Ecclesiastes: Talk 2. A Time for Everything

Before we begin, let me briefly remind you where we left off last week.

We saw that Ecclesiastes is unlike any other book in the Bible. Rather than beginning with certainty, it begins with a question. The Preacher conducts what we called “the Great Experiment.” He examines every obvious source of meaning—achievement, wealth, pleasure, work, knowledge, reputation—and asks whether any of them can provide lasting fulfillment. 

His first conclusion is startling: if life is viewed only “under the sun,” everything eventually passes away. Human beings strive, accumulate, and accomplish much, but time sweeps it all away. Yet even while exposing the apparent futility of life, the book hints that something deeper is going on. Human beings continue to search for meaning because, as Ecclesiastes later tells us, God has “set eternity in their heart.” That tension—between the world we experience and the reality we intuit—will shape everything that follows.

We noted last week that Ecclesiastes was not exactly a popular chapter in church sermons. But the beginning of one chapter—chapter 3—is well known. Many people encounter it at a wedding or a funeral, or through a pop song like this one:

https://youtu.be/VRg9NkIdjVs

My talk today hangs on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. I’d like to note that while almost every translation of Ecclesiastes 3:1 uses the phrase “under the heavens,” everywhere else the Preacher uses the phrase “under the sun.” Obviously, the expressions are closely related, but “under the sun” became his characteristic way of describing ordinary human existence—the world as we encounter it every day. It is the world of observation, experience, joy, suffering, achievement, injustice, and mortality.

The passage is a comforting meditation on life’s rhythms. We live and we die, we sow and we reap, we laugh and we cry. It’s oddly reassuring. Everything has its proper place and time. 

But is life really so simple? Are we lulled into a false sense that everything is as it should be? Not if you listen more carefully. The Preacher does not limit himself to the pleasant aspects of existence. Yes, there is the joy of birth, the blessing of healing, the potion of love, the salve of peace. But there is also the despair of death, the curse of killing, the venom of hate, the scourge of war. 

The poem contains some of the most poignant language in Scripture, but it is not as sentimental as the song makes it sound. Unlike the music video, which was shot in an idyllic Australian vineyard, Ecclesiastes offers no idyllic or even idealized picture of human life. 

On the contrary, he presents a rather glum objective inventory of the human condition. He refuses to look away from the darker aspects of existence—from suffering, injustice, conflict, and mortality. He insists on looking at life as it is, rather than as we might wish it to be. If there is wisdom to be found, it must be found in the real world and not in some carefully edited version of it.

That observation becomes even more significant when we remember his repeated expression: “under the sun.” The Preacher seems to be emphasizing that he is not attempting to describe heaven. He is not describing the world as the Eden God intended it to be. He is describing a world as we fallen human beings actually experience it. Under the sun, people are born and people die. Under the sun, nations make peace and go to war. Under the sun, justice sometimes prevails and sometimes doesn’t. The Preacher approaches these realities like an anthropologist conducting field research. He observes, records, reflects, and reports his findings.

When the Preacher says there is “a time to hate,” is he telling us that hatred is sometimes morally appropriate, or at least understandable? Forgivable, even? Or is he simply acknowledging that hatred exists? When he says there is “a time for war,” is he endorsing war, or merely observing that war is a recurring feature of human history? Subconsciously, I suspect that some of us might like to treat the poem as a prescription, as though it were telling us how life ought to be. But it is not. It is primarily a description of how life is, and the Preacher is not advocating for it; he is simply reporting it.

The Preacher’s determination to look honestly at life is evident in his analytic model, which is that meaning is a function of several independent variables—wisdom, pleasure, wealth, accomplishment, and justice—and one great constant: mortality.

We saw last week that the Preacher values wisdom as being preferable to ignorance. Wisdom enables us to navigate life more effectively, to distinguish prudence from folly and truth from lies. Yet the great constant casts its ominous shadow on wisdom and ignorance alike. After reflecting on the advantages of wisdom, the Preacher reaches the deeply unsettling conclusion that:

“The wise have eyes in their heads, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.” (Ecclesiastes 2:14)

Worldly wisdom is by no means useless, but it does not exempt us from mortality. The wise die, and so do the foolish. The rich die, and so do the poor. The successful die just as surely as the unsuccessful. Whatever distinctions seem so important during life eventually encounter the same boundary of mortality.

