The Story of God: Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

“Ecclesiastes determines to show us how to find our way amid the broken sacred of the world. Ecclesiastes shows us more of God than perhaps we knew or are comfortable with. The same God who inspired the Psalms and the Gospels speaks here too. These inspired words which disturb us reveal aspects of God too often neglected by us. If one has only driven a car with automatic transmission, driving manually will take some getting used to. Because of the safe, clean-cut, pristine, sentimental, or naive approaches to Christianity and church that have mentored many of us, we may cherish a mistaken notion that God resembles a more G-rated approach to life. Ecclesiastes reminds us, however, that wherever there is, whatever the conversation, whatever the question or unsettling situation, God is able and willing to go there.” - Zach Eswine

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.”

 “A wisp of vapor, a puff of wind, a mere breath—Nothing you could get your hands on; the nearest thing to zero. That is the vanity this book is about” - Derek Kidner

Ecclesiastes 12:1

“To remember is not a purely mental act, it is to drop our pretense of self sufficiency and commit ourselves to him.” - Derek Kidner

To remember your Creator is more than to recall that there is a Creator, more also than to think about him from time to time. To remember your Creator means to bring to mind daily what your Creator has done for you and to act on this knowledge. To remember your Creator is to make God central in your life and to focus your life on doing his will. - Sidney Greidanus

12:13-14

We face the appalling inference that nothing has meaning, nothing matters under the sun. it is then that we can hear, as the good news which it is, that everything matters—‘for God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.’ That is how the book ends. On this rock we can be destroyed: but it is rock, not quicksand. There  is the chance to build.” - Derek Kidner

1 Cor 15:57-28