Ecclesiastes 1:1-3:22, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13, Psalm 46:1-11, Proverbs 22:15
Today is the second day of the month of September, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is wonderful to be here with you today as we get ourselves moved into this brand-new month. And even as we’re moving into this month, we’re ending a week. So, it’s always transition, isn’t it? And speaking of transitions, we concluded the book of Job, yesterday, which means we have to transition into some new territory. Kinda sticking in the same kind of theme.
Introduction to the Book of Ecclesiastes:
Today, we’ll move into the book of Ecclesiastes. And both Job and Ecclesiastes, this as well as Proverbs and the Song of Solomon and some of the Psalms, these are part of a grouping of books that are known as wisdom literature. So, this book that we’re about to read Ecclesiastes, traditionally has been kind of connected with Solomon. And there’s scholarly debate about this for lots of reasons. There’s scholarly debate about lots of things for lots of reasons. But the book probably was originally with Solomon and was translated and updated and…and that still happens today, as we translate and modernize the language as time goes forward. But we know that Solomon was considered to be an incredibly wise man, in fact, the wisest man in the world. And we’ve read about his reign and how he kind of sat at the apex of ancient Israel’s civilization. He was at the top; everything went downhill after Solomon. And Solomon went downhill before the end of his life. But we read of Solomon, and he was a very powerful, very wealthy man of his time. He was very much in demand, audiences with him were being pursued from leaders from throughout the known world of the time. And he was able to do whatever his heart desired to pursue, no matter what he dreamed up. Like, that, he was the king with all of the power, at a time when Israel was very powerful. So, nothing was off-limits to the king and his dad, King David, had unified Israel and brought them to a place of authority and prominence and power and peace. So, Solomon had incredible resources at his disposal. He had a thousand of the most beautiful women in all of the world as wives and concubines. He had a royalty, he wore a crown upon his head, he had unbelievable power, and he had the wisdom of God. And so, as we go into this book Ecclesiastes, knowing who we’re talking about here. All of a sudden, we start reading Ecclesiastes and everything seems out of character. How could a person who has it all come to these conclusions. Like, we might read Ecclesiastes, and think okay, this is what Solomon has to say at the end of his life, this is going to be a memoir of greatness, it’s more of a depressing and hopeless rant. But if we’ll stay with it and look underneath it all, go below the surface, Ecclesiastes gives us this very thoughtful, very penetrating look into the human heart. Because we’re all pursuing things, right, dreams and goals in our lives, and there’s always somebody to look at as if they have what we wanted, and they got it easy and we’re clawing and scratching for anything. It’s real easy to get into this comparison thing and begin to think if I just had the resources, if I just had the knowledge, if I just had the right partner, if I just, if I could just get my life and all of its pieces in alignment. But no matter what we get in alignment there’s always going to be somebody that’s doing way better. But with Solomon here, we’re looking at a guy who, it would be hard to find an example of someone who has more. King Solomon has the power of life and death in his hand, unbelievable wealth there’s no shortage of resource for anything that he could desire to do. He has all of these wives and women that have been sourced the most beautiful women, like he has, this is a person who we can look at from a human perspective and say okay, that’s the top of the pile, there isn’t any higher to go in the, in the human experience. Very, very, very few people experience that. We’re always able to say, if I just had that, life will be better. If I could do this, life would be better. What if we got it all though? What if we actually got it all, then what? This is what Ecclesiastes exposes and explores. Solomon had pursued whatever he wanted, achieved whatever he set his hand to, and then later in his life the beautiful harem of women from all over the world that he loved, ended up seducing his heart away from God and into idolatry.