This realization appears to trouble the Preacher more than almost anything else. Throughout the book he returns repeatedly to the fact that death seems to erase the worldly achievements, ambitions, and identities upon which people build meaning into their lives. A generation works, struggles, accumulates, and creates. Then another generation arrives, and the cycle begins anew. Its individuals pass away, but the earth remains.

In one sense this observation of his is obvious. We all know that life is finite. But why are we not astonished that we are able to live with this knowledge? And after contemplating it, as the Preacher does, why don’t we draw the same logical conclusion as him, and why don’t we then just stop trying? 

As far as we know, no other creature contemplates its own long-term mortality. Animals contemplate their short-term, for sure. But humans imagine the future. We know that our lives are limited, and spend our lives not just trying to figure out why, but also what will follow even after we are gone.

A cultural anthropologist called Ernest Becker argued that much of human civilization can be understood as a response to mortality. We build institutions, create works of art, establish families, write books, construct monuments, and devote ourselves to causes that we know will outlive us.

But if mortality were the whole story, one might expect human beings simply to accept our limitations and make the best of them. But we don’t. We imagine things that transcend our limitations, including our mortality. We dream of stability in a world of change. We dream of justice in a world where injustice is common. We dream of peace as the bombs fly around us. We dream of meaning in a universe so vast we seem almost utterly insignificant. We dream of a world in which hatred yields to compassion, violence yields to reconciliation, and death itself loses its sting. In other words, we refuse to be satisfied with life as we find it. 

That is what makes the Preacher’s statement about eternity so remarkable. Against this disheartening backdrop of mortality, uncertainty, and impermanence, he suddenly writes:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

The statement almost seems out of place. The chapter begins with time: times for birth and death, planting and uprooting, and so on. Everything is temporal and therefore temporary. Everything unfolds within time. Then, out of the blue, he springs eternity on us. Why? Why would we, whose lives occupy only a few decades, concern ourselves with eternity at all? Why should finite beings think infinite thoughts? Why ask questions whose answers may never directly affect us? Why do we contemplate the origins of the universe, the nature of justice, the destiny of humanity, and the existence of God? Why should we care?

The Preacher offers no explanation. He simply observes that something within us reaches beyond the boundaries of ordinary existence. We live in time but we think beyond time. We inhabit a trillionth of a trillionth of the available cosmic real estate yet we contemplate the whole of the cosmos itself. We know we will die, yet we yearn for permanence.

Perhaps spirituality begins with dissatisfaction at our inability to answer the question of the meaning of life. Secularism ultimately reconciles itself to the world as it is. Spirituality refuses to believe that the world as it is is all there is. It arises from the nagging intuition, passed on through the generations—each inheriting the eternity in its heart—that life means more than we can see, that something more is possible. 

If so, then eternity in the heart is not merely a religious idea. It may be a defining human characteristic. Every civilization has expressed it in different ways, through religion, philosophy, science, art, literature, and music. Human beings have continually attempted to reach beyond the immediate circumstances of life to imagine futures we may never see. We pursue truths whose discovery, we know, may never directly benefit us. We devote ourselves to ideals that often exceed practical necessity.

The Preacher’s insight suggests that these are not accidental features of human existence. They arise from something fundamental within us. We are creatures of time who somehow carry a sense of eternity. And it is this tension—between what is and what might be—that prepares the way for the next stage of the discussion.

Several centuries after Ecclesiastes, another teacher appeared in Galilee and responded to many of the same realities that troubled the Preacher. But what a difference! There is no time to hate. Instead…

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)

There is no time for war, for… 

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” (Matthew 5:9)

The Preacher repeatedly observes injustice. Jesus speaks repeatedly about mercy, forgiveness, compassion, and the Kingdom of God.

At first glance, the two men almost seem to disagree. But perhaps they are not answering the same question. The Preacher is describing life as it is under the sun. Jesus is describing life as it can be under the sun.

