Ecclesiastes Bible Quotes

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, NIV)

Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward"... Ecclesiastes 9:9 (NASB)

When life is good, enjoy it. But when life is hard, remember: God gives good times and hard times, and no one knows what tomorrow will bring. (Ecclesiastes 7:14, New Century Version)

4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion... shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureâ. ...Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you... In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it... I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost... [Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, advising him in matters of religion, 1787]

The authors of Job and Ecclesiastes explicitly state that there is no afterlife.

In the day of prosperity rejoice, but in the day of adversity consider: God hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. 8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. 11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

It's interesting that in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, the only practical advice given about living a meaningful life is to find a job you like, enjoy your marriage, and obey God. It's as though God is saying, Write a good story, take somebody with you, and let me help.

I know that, whatsoever God doeth, It shall be forever: Nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before Him. That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.” †Ecclesiastes 3:14–15

God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed. ~Ecclesiastes 3:17

For God’s sake, the Bible says drinking is okay. “Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine.” That’s straight out of the Bible, 1 Timothy 5:23. And Ecclesiastes 9:7 instructs, “Eat your food with gladness and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do.” God approves and has no problem with you having a few glasses of wine.

Most priests wish they were as righteous as they seem to most members of their congregations.

Род прехожда и род дохожда - май чух попът да пее, - а земята пребъдва до века. Слънце изгрява, и слънце залязва и бърза към мястото си, дето изгрява.

Nothing is original. It says it right there in the Bible. Ecclesiastes: That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of previous ideas.

ECCLESIASTES 3 For everything there is a season, and  l a time for every matter under heaven:

ECCLESIASTES 11  f Cast your bread upon the waters,          g for you will find it after many days.

But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. Ecclesiastes 9:4

Wisdom gives us perspective so that we aren’t discouraged when times are difficult or arrogant when things are going well. It takes a good deal of spirituality to be able to accept prosperity as well as adversity, for often prosperity does greater damage (Phil. 4:10–13).

If you do not believe in what your religion teaches, why continue to support a belief which is contradictory with your feelings. You would never vote for a person or issue you did not believe in, so why cast your ecclesiastical vote for a religion which is not consistent with your convictions? You have no right to complain about a political situation you have voted for or supported in any way- which includes sitting back and complacently agreeing with neighbors who approve the situation, just because you are too lazy or cowardly to speak your mind.

Oswald Chambers once said that the Psalms teach you how to pray; Job teaches you how to suffer; the Song of Solomon teaches you how to love; Proverbs teaches you how to live; and Ecclesiastes teaches you how to enjoy.

When we look carefully at ourselves in the mirror of God’s Word and see flaws, even evidences of selfishness, we might become discouraged. If that ever happens to you, reflect on the successful man in James’ illustration. James did not stress how quickly the man fixed the problems he detected or even that he was able to correct every blemish; rather, James says that the man ‘continued in the perfect law. (Jas. 1:25) He remembered what he saw in the mirror and kept working to improve. Yes, keep a positive view of yourself and a balanced view of your imperfections. (Ecclesiastes 7:20.) Continue to peer into the perfect law, and work to maintain your spirit of self-sacrifice. Jehovah is willing to help you, as he has helped so many of your brothers who, although imperfect, can and do have God’s favor and blessing

It’s interesting that in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, the only practical advice given about living a meaningful life is to find a job you like, enjoy your marriage, and obey God. It’s as though God is saying, Write a good story, take somebody with you, and let me help.

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

ECCLESIASTES 7  h A good name is better than precious ointment,         and  i the day of death than the day of birth.

Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins. -Ecclesiastes 7:20

Ecclesiastes 2:17 "So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

ECCLESIASTES 10 Dead flies make  g the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench;         so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

There was “nothing new under the sun,” as the beautiful Bible verses in Ecclesiastes put it—not so much because everything had been discovered but because everything would be forgotten.

