Only By Grace

Ecclesiastes 1 1. The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: 2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” 3 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 remembe...

In this blog, I published three articles on Ecclesiastes, two on Proverbs, and three on Psalms.  In Ecclesiastes, I wrote articles that introduced the book and presented two views of human history. The book's theme is about the hopelessness of a philosophy based on human autonomy. The key word is "meaningless." This theme is elaborated in relation to inheritance and death. The book is not easy to read. It seems to contain contradictions. Examples of such include the contradictions regarding the value of labor (1:2-3;5:18), the value of wisdom (2:15-16; 7:19), and the value of wealth (5:19:6:1).  In the end, the preacher offers the only way out of a destructive philosophy, which is the fear of God and obedience to His commands (12:13). As to the two different views of human history, the dominant perspective of nations around Israel is that human history is cyclical and they used this perspective to interpret the future of mankind. The preacher spoke of such mindset as if i...