The Preacher’s world is the world we recognize from history books and daily headlines. It is a world of conflict, mortality, ambition, injustice, disappointment, and occasional joy. Jesus does not deny the reality of that world. He lived in it too, and He suffered in it, and, yes, He died in it. Yet He refuses to accept it as the final word. He sees Good Samaritans, and the ultimate blessedness of the poor and oppressed.

To the Preacher, hatred, violence, injustice, and suffering are simply permanent features of human existence. Such a conclusion is not unreasonable. His own observations and human history provide abundant evidence for it. But to Jesus, loving enemies, forgiving seventy times seven, turning the other cheek, and blessing peacemakers, is also the way the world sometimes is—and can be more often—and that is the way to that eternity. He is challenging the Preacher’s fatalist assumption that life under the sun is pointless and must forever remain exactly as it is. 

The Preacher is not totally fatalist, however. He senses that there is something more to life than is visible—the eternity in the heart. What he cannot see is the way into it. He longs for something greater than the cycles of birth and death, work and wealth, success and failure, but he cannot see how eternity and time are connected. He senses there is a path, but he can’t seem to see it. 

Jesus doesn’t just see it. He is it. “I am the door,” (John 10:9) and “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” (John 14:6) he says. 

The Kingdom of God is not only a future destination. It enters the present. It interrupts and contradicts the ordinary logic of life under the sun. Wherever forgiveness overcomes revenge, wherever mercy triumphs over judgment, wherever love replaces hatred, the door has opened.

The Preacher studies humanity; Jesus changes it. This is an epochal change in the evolution of humanity. The Preacher feels eternity; Jesus makes it accessible. The Preacher reveals the longing; Jesus reveals the doorway, the connection between the temporal and the eternal. Perhaps that is why Ecclesiastes still speaks powerfully to us because the Preacher is patently honest and describes the world as we ourselves often experience it. Jesus does not deny that experience, but reveals that it is not the whole story.

Christianity (the religion) seems to posit the Kingdom primarily as a future destination. Yet much of Jesus’ language suggests something much more immediate. The Kingdom is not only a place one goes to after death. It is a way of living today. It begins wherever hatred gives way to compassion, wherever vengeance yields to forgiveness, wherever reconciliation triumphs over division, and wherever love proves stronger than fear.

This may also help explain why grace occupies such a central place in the teachings of Jesus.

Life under the sun often operates according to the logic of cause and effect. If someone harms us, we seek retaliation. If someone excludes us, we exclude them. If someone insults us, we return the insult. Human relationships easily become trapped in cycles of reciprocity, competition, and revenge. History is filled with examples, from family feuds to international wars. Each side believes itself justified. Each action provokes a reaction. The cycle continues.

Jesus introduces a radically different principle. He responds to hatred with love, to exclusion with inclusion, to vengeance with forgiveness, and to hostility with compassion. In doing so, He interrupts the cycle. Grace breaks the chain of cause and effect by contradicting it. Seen in this light, grace is not merely a theological doctrine. It is the practical mechanism by which the Kingdom begins to appear. Every act of forgiveness, every act of undeserved kindness, every act of reconciliation represents a small victory for life under the sun as Jesus sees it, which is not simply a Kingdom to be hoped for. It is a present possibility. The Kingdom begins wherever grace gains a foothold in ordinary life.

Perhaps this is why the parables of Jesus so often describe the Kingdom through images of seeds, yeast, hidden treasure, and small beginnings. The Kingdom does not usually arrive with the force of an army or the decree of a government. It grows quietly. It spreads person to person, relationship to relationship, community to community. Like yeast working through dough, its influence is often invisible until the transformation is already underway.

If this interpretation is correct, then the Kingdom is not something we construct by our own efforts. Neither is it something we passively await. It is something we recognize, participate in, and help reveal. We do not create grace; we respond to it. We do not manufacture the Kingdom; we sense its presence as the eternity in our heart, then we see the open door, and then we decide whether to step through it or to shut it.

Jesus offers the answer to the longing that the Preacher identified; an end to the search for a meaning of life which—the eternity in us insistently suggests—does indeed exist.

So this eternity is a pretty big deal, when you consider that for all of human history to date, mortality has been humanity’s defining constraint. But today, for the first time, serious scientists openly discuss the possibility of dramatically extending healthy human life. Not eternity, though that is no doubt the ultimate goal. Artificial intelligence already amplifies human cognition, and brain-computer interfaces like Elon Musk’s Neuralink chip may eventually blur the distinction between biological and technological intelligence. 

