Thoughts from Pastor Stan

What is the Greatest Blessing from Wealth?

Ecclesiastes 6: 1 - 2

(v1) I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men: (v2) God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.

Socrates (Plato's "Republic" BK I, 330B) asked Cephalos "What do you think, the greatest good you have gained from getting great wealth?"

Interestinig question. What do you think would be the "greatest good" from the wealth that we possess?

Do you Rob?

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(v1) Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

The first seven verses of chapter 5 speak about our relationship with God and how we rob God?

How do we rob from God?

The first response may be, in our tithe, or lack of it.
Perhaps another responnse may be, in our time, or lack of it, spent with God.
still another response may be, in our sincerity, or lack of it, in our relationship with God

QUESTION
What other ways do we "rob" from God?


Verses 8 & 9 - our relationship with others

Verses 10 - 18 - our relationship with our selves

QUESTION
What will it take for us to awaken to our meaninglessness in our pursuits ($, etc.)?
Does it require, like Scrooge, 3 Ghosts to awaken within us the meaningless of our pursuits, and rasing these pursuits higher than they should be, and awakening within us the call to return to relationships (God, other and self)?

Misuse of Power

INTRO TO PASSAGE
The first section of chapter 4 is connected to chapter 3.
chapter 3 reminds us that there is God's timing and our timing.
It also reminds us that if it is not in God's timing, it could be bad timing.
When we chose bad timing, it may be the result of the misuse of the activity.
Consider the following passages with that intention in mind:

(v1) Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
I saw the tears of the oppressed--and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors--and they have no comforter.

Question Is "oppression" the result of misuse of power (i.e. not God's timing with the activity of power)? It is not as though power is bad, it is the misuse of power.

(v2) And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive.

Question: Is there a theology that justifies present oppression with the hope of a future with no oppression? What is the proper response to oppression?

(v3) But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

Question: Does God call us to go it alone? Or does God call us into relationship with God and others?

(v4) And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

When we practice bad "timing" or we misuse the activity that God has given us, does it become meaningless (a chasing after the wind)?

Sunday, April 20th is Native American Sunday and Earth Day. Do these two ideas relate to the message of Ecclesiastes 4?

TIME HAS COME TODAY



Chamber Brothers



ECCLESIASTES 3



There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under heaven:



(V2) a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,



(V3)a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,



(V4) a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,



ECC 3:5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain,



ECC 3:6 a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,



ECC 3:7 a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,



ECC 3:8 a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.



Notice that in the list of the above opposites, that each action and it's opposite is considered worthy of an approriate time. This is not a list of do's and don'ts. It's only a list of do's. The only don't is performing the act out of season (or in its wrong time).



THOUGHT TO PONDER:

Does anybody know what time it is?

Chicago

Purpose is a problem that plagues a plethora of people

Ecclesiastes is a book that proclaims at the beginning (1:2) and the end (12:8) that life is meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 1:2
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

Each chapter between 1 -12 echo the meaningless of life.

The word that is translated "meaningless" (or vanity in some translations) appears 38 times in the book of Ecclesiastes.

In chapter 1, meaningless occurs 4 times and it is summed up with the phrase Chasing after the wind (which occurs 9 times in Ecclesiastes).

The message of chapter 1 is that life is meaningless and is as fruitful as chasing after the wind. T

Thought to Ponder
According to Thomas Merton;
“The fundamental theme of Ecclesiastes is the paradox that, although there is “nothing new under the sun,” each new generation of mankind is condemned by nature to wear itself out inn the pursuit of “novelties” that do not exist. This concept…contains inn itself the one great enigma of paganism. Only Christ, only the incarnation, by which God emerged from his eternity to enter into time and consecrate it to himself, could save time from being an endless circle of frustrations. Only Christianity can, in Saint Paul’s phrase, “redeem the times.” Other religions can break out of the wheel of time as though from a prison: but they can make nothing of time itself.”



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