Ecclesiastes 10:1-12:14, 2 Corinthians 8:1-15, Psalms 49:1-20, Proverbs 22:20-21

Today is the 5^th day of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today as we take another step forward and move ourselves closer to the weekend where we’ll just start another week because our relationship with the Bible is ongoing and we continue to journey through this year. So, we’ve been journeying through the book of Ecclesiastes for the last few days and we’ll continue to do that today, but we will conclude the book of Ecclesiastes today before continuing our journey in second Corinthians. So, we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Ecclesiastes chapters 10, 11, and 12 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we finished Ecclesiastes today and the meaninglessness of it all. And, like I said when we began this book, it used to be one of my very least favorite parts of the Bible, kind a depressing, kinda cynical, kind of pessimistic, kind of down. Now, I guess over the years I’ve seen just how brutally honest this book is and for that matter how futile it all is just running, running, running, wondering where were going, wondering how this is all gonna work out. So, yeah Ecclesiastes can seem kinda pessimistic, but it’s kind helpful to understand that Solomon is writing from a subtractive perspective. Like, we haven’t ever really encountered this before. That is would be called apophatic, right? So, when we usually declare something, we declare what it is, like we affirm it. That’s cataphatic, instead of saying what it’s not, which is what we do a lot. Like, a lot of times when we’re looking at our lives and trying to define it, which is really impossible, it’s so multi-faceted…if God is so big, we are so small, but we are still so big to ourselves, like, we are more complicated than we can figure out. And, so, a lot of times we’re defining our identity by what we’re not, right? “I don’t say that. I don’t do this. I don’t believe that etc. etc.” So, we’re used to both…we’re used in both kinds of speaking but we here’s Solomon looking back over his life. And when we met Solomon, he had just become king, hid he’s father David had died. Like, we went through his whole reign and how he brought everybody, brought ancient Israel to its apex. But we’re kind of over that hill now, we’re in the back half of life. Solomon is facing the end of his life now and he’s looking back over all the pursuits and the different challenges that he took and the different injustices that he was able to bear witness to, the pleasures that he found. And it’s interesting because getting to the end of it all he looks back and sees that it was mostly wasted useless activity. So, he had applied all of his energy in the pursuits of beauty and wisdom and he’d searched all over the world for the answers to the unanswerable questions, but according to Ecclesiastes, he still couldn’t find what he was looking for. So, he took a sobering look at everything and started subtracting away from life, all that he found meaningless, only to find out that that was most everything and concluded that if we are not fundamentally aware of the sovereignty of God nothing does make any sense. So, what do we take away as we prepare to move forward into the next book of the Bible? What do we take away from all of this from…we basically have been sitting with Solomon, one of the wisest people to ever live, and we’ve been given his take on things? So, we would consider that valuable if we were sitting with the wise old sage in a café today. But we have this. What do we take away from somebody who’s done it all and then stepped back and saw that it didn’t mean as much as he thought? That’s found as the book of Ecclesiastes ends. Here’s what he says. “That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion. Fear of God and obey his commands for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.” So, Solomon is concluding basically what the whole Bible comes to. Give your heart in surrender and reverence to God. Offer yourself faithfully and loyally in worship. Give yourself to relationship with your heavenly Father. Honor God and do what he says to do. This is what everybody’s supposed to do and the only way to find actual meaning. So, let’s sit with that today. It is a fact, we don’t like to mention it, but it is a fact that every day that we live is one day closer to our death. And Solomon’s looking at it squarely instead of just denying it all because he’s using it as a reference point that everybody has. And, so, he’s weighing out the space between here and there and looking back at all of the time that was wasted and deciding, this next stretch is perhaps the final stretch. And with that kind of perspective you can then go, “okay. I can turn around and look at my past and find a lot of meaningless activity. I can look forward toward my future understanding that it ends in my death and I can decide now, is the space between here and there going to be meaningful or meaningless.” And then we can use the book of Ecclesiastes to at least be a guide in helping us avoid chasing the wind.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that all that was spoken in the book of Ecclesiastes because it brings us into some stark realities, into some reflection, and into some contemplation about what the future may look like. And, so, we invite You into all of it and we acknowledge it is all meaningless without You. There is no point. So, come Holy Spirit and may we walk with You, may we never walk away we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, and that is home base, and certainly where you find out what’s going on around here.

I mentioned yesterday about a couple of new things that are in the Daily Audio Bible Shop that we are excited about.