But even these developments will not eliminate the questions raised by Ecclesiastes. In fact, they will intensify them. Longer lives, greater intelligence, and greater power will reveal new horizons of meaning to explore, but the Preacher’s question will remain: not merely how shall we live, but why? What’s the point? And Jesus will still have, and still be, the answer.

It can hardly be denied that technology has alleviated much suffering. Medicine has cured diseases that once killed millions. Agricultural advances have saved more millions from famine. Communication technologies have connected people across continents. Artificial intelligence may eventually help us solve existential problems that currently seem intractable..

All of these developments are remarkable, but technology is neither necessary nor sufficient to create the Kingdom. To end where we began today, I would paraphrase Ecclesiastes,

A Technology for Everything

There is a technology for everything,
and a technology for every purpose under heaven.

A technology to begin life, and a technology to end it;
a technology to plant, and a technology to uproot what is planted.

A technology to kill, and a technology to heal;
a technology to tear down, and a technology to build.

A technology to make us weep, and a technology to make us laugh;
a technology to help us mourn, and a technology to help us dance.

A technology to scatter stones, and a technology to gather them;
a technology to embrace, and a technology to turn from embracing.

A technology to seek, and a technology to lose;
a technology to keep, and a technology to cast away.

A technology to rend, and a technology to mend;
a technology to be silent, and a technology to speak.

A technology to love, and a technology to hate;
a technology for war, and a technology for peace.

We possess all of those technologies. But there is no technology that can step through that door.

Do you agree?

C-J: I have to laugh at that last part—I really do. To me, this is the primary sin of humanity: I can do this, and so I will, because I can—not because I should. It’s vanity of vanities: pride, ego, arrogance, putting myself before God. We think, “Well, I don’t see Him standing here.”

We live in a parallel universe, and I’m trying to wrap my head around why technology has to become such a central part of your mantra. It’s almost as though you’re saying, “It’s going to happen. It’s inevitable. Just get in line, learn from it, become greater than you are. Consider the possibilities.” But I’m actually quite settled in where I am. I don’t really need all of that.

I don’t care about the technology itself. I see it as a distraction. Yes, it benefits many people, but what are we going to do with all the people who live longer? Are we going to ship them off to another planet? Are we going to require people to pass a test before they can have children? Is housing going to be underground, on the ground, and in the air? Are we going to build pleasant space stations? It’s preposterous.

The whole point is this: if I can walk with God in this dimension, that is enough. Yes, I appreciate technology in medicine. Telecommunication has become essential because we’ve constructed a world that depends on it. But that’s not what God does. God meets us spiritually.

The real issue is this dichotomy: where do we ultimately find ourselves? What makes us restless in our spirit is that we are spiritual beings living in organic bodies. Spirit comes first. When we try to rationalize everything, I don’t think Solomon had any difficulty understanding or distinguishing that. His voice was a warning: don’t become caught up in the things of this world. Remember who you are. Remember what is vital.

You are created beings—pure consciousness, pure spirit—and that is a dangerous thing because we don’t understand the power we’ve been given through God in creation. We create both good and evil: bombs and medicines that extend life. The problem is that ego, pride, vanity, and willful ignorance back us into a corner. Then we say, “I want it, I can take it, and therefore I’m going to,” even if it requires deception.

We start saying, “This is my territory now.” But none of it belongs to us. This planet was a gift. This dimension has been designed through the energies of the universe—which, to me, means God.

It is dangerous to think that we are equal to God. If we cannot do it metaphysically, then we’ll try to do it through the tools we’ve created. Since we created them, we imagine we can control them. That is absurd—absolutely dangerous and absurd.

I believe this is the subtext of what Solomon is saying. “I’ve made many mistakes. I thought I had learned from my father, but clearly I had not, because when I reached a certain level of abundance, I thought I had acquired it all. If I ask someone to do something, of course they will obey me. It is my right because God has given it to me through the mandate of heaven.”