ALTHOUGH A WICKED MAN COMMITS A HUNDRED CRIMES AND STILL LIVES A LONG TIME, I KNOW THAT IT WILL GO BETTER WITH GOD-FEARING MEN, WHO ARE REVERENT BEFORE GOD. . . . HERE IS THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER: FEAR GOD AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. . . . FOR GOD WILL BRING EVERY DEED INTO JUDGMENT, INCLUDING EVERY HIDDEN THING. _________________________________ ECCLESIASTES 8 : 12; 12 : 13-14

...Although the term Existentialism was invented in the 20th century by the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, the roots of this thought go back much further in time, so much so, that this subject was mentioned even in the Old Testament. If we take, for example, the Book of Ecclesiastes, especially chapter 5, verses 15-16, we will find a strong existential sentiment there which declares, 'This too is a grievous evil: As everyone comes, so they depart, and what do they gain, since they toil for the wind?' The aforementioned book was so controversial that in the distant past there were whole disputes over whether it should be included in the Bible. But if nothing else, this book proves that Existential Thought has always had its place in the centre of human life. However, if we consider recent Existentialism, we can see it was the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre who launched this movement, particularly with his book Being and Nothingness, in 1943. Nevertheless, Sartre's thought was not a new one in philosophy. In fact, it goes back three hundred years and was first uttered by the French philosopher René Descartes in his 1637 Discours de la Méthode, where he asserts, 'I think, therefore I am' . It was on this Cartesian model of the isolated ego-self that Sartre built his existential consciousness, because for him, Man was brought into this world for no apparent reason and so it cannot be expected that he understand such a piece of absurdity rationally.'' '' Sir, what can you tell us about what Sartre thought regarding the unconscious mind in this respect, please?'' a charming female student sitting in the front row asked, listening keenly to every word he had to say. ''Yes, good question. Going back to Sartre's Being and Nothingness it can be seen that this philosopher shares many ideological concepts with the Neo-Freudian psychoanalysts but at the same time, Sartre was diametrically opposed to one of the fundamental foundations of psychology, which is the human unconscious. This is precisely because if Sartre were to accept the unconscious, the same subject would end up dissolving his entire thesis which revolved around what he understood as being the liberty of Man. This stems from the fact that according to Sartre, if a person accepts the unconscious mind he is also admitting that he can never be free in his choices since these choices are already pre-established inside of him. Therefore, what can clearly be seen in this argument is the fact that apparently, Sartre had no idea about how physics, especially Quantum Mechanics works, even though it was widely known in his time as seen in such works as Heisenberg's The Uncertainty Principle, where science confirmed that first of all, everything is interconnected - the direct opposite of Sartrean existential isolation - and second, that at the subatomic level, everything is undetermined and so there is nothing that is pre-established; all scientific facts that in themselves disprove the Existential Ontology of Sartre and Existentialism itself...

So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.

And I thought the dead, who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive; but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 4:2-3

Ecclesiastes This is a book of the Old Testament. I don't believe I've ever read this section of the Bible - I know my Genesis pretty well and my Ten Commandments (I like lists), but I'm hazy on a lot of the other parts. Here, the Britannica provides a handy Cliff Notes version of Ecclesiastes: [the author's] observations on life convinced him that 'the race is not swift, nor the battle strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all' (9:11). Man's fate, the author maintains, does not depend on righteous or wicked conduct but is an inscrutable mystery that remains hidden in God (9:1). All attempts to penetrate this mystery and thereby gain the wisdom necessary to secure one's fate are 'vanity' or futile. In the face of such uncertainty, the author's counsel is to enjoy the good things that God provides while one has them to enjoy. This is great. I've accumulated hundreds of facts in the last seven thousand pages, but i've been craving profundity and perspective. Yes, there was that Dyer poem, but that was just cynical. This is the real thing: the deepest paragraph I've read so far in the encyclopedia. Instant wisdom. It couldn't be more true: the race does not go to the swift. How else to explain the mouth-breathing cretins I knew in high school who now have multimillion-dollar salaries? How else to explain my brilliant friends who are stuck selling wheatgrass juice at health food stores? How else to explain Vin Diesel's show business career? Yes, life is desperately, insanely, absurdly unfair. But Ecclesiastes offers exactly the correct reaction to that fact. There's nothing to be done about it, so enjoy what you can. Take pleasure in the small things - like, for me, Julie's laugh, some nice onion dip, the insanely comfortable beat-up leather chair in our living room. I keep thinking about Ecclesiastes in the days that follow. What if this is the best the encyclopedia has to offer? What if I found the meaning of life on page 347 of the E volume? The Britannica is not a traditional book, so there's no reason why the big revelation should be at the end.

I want to be the very best competitor I can be. The Bible says, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible. Whatever the Bible may be made to do in Hebrew or Greek, in plain English it does not exalt and dignify woman.

In the Bible, God uses several different types of writing to convey his truth. There are narratives (often with commentary), preaching and exhortation (as in the prophets), laws and regulations, the distilled wisdom of Proverbs, philosophical discussion (as in Job and Ecclesiastes), and poetry (as in the Psalms). Poetry has its own ways.

