WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT? WHAT AM I DOING HERE?

The Teacher doesn’t want people to become so attached to life here on planet earth, that they become convinced this is all that there is. The Teacher as he calls himself in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, paints a dreary picture of life as a drudgery. Perhaps it is overkill. There is an accuracy about his observations however. He views everything as meaningless, and that is partly because he views all of life as cyclical and recurrent rather than unique and progressive.

The world experiences the turnover of generations, the repetitive cycle of the sun, the endless incessant pattern of wind currents, the perpetual round of rivers to the sea becoming vapour and rain and then seas again. The writer's own familiar words in Ecclesiastes 1:4-7 are these:
"Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever."
"The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises."
"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."

Always there are questions. What is it all for? What’s it all about? What is it good for? Why am I here? What am I doing? It’s a bit of a set up really because the Author is going to give an answer. The author's intent is not to cast a pessimistic pall over the reader's life, but rather to improve our understanding of priorities. In the previous post I recited verse 3 which asks, "What do people gain from all their labours 
at which they toil under the sun?" Under the sun is a key idea and it means in this present world. God has not intended for us the live life with an exclusive 'under the sun' perspective. Then redundancy becomes obvious. We are more than mere creatures of earth, breakfast, lunch dinner and bed; breakfast, lunch, dinner and dead. The Father's House is the compelling goal and being here is preparatory. Enjoy life but don't let it be everything, all that you care about. Don't commit merely to the cycle that repeats, but by faith become transformed so you can be with Christ where he is.

EVERYTHING IS MEANINGLESS

What kind of world are we living in? No matter how it may be described, God does have a word for us. It comes in Ecclesiastes, one of the canonical wisdom books. Ecclesiastes is a series of lectures in the Old Testament that speak about life, reality, and values for wise and successful living. Ecclesiastes has sometimes been misunderstood or neglected.  Some have considered it to be the strangest book in the Bible. The author has been accused of scepticism, fatalism, and pessimism. That's not an accurate appraisal. I recommend the following perspective. Approach the book with an open mind. Discard unflattering assumptions. It is possible to understand what the author was communicating to an Old Testament community of faith and to discern robust recommendations and warnings about life and for living in this age.

The descriptor "son of David" identifies the author as a male and although the author's personal name has not been divulged, the options are narrowed. "The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem …" (1:1). From among David's sons, it was Solomon who had a reputation for communicating wisdom and truth. He is called qoheleth meaning teacher as he takes on the role of a sage, a wise man, a scholar, a wise and older tutor of wisdom.  Like other sages of his day, Solomon spoke to the young people of his day. His primary audience was young adults embarking on life and making decisions about their priorities, their values, and their purposes in life.

The author begins the book by describing everything in life as vanity or meaningless. “Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. 
Utterly meaningless!
 Everything is meaningless” (1:2). How long would you stay with a counsellor who spoke like that? He must have something more to say. 
He does.