None of us has the right to put our foot on another person’s neck and say, “Since I can take this, I will,” or, “Because I think I’m smarter than you, I will.” It is a dangerous, slippery slope.

Ecclesiastes is a warning. We should all remain humble before God and remember that this dimension is finite. We should use the time and the revelations God gives us for His glory, to redirect people back to Him—not to say, “Look what I have done.” That is an awesome responsibility.

Donald: I think our personalities and perspectives are shaped by what we naturally focus on. David ended by saying that technology cannot replace the true prescription for life. I think Connie’s distrust of technology—perhaps “distrust” is too strong a word, but not by much—and David’s lifelong engagement with technology bring them to the discussion from different directions. My own background causes me to look at the world visually.

I don’t think we’re really suggesting different ultimate outcomes. I don’t think anyone here is arguing that technology is going to “win.” But technology is unquestionably changing those of us who live in a technological world. Much of the world still does not, although I’ve always been fascinated that during my visits to remote areas of Tanzania, people always seemed to have cell phones. Then you wonder, “How do they charge them?” It’s rather like the Amish, who also negotiate technology on their own terms.

This ratio between technology and life is important. Most of us—at least those of us of a certain age—grew up in a world where perhaps one or two hours out of twenty-four exposed us to the wider world. That was the evening news at 6:30. This generation doesn’t even know what the 6:30 news was. They live in a 24/7 news cycle.

If you drink continuously from that well, you begin to think the world is purely descriptive rather than prescriptive. Technology, especially telecommunications, has profoundly altered our orientation to reality.

Then there’s Facebook, which presents an edited version of life. Most people don’t post their misery. They post their joys—or sometimes they post what they have that others don’t. So we live surrounded by curated realities.

I think this distinction between description and prescription is important. One is full and one is empty. You can spend all your time looking at the empty one if you choose, because now it is always available.

C-J: Over this past week I had been trying to get hold of someone for a very specific reason, but I kept missing him. I kept thinking, God’s timing is perfect. What’s going on with this person? Last night I missed him again, even though we had an appointment. I was late, but we did have an appointment. I wondered why he hadn’t let me know he was leaving. I thought he was going to be there for several hours, so I prayed, “Lord, I need to find him. This is what I know. Please guide me.”

Now, are you ready for this?

I pulled over on a street where I thought he might live because of previous conversations. I was sitting there doing what I was doing when I thought, “Maybe I’ll see if his address is on the internet.” It was. I looked it up and suddenly wondered, What was the number on the house to my right?

I looked around and realized I had parked right in front of his house—a house I’d never been to before. And where do you think he was? Standing on his porch.

I share this because we often think that without a phone we can’t connect with someone. That’s assuming they’ll answer the phone or respond to a text message, which he had not done.

I opened my car door a little and called, “Roderick!”

He looked over.

I said, “Can I come over?”

Roderick is a very spiritual man, although he practices Native American traditions, and he’s struggling right now.

I had brought him two things: a feather from a red-tailed hawk that I had found on my brother’s property—it was enormous—and a cantaloupe for him and his family.

We sat together and began talking. Guess what I pulled out? The transcript from a previous week’s class. I said, “I’d like to read you something.” 

At first he looked at me as though to say, I can read. So I handed it to him. After a short time he handed it back, and I asked, “Would you like me to read it to you?” He said yes.

Do you know what caught his attention? The word ambassador—being an ambassador for Christ.

I said, “That’s quite a word, isn’t it? Think about the responsibility.”

He works with homeless people who struggle with addiction. He goes out into the field, finds people who are sick and living on the streets, and helps them if they’re willing to receive help. He’s an incredibly compassionate man, but he also takes on their spiritual burdens.

I told him, “Don’t do that, Roderick. It’s dangerous. You’re not equipped to carry all of that.”

He listened. Then he told me that the previous evening another man had stopped at the bottom of his steps and, although he came from a completely different tradition, had told him almost exactly the same thing.

I said, “Listen to that. You can’t keep doing this and stay healthy. You’re putting your hand to something that isn’t good.”

When I got up to leave, something very unusual happened. A strong sense of danger came over me. I suddenly felt I needed to be extremely careful because the street was busy with traffic. The feeling came completely out of nowhere, and it stayed with me all the way home. I felt that unless I paid close attention, something might happen to me.

