would never happen! Not only that he discovered some things he’d rather he didn’t know! Have you ever had such an experience? Is there anything you were once idealistic about and are now disillusioned, or just cynical?
At the end of this first chapter, we could be tempted to think that the book of Ecclesiastes is simply too depressing, and not bother reading any more. According to Tremper Longman, Qohelet is here expressing his disappointment with God, and becoming a bit bogged down in his negative thinking. Although it’s healthy to voice our disillusionment, we can get stuck in complaint. Thankfully, however, there are other voices to which we can turn in scripture. Seeking to have wisdom under our own strength may leave us exhausted. But there is a different kind of wisdom which will always refresh, always be an adventure. Over the weekend, have a look at Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians in which he says that Jesus is the wisdom of God. What does this mean for you in your life? Praise God that he has given us the gift of Jesus, the wisdom of God!
Saturday 20th August
1 Corinthians 1:20-25
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Sunday 21st August
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
Marion Carson
Chaplain