One of them is our first ever portable coffee solution. We added…we added an item to our Windfarm coffee and tea line and it’s a steeped coffee version that I’ve been enjoying quite a bit. It’s very very convenient. And like, I don’t need to say the whole thing again, but we’ve been looking for years for something that’s bot gonna get stale. Like, coffee does get stale and it’s really bitter and that’s when you can tell, you know, it’s gone bad. And, you know, how do you treat a portable solution that’s gonna last? And, so, we did find, finally, this solution where a…sort of like the material that creates drip coffee, like those coffee filters, you put coffee in that and that make it like a teabag and then you can steep your coffee and its nitro sealed, so the oxygen is pushed out of it so it can’t deteriorate quickly. So, it stays fresh. And we’re excited about that. I’m using them all the time. I mentioned I used them in Israel last year and that was sort of what got the ball rolling because now you can have a good cup coffee anywhere and everywhere that you might travel and it’s just really convenient to have the office or around the house. So, those are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop in the Coffee and Tea section.

And then we also released our Daily Audio Bible Journal 2.0 and that can be found in the Lifestyle section at the Daily Audio Bible Shop. And we’re big into journaling, we talked about that, and we always will be. It’s really…really important actually, I think, at least for me to write things down in my own hand. And it just helps me to process in a way that is much, I don’t know, more holistic than just typing it on a word processor or in some kind of journal. And, I mean, obviously we’re not against digital journals. We have one in the Daily Audio Bible app and it’s a great place to write down thoughts, especially as the Scriptures speak but in terms of just can journaling out your days, the story of your life, it’s a beautiful thing to be able to write some of that down in your own hand, not only for your own review, but for future generations. And, so we’ve been working hard on continuing to improve our journey. I mean, a journal’s a journal, but this is really good paper, really good ink, really receives pen and pencil well. We worked on the binding so it would lay flat better. Yeah. So, we just made some improvements to it. I love it. This is what I write in most every day. So, the Daily Audio Bible Journal 2.0 is available in the Shop as well. So, check those out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage and my heart is full of gratitude each and every day that we exist, all of these years, day by day seven days a week. We could’ve never done this alone. We’ve done this together as a community and I thank you profoundly for your partnership. So, the link is on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, there is a Hotline you can press that’s right in the app, the little red button up in the header, that is your hotline no matter where you are in the world, or if you prefer the phone, you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Ecclesiastes 10:1-12:14, 2 Corinthians 8:1-15, Psalms 49:1-20, Proverbs 22:20-21

Today is the 5^th day of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today as we take another step forward and move ourselves closer to the weekend where we’ll just start another week because our relationship with the Bible is ongoing and we continue to journey through this year. So, we’ve been journeying through the book of Ecclesiastes for the last few days and we’ll continue to do that today, but we will conclude the book of Ecclesiastes today before continuing our journey in second Corinthians. So, we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Ecclesiastes chapters 10, 11, and 12 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we finished Ecclesiastes today and the meaninglessness of it all. And, like I said when we began this book, it used to be one of my very least favorite parts of the Bible, kind a depressing, kinda cynical, kind of pessimistic, kind of down. Now, I guess over the years I’ve seen just how brutally honest this book is and for that matter how futile it all is just running, running, running, wondering where were going, wondering how this is all gonna work out. So, yeah Ecclesiastes can seem kinda pessimistic, but it’s kind helpful to understand that Solomon is writing from a subtractive perspective. Like, we haven’t ever really encountered this before. That is would be called apophatic, right? So, when we usually declare something, we declare what it is, like we affirm it. That’s cataphatic, instead of saying what it’s not, which is what we do a lot. Like, a lot of times when we’re looking at our lives and trying to define it, which is really impossible, it’s so multi-faceted…if God is so big, we are so small, but we are still so big to ourselves, like, we are more complicated than we can figure out. And, so, a lot of times we’re defining our identity by what we’re not, right? “I don’t say that. I don’t do this. I don’t believe that etc. etc.” So, we’re used to both…we’re used in both kinds of speaking but we here’s Solomon looking back over his life. And when we met Solomon, he had just become king, hid he’s father David had died. Like, we went through his whole reign and how he brought everybody, brought ancient Israel to its apex. But we’re kind of over that hill now, we’re in the back half of life. Solomon is facing the end of his life now and he’s looking back over all the pursuits and the different challenges that he took and the different injustices that he was able to bear witness to, the pleasures that he found. And it’s interesting because getting to the end of it all he looks back and sees that it was mostly wasted useless activity. So, he had applied all of his energy in the pursuits of beauty and wisdom and he’d searched all over the world for the answers to the unanswerable questions, but according to Ecclesiastes, he still couldn’t find what he was looking for. So, he took a sobering look at everything and started subtracting away from life, all that he found meaningless, only to find out that that was most everything and concluded that if we are not fundamentally aware of the sovereignty of God nothing does make any sense. So, what do we take away as we prepare to move forward into the next book of the Bible? What do we take away from all of this from…we basically have been sitting with Solomon, one of the wisest people to ever live, and we’ve been given his take on things? So, we would consider that valuable if we were sitting with the wise old sage in a café today. But we have this. What do we take away from somebody who’s done it all and then stepped back and saw that it didn’t mean as much as he thought? That’s found as the book of Ecclesiastes ends. Here’s what he says. “That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion. Fear of God and obey his commands for this is everyone’s duty. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.” So, Solomon is concluding basically what the whole Bible comes to. Give your heart in surrender and reverence to God. Offer yourself faithfully and loyally in worship. Give yourself to relationship with your heavenly Father. Honor God and do what he says to do. This is what everybody’s supposed to do and the only way to find actual meaning. So, let’s sit with that today. It is a fact, we don’t like to mention it, but it is a fact that every day that we live is one day closer to our death. And Solomon’s looking at it squarely instead of just denying it all because he’s using it as a reference point that everybody has. And, so, he’s weighing out the space between here and there and looking back at all of the time that was wasted and deciding, this next stretch is perhaps the final stretch. And with that kind of perspective you can then go, “okay. I can turn around and look at my past and find a lot of meaningless activity. I can look forward toward my future understanding that it ends in my death and I can decide now, is the space between here and there going to be meaningful or meaningless.” And then we can use the book of Ecclesiastes to at least be a guide in helping us avoid chasing the wind.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that all that was spoken in the book of Ecclesiastes because it brings us into some stark realities, into some reflection, and into some contemplation about what the future may look like. And, so, we invite You into all of it and we acknowledge it is all meaningless without You. There is no point. So, come Holy Spirit and may we walk with You, may we never walk away we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, and that is home base, and certainly where you find out what’s going on around here.