The reason I tell the whole story—even though it jumps around a bit—is that Jesus, the Holy Spirit, was with me before I knew it, during the encounter, and even afterward. 

I didn’t need a cell phone. I didn’t need a text message. God already had everything arranged. At the appointed time we came together. Each of us brought our own experiences and our own walk with God. I didn’t need technology. And if it’s my time to die, then may my eyes see the light as I transition from here.

I had to laugh because I realized, I’m never alone. It is an incredible relationship to have with the Divine. I don’t need technology. The world makes me learn it. The world requires it for medicine, telephones, television, and so on. But I was much more at peace as a child—just as Donald described—riding my bicycle without worrying about anything, simply enjoying the freedom.

The day before yesterday I rode my bicycle ten miles for the first time this season. I rode right past Roderick’s house and never recognized it. Yesterday God simply brought me back there.

I just want everyone to remember—and I think this group already does—that God is always present. God is always revealing Himself and helping us grow. We are called to be ambassadors. We are called to be witnesses.

Don’t believe the hype. Don’t get caught up in the shiny things. Lean into God. Let Him mold and shape you every day, and watch whom He brings into your life and what He reveals so that you can truly be His ambassador.

When someone says, “I have to do this,” sometimes the real answer is, “No—you need to pause. Let God reveal Himself in the silence.” It’s not about ritual. It’s not about where you are. It is about the presence of God in the silence.

Veronika: I’d just like to say, what if God is in the technology? What if it’s not accidental that humanity became intelligent enough to create it?

As David was talking, I was thinking about the fact that I’m sitting here in my condo in Detroit watching all of you in faraway places. My dad is in North Carolina. I don’t know where everyone else is. Yet here we all are, together, discussing Ecclesiastes.

I’d never even read Ecclesiastes until last week, and yet here I am learning from all of you. I feel God very much present in this technology—in Zoom, in video calling. It allows us to be connected, to learn, and to educate one another.

The whole AI question is still unknown. We don’t know where it’s going. But maybe—just maybe—God is in that too. We simply don’t know yet. I certainly believe God is present in medicine and in the technological advances that save lives around the world. I believe He’s present in the technology used during disasters. I believe He’s there.

When I read Ecclesiastes, I honestly felt depressed because I thought, “He’s right. What’s the point?” We all struggle, we work hard, we go to school, we try to achieve things, and then we die. So what?

I think a lot of people feel that way, especially today, when life is difficult for so many. But perhaps there is hope. Jesus certainly brought hope and showed us the way. And perhaps technology, too, may bring more hope and greater understanding—AI included.

Carolyn: I have a question that’s been with me ever since I first heard the words, “Vanity of vanities.” I keep going back to Solomon because God gave him this extraordinary gift. He was the wisest man, and he had everything anyone could want from a worldly perspective—every opportunity for self-gratification.

When Jesus left and returned to heaven, He promised to send the Comforter, and that we would have the Holy Spirit within us. My question is this—and it probably sounds like I’m an absolute novice, which I am—but where was the Holy Spirit with Solomon when he was wrestling with all these questions? Where was the window of hope?

Without hope, without eternity before us, without grace, I don’t know how we can truly live. I think about Solomon because he swung so dramatically from one extreme to the other. He never seemed to see the pathway that leads to the vision that we have now—that we have hope, that we have God’s grace, that we have so much.

Wherever technology goes, I don’t know. But I do know that I have the Holy Spirit within me. Where did the Holy Spirit fit into Solomon’s experience?

C-J: I believe the Holy Spirit was always there. 

Carolyn: I agree with that, Connie. The Holy Spirit was always there. But was He within Solomon?

C-J: I think what happened was that Solomon became an idolater. I also think he may have been physically ill, and when you’re physically ill, your mind doesn’t function at its best. He chose the path of, “Because I want it, and because I can, I will,” instead of, “Thy will be done.”

He wasn’t leading the way a good leader should. A good leader asks, “What do these people need? How can I establish laws that are fair and equitable? How can I make provision for the most vulnerable?” Instead, he became consumed with himself.