The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible.

ECCLESIASTES 4 Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them. 2And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. 3But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

What a revolution! In less than a century the persecuted church had become a persecuting church. Its enemies, the “heretics” (those who “selected” from the totality of the Catholic faith), were now also the enemies of the empire and were punished accordingly. For the first time now Christians killed other Christians because of differences in their views of the faith. This is what happened in Trier in 385: despite many objections, the ascetic and enthusiastic Spanish lay preacher Priscillian was executed for heresy together with six companions. People soon became quite accustomed to this idea. Above all the Jews came under pressure. The proud Roman Hellenistic state church hardly remembered its own Jewish roots anymore. A specifically Christian ecclesiastical anti-Judaism developed out of the pagan state anti-Judaism that already existed. There were many reasons for this: the breaking off of conversations between the church and the synagogue and mutual isolation; the church’s exclusive claim to the Hebrew Bible; the crucifixion of Jesus, which was now generally attributed to the Jews; the dispersion of Israel, which was seen as God’s just curse on a damned people who were alleged to have broken the covenant with God . . . Almost exactly a century after Constantine’s death, by special state-church laws under Theodosius II, Judaism was removed from the sacral sphere, to which one had access only through the sacraments (that is, through baptism). The first repressive measures

Liberal theory, however, doesn’t have to demonstrate the difference. It only has to show that moral decisions on matters of public policy in a pluralist and democratic state are satisfied, or justified, by a particular political test: the “ability to gain assent from people who retain radically diverse ideas about the point and meaning of human life, about the path to private perfection.”43 Appeals to the will of God through quoting the Bible, church doctrine, and ecclesiastical authorities, fail this test for public values because

The Wisdom tradition had originally little connection with Moses and Sinai but was associated with King Solomon, who had a reputation for this type of acumen16 and three of the Kethuvim were attributed to him: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. Proverbs was a collection of common-sense aphorisms, similar to the two quoted above. Ecclesiastes, a flagrantly cynical meditation, saw all things as ‘vanity’, and appeared to undermine the entire Torah tradition, while the Song of Songs was an erotic poem with no apparent spiritual content.

ECCLESIASTES 11  f Cast your bread upon the waters,          g for you will find it after many days. 2     h Give a portion to  i seven, or even to eight,          j for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. 3    If the clouds are full of rain,         they empty themselves on the earth,     and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,         in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. 4    He who observes the wind will not sow,         and he who regards the clouds will not reap. 5As you do not know the way  k the spirit comes to  l the bones in the womb [1] of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

Rewriting the baseball record book must be very fulfilling. Or maybe not. Yankees outfielder Roger Maris knew firsthand the fickle nature of success. After an MVP season in 1960—when he hit 39 homers and drove in a league-high 112 runs—Maris began a historic assault on one of baseball’s most imposing records: Babe Ruth’s single-season home run mark of 60. In the thirty-three seasons since the Bambino had set the standard, only a handful of players had come close when Jimmie Foxx in 1932 and Hank Greenberg in 1938 each hit 58. Hack Wilson, in 1930, slammed 56. But in 1961, Maris—playing in “The House That Ruth Built”—launched 61 home runs to surpass baseball’s most legendary slugger. Surprisingly, the achievement angered fans who seemed to feel Maris lacked the appropriate credentials to unseat Ruth. Some record books reminded readers that the native Minnesotan had accomplished his feat in a season eight games longer than Ruth’s. Major League Baseball, due to expansion, changed the traditional 154-game season to 162 games with the 1961 season. Of the new home run record, Maris said, “All it ever brought me was trouble.” Human achievements can be that way. Apart from God, the things we most desire can become empty and unfulfilling—even frustrating—as the writer of Ecclesiastes noted. “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income,” he wrote (5:10). “Everyone’s toil is for their mouth,” he added, “yet their appetite is never satisfied” (6:7). But the Bible also shows where real satisfaction is found, in what Ecclesiastes calls “the conclusion of the matter.” Fulfillment comes to those who “fear God and keep his commandments” (12:13).

If you do not believe in what your religion teaches, why continue to support a belief which is contradictory with your feelings. You would never vote for a person or issue you did not believe in, so why cast your ecclesiastical vote for a religion which is not consistent with your convictions? You have no right to complain about a political situation you have voted for or supported in any way - which includes sitting back and complacently agreeing with neighbors who approve the situation, just becaus eyou are too lazy or cowardly to speak your mind. So it is religious balloting. Even if you cannot be aggressively honest about your opinions because of unfavorable consequences from employers, community leaders, ect., you can, at least, be honest with yourself. In the privacy of you own home and with close friends you must support the religion which has YOUR best interests at heart.

