You did it! We did it! For this past year, we learned together what are the four walls of Christ’s church and the critical importance of building our church with those four walls in balance. And now we are off to take the final exam Billy gave us, pass it (or for you high achievers, ace it), and the whole summer is ours. Good luck!
But just because the LifeWay academic year unofficially ended last Sunday, and the school bell is quiet, our learning as Christians will and should never stop. The summer is a great time for us to catch our breath, get refreshed, and continue learning and growing. The challenge for this summer, however, is daunting. I am not going to lie to you. For the next several Sundays, we will study together the Book of Ecclesiastes, and it is hard. If you have spent any considerable time studying it before, you know what I mean.
Ecclesiastes belongs to the category of Wisdom Literature, so it contains full pages of great wisdom that you and I need to know. What makes it hard is that the book was written a long time ago, perhaps 1000 years before Christ was even born, so it is written in a way you and I don’t think, and certainly don’t speak stylistically to one another. The text is “corrupt” in many places, making it difficult for even the experts to agree what was exactly written. Finally, even if the text was clear, it is difficult to follow the author’s train of thought and understand his messages. Nevertheless, Ecclesiastes is in our Bibles, and we need to study it, all of it. We are going to pray in faith, and ask God to teach it to us.
For this Sunday, please come prepared and read Ecclesiastes 1:1–11. I am sure sometime in the past, you have come across those familiar words, “Vanity of vanities.” What did you understand was the point of the author? He also seems to say there is no advantage in all of man’s work. What “work” was he talking about? Was he saying we don’t need to go to work? What “advantage”? What is nothing new under the sun according to the Preacher? Come this Sunday, and let’s think together and learn together the Book of Ecclesiastes. See you Sunday!
Your Friend,
Alvin