ANSWERS: 5
  • I have learned a lot from that book. Here is a 3 minute video and some short summaries, if you will. ............ Introduction to Ecclesiastes: https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/books/ecclesiastes-introduction/ ......../////// Outline of Contents: https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/books/ecclesiastes-outline/ .............////// ECCLESIASTES: https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200001255
  • It’s purpose is probably to show how unregenerate man is nothing but vanity.
  • The book struggles with the meaning of life in light of death. Again and again it repeats the refrain “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity,” as it catalogues our efforts to provide our lives with a sense of meaning by building monuments that will outlast us. A small number of us endeavor to amass wisdom that will be passed on and will live beyond our deaths. Many more of us amass material goods in great quantity, hoping somehow to create a permanence that will outlive our limited time on earth. We toil and we construct and we hoard. Sometimes we perhaps do not even consciously understand that it all arises from a vain desire to overcome the inevitable temporality of life. We carry within us a deep sense of humiliation in the face of death. It is degrading to live and then be gone forever and ever, and so we have an existential need to make a mark that will last. But it won’t. And even if it will, you will be gone, so what does it matter? All the fame and glory of accomplishment, whether material or intellectual accomplishment, will not solve the problem. All the books and theorems that we have authored, all the buildings and treasuries that may live on after death, can never plug that black hole in our souls created by awareness of our own mortality. As I read it, that is the intention of the chord ‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity,’ to which the author of Ecclesiastes returns again and again. But King Solomon, to whom the book of Ecclesiastes is traditionally attributed, is not uniformly pessimistic. He sees a way out of the abyss, although he manages to extricate himself only partially, occasionally succumbing to the melancholy with which he began. The solution is to embrace the temporality of life, and without looking beyond, to savor the moment. One must focus on the here and now. Indeed, there is no permanence; our existence is transitory by its very nature. That however, is not man’s downfall. His downfall is rather precisely in the vain effort to deny the truth that cannot be denied. One must find the intrinsic value of the present. Wisdom is indeed meaningful, if it is gathered for its own sake and not as a monument to him who gathered it. Appreciated and savored in the here and now, wisdom is one of God’s greatest gifts to man.
  • Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes to God’s people with the purpose of encouraging them to stay united, faithful and dedicated to serving the true God. His goal was to record wise counsel that faithful servants could use throughout future generations. Examples of a few phrases from Ecclesiastes that still apply today: “A time to be silent and a time to speak”, “A time to weep and a time to laugh” & “They all come from dust, and they are all returning to the dust.”
  • Chapter 3:17-21 I think is saying how if you are a son of men you are just as a beast, people are beasts. Whether they be wicked or righteous because all is vanity. So either you have a spirit as a man or a spirit as a beast, you will be judged. It's not saying we are animals, however.
    • Cry me a River
      People who say men are animals have a spirit as a beast..
    • Cry me a River
      The 4 beasts of Revelation cry holy, holy, holy, day and night. I would think a man who wants a spirit as a beast best try to measure up to what a beast really is.. As sinful man I highly doubt it. I would rather be judged by D God as a man.
    • Cry me a River
      Did you know the word animal/animals is not found in Scripture? Beasts in the field and beasts of the field are
    • Cry me a River
      So if not a beast it is either cattle, or a thing that creepeth, or living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis Chapter 1
    • Cry me a River
      I "fell in love" with a white German shepherd that was my daughter's... He told me he was an animal. Perhaps God makes animals of some of his creatures, for time and eternity.? I believe an animal is not born for the first time, and will 'retain' hat they are for eternity.
    • Cry me a River
      But I don't believe man can ever be an animal. ..want to be a perpetual sinner in the eyes of God? I know people like that. Maybe, but in the lake of fire, for ever!
    • Cry me a River
      But I do believe animals can be sons of God, Saint or even holy angel.

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