The Bible, however, teaches that change comes about through confession, repentance, and obedience. There is no need for hours and hours of free association, venting, and dream analysis; no need to structure contrived rewards or punishments; no need to sit in front of the mirror every morning reciting your "Twenty Affirmations." The process of change (what the Bible calls sanctification) is accomplished by following these simple steps: First, you must recognize your action as sinful (not merely ineffective or self-defeating) (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:23) and confess it to God, to whom you owe worship and obedience (John 1:9; Revelation 3:19). Second, you need to ask for His forgiveness. Third, you must repent. Repentance involves putting off your former manner of life, seeking to renew your mind, and putting on the new habits that God commands (Ephesians 4:22-24). Finally, you must habitually practice each of these steps in faith (Philippians 4:9). As you seek to do these things, you'll be empowered by the Holy Spirit (2 Thessalonians 2:13) and enlightened by the Word (Psalm 119:130). Remember,

Which brings me back to Ecclesiastes, his search for happiness, and mine. I spoke in chapter 4 about my first meeting, as a student, with Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. As I was waiting to go in, one of his disciples told me the following story. A man had recently written to the Rebbe on something of these lines: ‘I need the Rebbe’s help. I am deeply depressed. I pray and find no comfort. I perform the commands but feel nothing. I find it hard to carry on.’ The Rebbe, so I was told, sent a compelling reply without writing a single word. He simply ringed the first word in every sentence of the letter: the word ‘I’. It was, he was hinting, the man’s self-preoccupation that was at the root of his depression. It was as if the Rebbe were saying, as Viktor Frankl used to say in the name of Kierkegaard, ‘The door to happiness opens outward.’23 It was this insight that helped me solve the riddle of Ecclesiastes. The word ‘I’ does not appear very often in the Hebrew Bible, but it dominates Ecclesiastes’ opening chapters. I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself; I made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees; I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and I had homeborn slaves. Also I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. (Ecclesiastes 2:4–8) Nowhere else in the Bible is the first-person singular used so relentlessly and repetitively. In the original Hebrew the effect is doubled because of the chiming of the verbal suffix and the pronoun: Baniti li, asiti li, kaniti li, ‘I built for myself, I made for myself, I bought for myself.’ The source of Ecclesiastes’ unhappiness is obvious and was spelled out many centuries later by the great sage Hillel: ‘If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I?’24 Happiness in the Bible is not something we find in self-gratification. Hence the significance of the word simchah. I translated it earlier as ‘joy’, but really it has no precise translation into English, since all our emotion words refer to states of mind we can experience alone. Simchah is something we cannot experience alone. Simchah is joy shared.

I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly — my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. —Ecclesiastes 2:1–11

Olo-keZ G-- a tc There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven. -ECCLESIASTES 3:1 What would we do without our day planners? I have a large one for my desk and a carry-all that goes with me. I don't know how a person functions without some type of organizer. I just love it; it truly has become my daily-calendar bible. I take it with me everywhere. My whole life is in that book. Each evening I peek in to see what tomorrow has to bring. I just love to see a busy calendar; it makes me feel so alive. I've got this to do and that to do. Then I come upon a day that has all white space. Not one thing to do. What, oh what, will I do to fill the space and time? That's the way I used to think and plan. All my spaces had appointments written down, and many times they even overlapped. I now plan for white spaces. I even plan ahead weeks or months and black out "saved for me or my family" days. I have begun to realize that there are precious times for myself and my loved ones. Bob and I really try to protect these saved spaces just for us. We may not go anywhere or do anything out of the ordinary, but it's our special time. We can do anything we want: sleep in, stay out late, go to lunch, read a book, go to a movie, or take a nap. I really look forward with great anticipation to when these white spaces appear on my calendar. I've been so impressed when I've read biographies of famous people. Many of them are controllers of their own time. They don't let outsiders dictate their schedules. Sure, there are times when things have to be done on special days, but generally that isn't the case. When we begin to control our calendars, we will find that our lives are more enjoyable and that the tensions of life are more manageable. Make those white spaces your friend, not your enemy.

