We’re doing Ecclesiastes in bible study at the moment, and I’m really enjoying it. On first glance a lot of the book seems to be quite depressing (eg Ch 7:4 "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure"), but I like it because it helps me keep my life in perspective. Both times I've studied it have happened to be rather stressful times in my life and I've appreciated the lessons learnt from the book - it takes me out of my everyday worries to focus on the bigger picture.
A lot of the things that worry me or stress me out pale into insignificance in the light of eternity. The section we looked at last week was chapters 7 – 9 and we concluded that the basic message of these chapters was that we are stuffed - we are all destined to die, and can’t do anything about that. Pretty sobering stuff, but accurate! So I was glad when we finished with this from John Ch 11: 17-27 (my emphasis):
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again. Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
Communicating with your Terrific Toddler, Even When It’s Hard
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Those sweet months of snuggling your tiny helpless baby in your arms went
by in a flash, didn’t they? Now you have a spirited little person who is
moving...
3 comments:
Just because we're all going to die doesn't necessarily mean that we're all stuffed. We still have things to do, and can make the world a better place while we're here.
PS: Who's the blog administrator? Is that you, AL?
I think that's one of the key things the writer of Ecclesiastes is pondering - if we're all going to die, how should we live now? What is the point of things? What is wise and what is foolish?
So far the answer he comes to seems to be something along the lines of fearing God and enjoying what He has given us whilst not setting too much store in the here and now. Haven't finished studying it yet though.
I am the administrator - every time I post something from the bible I get spam, which I delete. Weird.
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