I mentioned yesterday about a couple of new things that are in the Daily Audio Bible Shop that we are excited about.

One of them is our first ever portable coffee solution. We added…we added an item to our Windfarm coffee and tea line and it’s a steeped coffee version that I’ve been enjoying quite a bit. It’s very very convenient. And like, I don’t need to say the whole thing again, but we’ve been looking for years for something that’s bot gonna get stale. Like, coffee does get stale and it’s really bitter and that’s when you can tell, you know, it’s gone bad. And, you know, how do you treat a portable solution that’s gonna last? And, so, we did find, finally, this solution where a…sort of like the material that creates drip coffee, like those coffee filters, you put coffee in that and that make it like a teabag and then you can steep your coffee and its nitro sealed, so the oxygen is pushed out of it so it can’t deteriorate quickly. So, it stays fresh. And we’re excited about that. I’m using them all the time. I mentioned I used them in Israel last year and that was sort of what got the ball rolling because now you can have a good cup coffee anywhere and everywhere that you might travel and it’s just really convenient to have the office or around the house. So, those are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop in the Coffee and Tea section.

And then we also released our Daily Audio Bible Journal 2.0 and that can be found in the Lifestyle section at the Daily Audio Bible Shop. And we’re big into journaling, we talked about that, and we always will be. It’s really…really important actually, I think, at least for me to write things down in my own hand. And it just helps me to process in a way that is much, I don’t know, more holistic than just typing it on a word processor or in some kind of journal. And, I mean, obviously we’re not against digital journals. We have one in the Daily Audio Bible app and it’s a great place to write down thoughts, especially as the Scriptures speak but in terms of just can journaling out your days, the story of your life, it’s a beautiful thing to be able to write some of that down in your own hand, not only for your own review, but for future generations. And, so we’ve been working hard on continuing to improve our journey. I mean, a journal’s a journal, but this is really good paper, really good ink, really receives pen and pencil well. We worked on the binding so it would lay flat better. Yeah. So, we just made some improvements to it. I love it. This is what I write in most every day. So, the Daily Audio Bible Journal 2.0 is available in the Shop as well. So, check those out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage and my heart is full of gratitude each and every day that we exist, all of these years, day by day seven days a week. We could’ve never done this alone. We’ve done this together as a community and I thank you profoundly for your partnership. So, the link is on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, there is a Hotline you can press that’s right in the app, the little red button up in the header, that is your hotline no matter where you are in the world, or if you prefer the phone, you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.