Many people today acquiesce in the widespread myth, devised in the late 19th century, of an epic battle between ‘scientists’ and ‘religionists’. Despite de unfortunate fact that some members of both parties perpetuate the myth by their actions today, this ‘conflict’ model has been rejected by every modern historian of science; it does not portray the historical situation. During the 16th and 17th centuries and during the Middle Ages, there was not a camp of ‘scientists’ struggling to break free of the repression of ‘religionists’; such separate camps simply did not exist as such. Popular tales of repression and conflict are at best oversimplified or exaggerated, and at worst folkloristic fabrications. Rather, the investigators of nature were themselves religious people, and many ecclesiastics were themselves investigators of nature. The connection between theological and scientific study rested in part upon the idea of the Two Books. Enunciated by St. Augustine and other early Christian writers, the concept states that God reveals Himself to human beings in two different ways – by inspiring the sacred writers to pen the Book of Scripture, and by creating the world, the Book of Nature. The world around us, no less than the Bible, is a divine message intended to be read; the perceptive reader can learn much about the Creator by studying the creation. This idea, deeply ingrained in orthodox Christianity, means that the study of the world can itself be a religious act. Robert Boyle, for example, considered his scientific inquiries to be a type of religious devotion (and thus particularly appropriate to do on Sundays) that heightens the natural philosopher’s knowledge and awareness of God through the contemplation of His creation. He described the natural philosopher as a ‘priest of nature’ whose duty it was to expound and interpret the messages written in the Book of Nature, and to gather together and give voice to all creation’s silent praise of its Creator.

The centre of the conception of wisdom in the Bible is the Book of Ecclesiastes, whose author, or rather, chief editor, is sometimes called Koheleth, the teacher or preacher. Koheleth transforms the conservatism of popular wisdom into a program of continuous mental energy. Those who have unconsciously identified a religious attitude either with illusion or with mental indolence are not safe guides to this book, although their tradition is a long one. Some editor with a “you’d better watch out” attitude seems to have tacked a few verses on the end suggesting that God trusts only the anti-intellectual, but the main author’s courage and honesty are not to be defused in this way. He is “disillusioned” only in the sense that he has realized that an illusion is a self-constructed prison. He is not a weary pessimist tired of life: he is a vigorous realist determined to smash his way through every locked door of repression in his mind. Being tired of life is in fact the only mental handicap for which he has no remedy to suggest. Like other wise men, he is a collector of proverbs, but he applies to all of them his touchstone and key word, translated in the AV [the Authorized Version] as “vanity.” This word (hebel) has a metaphorical kernel of fog, mist, or vapour, a metaphor that recurs in the New Testament (James 4:14). It this acquires a derived sense of “emptiness,” the root meaning of the Vulgate’s vanitas. To put Koheleth’s central intuition into the form of its essential paradox: all things are full of emptiness. We should not apply a ready-made disapproving moral ambience to this word “vanity,” much less associate it with conceit. It is a conception more like the shunyata or “void” of Buddhist though: the world as everything within nothingness. As nothing is certain or permanent in the world, nothing either real or unreal, the secret of wisdom is detachment without withdrawal. All goals and aims may cheat us, but if we run away from them we shall find ourselves bumping into them. We may feel that saint is a “better” man than a sinner, and that all of our religious and moral standards would crumble into dust if we did not think so; but the saint himself is most unlikely to take such a view. Similarly Koheleth went through a stage in which he saw that wisdom was “better” than folly, then a stage in which he saw that there was really no difference between them as death lies in wait for both and finally realized that both views were equally “vanity”. As soon as we renounce the expectation of reward, in however, refined a guise, for virtue or wisdom, we relax and our real energies begin to flow into the soul. Even the great elegy at the end over the failing bodily powers of old age ceases to become “pessimistic” when we see it as part of the detachment with which the wise man sees his life in the context of vanity. We take what comes: there is no choice in the matter, hence no point in saying “we should take what comes.” We soon realize by doing so that there is a cyclical rhythm in nature. But, like other wheels, this is a machine to be understood and used by man. If it is true that the sun, the seasons, the waters, and human life itself go in cycles, the inference is that “there is a time for all things,” something different to be done at each stage of the cycle. The statement “There is nothing new under the sun” applies to wisdom but not to experience , to theory but not to practice. Only when we realize that nothing is new can we live with an intensity in which everything becomes new.