I think he did learn from his father. He understood what ego and pride can do to a person, but once those things take root they grow deep, and discernment becomes increasingly difficult. That’s why I think Ecclesiastes is here as an echo—a warning.

When you read through the Bible from beginning to end, God is always present. Always. I don’t believe God ever withdrew Himself and said, “When you’re good I’ll be here, and when you’re not, I’ll step away so you can think about it.”

God has always been available. But when we find ourselves down in a deep well, all we can see is darkness. To use Donald’s phrase, where there is light, darkness cannot exist.

Only God can lift us up when we become trapped in addiction, violence, or our own limited way of seeing. Only God can open our ears to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit. Only God can guide us to people whose own experiences echo His Word and reassure us that this is simply a season of growth—and growing hurts. But God has not abandoned us. And we should not abandon one another. We stand together in prayer.

Don: I think the comparison between the teacher of the Old Testament and the Teacher of the New Testament deserves much more reflection.

Listening to Connie talking about technology, I found myself thinking that there was a time when even the bicycle was a technological wonder. The idea that you could sit on two wheels, balance yourself, and travel six times faster than you could walk was once astonishing technology.

It seems to me that this is part of the genius of Ecclesiastes, and also of the message of Jesus. The kingdom of grace we’ve talked about so often is a kingdom in which the questions never really come to an end. Yet regardless of the era in which you live, the country you inhabit, or the civilization to which you belong, you can still live a life of grace.

That, ultimately, becomes the answer to many questions that otherwise seem impossible to answer.

Reinhard: I agree with Connie that the Holy Spirit has always been part of human life. However, the Holy Spirit is not discussed nearly as much in the Old Testament as in the New Testament, especially after Jesus came.

Don mentioned the two teachers: the teacher in Ecclesiastes and Jesus. Jesus Himself referred to Solomon in Matthew and Luke, speaking of the Queen of the South coming to hear Solomon’s wisdom, but then saying that “one greater than Solomon is here.” Of course, He was referring to Himself.

There are two other subjects that also receive much less attention in the Old Testament: the Holy Spirit and the resurrection. We don’t find the same detailed teaching on either of those topics that we later find in the New Testament.

As for the meaning of life: To me, that is almost the same question as asking about the purpose of life. Human beings have always pondered that question. When God first created humanity, before the Fall, He told Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth. After the Fall, however, Genesis tells us that humanity would live by toil and pain, struggling simply to make a living.

When we come to Solomon’s writings, we have to remember that he was the third king after Saul and David. The commandments had already been given to Israel, but Solomon was speaking primarily about the physical realities of human existence.

Like people today, we work, provide for our families, and try to accomplish something with our lives. Society mainly sees us in terms of what we do. Unless people worship with us, they may know very little about our spiritual lives. That is really Solomon’s focus: life under the sun, generation after generation. He describes the physical dimension of human existence.

At the end of Ecclesiastes he says, “Fear God.” To me, that means worship God and obey His commandments. He doesn’t develop the spiritual themes in the way the New Testament later does. The Old Testament builds progressively. God revealed Himself step by step until Jesus came. Jesus represents the fulfillment of that revelation.

In Matthew 6:33 Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Of course we all want happiness, peace, and success while living on this earth. But first we must seek God’s kingdom. That means nurturing our spiritual lives and maintaining our relationship with Him. Then God gives us His Holy Spirit.

Ultimately, we want to hear the words, “Well done.” While we may become successful in earthly terms, what matters even more is our relationship with God and with one another through love.

That, I believe, is the true purpose of our lives.

David [postscript]: Today we have seen that the Preacher does not merely observe that life changes; he insists that change is woven into the fabric of creation. There is a time for everything, but we are not given the whole pattern. We live within time, while God sees the whole tapestry. That realization could easily lead to despair. If we cannot control events, predict the future, or fully understand God’s purposes, what remains? The Preacher’s answer is surprising. If certainty is impossible, perhaps the goal of life is not certainty at all, but wisdom. 

Next week we will turn to one of the central themes of Ecclesiastes: wisdom itself. Is wisdom the answer to the human search for meaning? Can intelligence, knowledge, and understanding overcome life’s uncertainties? Or does the wisest man who ever lived ultimately discover that wisdom, too, has its limits? Those are the questions we will explore together next week.

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