My own observations had by now convinced me that the mind of the average Westerner held an utterly distorted image of Islam. What I saw in the pages of the Koran was not a ‘crudely materialistic’ world-view but, on the contrary, an intense God-consciousness that expressed itself in a rational acceptance of all God-created nature: a harmonious side-by-side of intellect and sensual urge, spiritual need and social demand. It was obvious to me that the decline of the Muslims was not due to any shortcomings in Islam but rather to their own failure to live up to it. For, indeed, it was Islam that had carried the early Muslims to tremendous cultural heights by directing all their energies toward conscious thought as the only means to understanding the nature of God’s creation and, thus, of His will. No demand had been made of them to believe in dogmas difficult or even impossible of intellectual comprehension; in fact, no dogma whatsoever was to be found in the Prophet’s message: and, thus, the thirst after knowledge which distinguished early Muslim history had not been forced, as elsewhere in the world, to assert itself in a painful struggle against the traditional faith. On the contrary, it had stemmed exclusively from that faith. The Arabian Prophet had declared that ‘Striving after knowledge is a most sacred duty for every Muslim man and woman’: and his followers were led to understand that only by acquiring knowledge could they fully worship the Lord. When they pondered the Prophet’s saying, ‘God creates no disease without creating a cure for it as well’, they realised that by searching for unknown cures they would contribute to a fulfilment of God’s will on earth: and so medical research became invested with the holiness of a religious duty. They read the Koran verse, ‘We create every living thing out of water’ - and in their endeavour to penetrate to the meaning of these words, they began to study living organisms and the laws of their development: and thus they established the science of biology. The Koran pointed to the harmony of the stars and their movements as witnesses of their Creator’s glory: and thereupon the sciences of astronomy and mathematics were taken up by the Muslims with a fervour which in other religions was reserved for prayer alone. The Copernican system, which established the earth’s rotation around its axis and the revolution of the planet’s around the sun, was evolved in Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century (only to be met by the fury of the ecclesiastics, who read in it a contradiction of the literal teachings of the Bible): but the foundations of this system had actually been laid six hundred years earlier, in Muslim countries - for already in the ninth and tenth centuries Muslim astronomers had reached the conclusion that the earth was globular and that it rotated around its axis, and had made accurate calculations of latitudes and longitudes; and many of them maintained - without ever being accused of hearsay - that the earth rotated around the sun. And in the same way they took to chemistry and physics and physiology, and to all the other sciences in which the Muslim genius was to find its most lasting monument. In building that monument they did no more than follow the admonition of their Prophet that ‘If anybody proceeds on his way in search of knowledge, God will make easy for him the way to Paradise’; that ‘The scientist walks in the path of God’; that ‘The superiority of the learned man over the mere pious is like the superiority of the moon when it is full over all other stars’; and that ‘The ink of the scholars is more precious that the blood of martyrs’. Throughout the whole creative period of Muslim history - that is to say, during the first five centuries after the Prophet’s time - science and learning had no greater champion than Muslim civilisation and no home more secure than the lands in which Islam was supreme.

ECCLESIASTES 12 [†]Remember also your Creator in  v the days of your youth, before  w the evil days come and the years draw near of which  x you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; 2[†]before  y the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, 3in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and  z those who look through the windows are dimmed,

The truth of history requires us to sacrifice the orthodox fiction of moral perfection in the apostolic church. But we gain more than we lose. The apostles themselves never claimed, but expressly disowned such perfection.477  They carried the heavenly treasure in earthen vessels, and thus brought it nearer to us. The infirmities of holy men are frankly revealed in the Bible for our encouragement as well as for our humiliation. The bold attack of Paul teaches the right and duty of protest even against the highest ecclesiastical authority, when Christian truth and principle are endangered; the quiet submission of Peter commends him to our esteem for his humility and meekness in proportion to his high standing as the chief among the pillar-apostles; the conduct of both explodes the Romish fiction of papal supremacy and infallibility; and the whole scene typically foreshadows the grand historical conflict between Petrine Catholicism and Pauline Protestantism, which, we trust, will end at last in a grand Johannean reconciliation.

He had too much fun teasing “the boy” over the real meaning of the words in The Song of Solomon or Pope’s The Rape of the Lock. “Read that verse to me again,” Ty said, smiling. “You ran over it so fast I missed most of the words.” Janna tilted her head down to the worn pages of the Bible and muttered, “ ‘ Vanity of vanities . . . all is vanity.’” “That’s Ecclesiastes,” Ty drawled. “You were reading The Song of Solomon and a woman was talking about her sweetheart. ‘My beloved is gone down into his garden, to tubes of spices, to feed in the gardens . . .’ Now what do you suppose that really means, boy?” “He was hungry,” Janna said succinctly. “Ah, but for what?” Ty asked, stretching. “When you know the answer, you’ll be a man no matter what your size or age.

The “fear of the Lord” is that attitude of reverence and awe that His people show to Him because they love Him and respect His power and His greatness.

One of the marks of maturity is the ability to look at life in perspective and not get out of balance. When you have God’s wisdom, you will be able to accept and deal with the changing experiences of life.

Wisdom will guide us and guard us in our daily walk.

If you devote your life only to the pursuit of happiness, you will be miserable; however, if you devote your life to doing God’s will, you will find happiness as well.

What God wills for us is best for us, because He knows far more about us than we do.

But Ecclesiastes tells us, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” God’s timing is not the same as ours. His ways are not our ways.

Take it from Solomon, the wisest, richest, most accomplished, most published, most married, most you-name-it individual in the Bible. If you are looking for significance and satisfaction in the pursuits of life, you are in for a rude disappointment. Purpose and meaning can never be found there; they are found only in the Giver of life himself. That’s why at the end of his twelve-chapter odyssey, Solomon concludes with these words: “Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). The

ECCLESIASTES—NOTE ON 1:2 vanity of vanities! All is vanity. This extremely important thematic word (Hb. hebel, lit., “vapor,” taken figuratively as “vanity”; see esv footnote) occurs frequently throughout the book; at this early point, however, the Preacher leaves it unexplained. It is only as the book progresses that its meaning becomes clear (for further discussion of its meaning, see Introduction: Key Themes

The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Holy Bible was written more than two thousand years ago, just before I was born. Chapter III contains the famous verses about there being a time, a season, and a purpose for everything. Who needs modern self-help books and expensive therapy when this astute advice explains it all?

Per ogni cosa c'è il suo momento, il suo tempo per ogni faccenda sotto il cielo. C'è un tempo per nascere e un tempo per morire, un tempo per piantare e un tempo per sradicare le piante. Un tempo per uccidere e un tempo per guarire, un tempo per demolire e un tempo per costruire. Un tempo per piangere e un tempo per ridere, un tempo per gemere e un tempo per ballare. Un tempo per gettare sassi e un tempo per raccoglierli, un tempo per abbracciare e un tempo per astenersi dagli abbracci. Un tempo per cercare e un tempo per perdere, un tempo per serbare e un tempo per buttar via. Un tempo per stracciare e un tempo per cucire, un tempo per tacere e un tempo per parlare. Un tempo per amare e un tempo per odiare, un tempo per la guerra e un tempo per la pace.

Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosoms of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9

Now, where are the original doctrines? More than one billion people in the world have no other holy book except the Bible. It is considered to be the original text on the life and mission of Jesus Christ. The faithful believe that the Bible has always existed in the form in which they see it today. They further believe that there are no other holy books except the Bible. They do not know that not only was the Bible changed, altered and shortened from time to time, but many other scriptures and Gospels were banished from circulation, and destroyed by burning, as ordained by the Church. From the start, Christian Councils have met and taken decisions on doctrines from time to time, with the result that the Christian faith, as it exists today, is the faith imposed on us by the ecclesiastical priests. The net result has been that Jesus Christ, as presented today, appears to be some other personality from the one which existed two thousand years ago. As such, what is needed, is to search the real Jesus Christ. By searching the real Jesus Christ, we do not intend to do away with all that Christianity stands for today.

Roger realized that he was looking for a way to be human again.   The bible fell open to the book of Ecclesiastes, and he drank in the words he found on the page.   “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”   That passage was the closest he’d had to comfort yet. Strange — it didn’t mention anything about comfort and healing. The only thing it mentioned was that man wasn’t supposed to have the answers.   Roger supposed that on some level he realized that he would never know God’s plan, the reasoning behind the Lord taking his family from him.   But this was the bible telling him that it was all right, that it was perfectly natural that he didn’t understand why these tragic things had taken place.

Wisdom—quite practical and orthodox—is his base-camp; but he is an explorer. His concern is with the boundaries of life, and especially with the questions that most of us would hesitate to push too far.

God meets us in this book in three main aspects: as Creator, as Sovereign, and as Unsearchable Wisdom. Not that any of these actual terms are used of Him, except the first; but they may serve as a convenient focus.

Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” Their deeds are loathsome and corrupt; not one does what is right. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the human race, to see if even one is wise, if even one seeks God. All have gone astray; all alike are perverse. Not one does what is right, not even one. Psalm 14:1-3

Ecclesiastes 9:1 - So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him.

He is giving us a sermon about how human beings may not be able to read the book of creation (the world), but we can read the book of the Law (the Bible). It is a fallen world, and interpreting it to our complete satisfaction cannot be done. You cannot always read it. But you can read the Bible. And as you read, God is speaking. So listen.

Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:3). There is “a time to embrace,” the Bible says (Ecclesiastes 3:5). When you’re married, it’s definitely the time. Affection isn’t at the top of a man’s priority list because men often see sex and affection as being the same. A woman’s greatest need is for affection. If you are in a marriage that lacks it, pray for the Holy Spirit’s transformation.

God gives wisdom, knowledge and joy to those who please Him. But to the sinner, He gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God.

You remember the conclusion, where he says that he needs both, the holiness of words and the hostility against everything cruel. Then comes: And no one may force me to choose. That was the last sentence he delivered. But originally, there was another sentence: Seria uma corrida atrás do vento, it would be reaching for the wind. “‘What a wonderful image!’ I shouted. “Then he picked up the Bible and read to me from Ecclesiastes: I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and reaching for the wind.

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to kill, and a time to heal.” —Partial excerpts from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, King James Bible “Time flies like an arrow . . . but fruit flies like a banana.” —Unknown  (often attributed to Groucho Marx)

Finishing is better than starting. Patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.

Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing and benefits those who see the sun. Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves those who have it.

Who can unravel destiny in the unpredictable twists of fate? I for one cannot, but I can say that I have clearly lived a life of purpose: to help secure the future of my ancient people who suffered so much and have contributed so much to humanity. This mission will continue to inspire me until the end of my days. I have been privileged to be guided by extraordinary parents, to be supported by a loving family, and to represent so many who shared my vision and followed me with open hearts through the turbulence of political life. But is there truly such a thing as a life of purpose? Every age has its Ecclesiastes and Lucretius, who tell us that all is ephemeral. “Vanity of vanity, all is vanity,”1 says the Bible. “What profit hath a man of all his labor which he hath taken under the sun?”2 Toward the end of his life, Will Durant, one of my favorite authors and a great admirer of the Jewish people, tried to comfort humanity by noting the value of human achievements, however temporary: We need not fret about the future… Never was our heritage of civilization and culture so secure, and never was it half so rich. We may do our little share to augment it and transmit it, confident that time will wear away chiefly the dross of it, and that what is finally fair and worthy in it will be preserved, to illuminate many generations.3 Durant was right. The rebirth of Israel is a miracle of faith and history. The Book of Samuel says, “The eternity of Israel will not falter.” Throughout our journey, including in the tempests and upheavals of modern times, this has held true. The People of Israel Live!

Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

Everything you do, everything you'll ever accomplish, your life's work, your kids' life's work: horseshit. (Ecclesiastes) [God Is Disappointed in You]

The man richer than Bill Gates, smarter than Albert Einstein, more powerful than an American president, and more influential than the pope amassed a harem rivaled only by men who are porn addicts who collect women in their minds. Despite having sexually sinful parents who conceived his older brother through adultery, he did not learn his lesson. Despite being the wisest man to ever walk the earth other than Jesus Christ, he did not learn his lesson. Despite marrying a beautiful and sexually free woman who loved him, as recorded in the Song of Songs, he did not learn his lesson. Instead, he intermarried with seven hundred godless pagan women and kept three hundred additional sexual concubines from many other nations who helped turn his sinful heart away from God so that he worshipped false gods, even building pagan altars where sexual sin was conducted in worship to demon gods.a This includes his support of Ashtoreth, the Canaanite demon goddess of sex worshipped around male phallices symbolized by poles around which orgies occurred. He also funded the worship of Molech, the demon god who demanded children be sacrificed by fire; and of Chemosh, the Moabite god who demanded child sacrifice not unlike abortion. Solomon’s example reveals that the longer we wait to repent, the more damage we do. Solomon himself wrote an entire book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, in part to repent and warn us not to follow his folly.

Liberal theory, however, doesn’t have to demonstrate the difference. It only has to show that moral decisions on matters of public policy in a pluralist and democratic state are satisfied, or justified, by a particular political test: the “ability to gain assent from people who retain radically diverse ideas about the point and meaning of human life, about the path to private perfection.”43 Appeals to the will of God through quoting the Bible, church doctrine, and ecclesiastical authorities, fail this test for public values because it isn’t clear how these appeals can be adjudicated.

All the rivers flow into the sea, Yet the sea is not full. Ecclesiastes 1:7

All the rivers flow into the sea, Yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, There they flow again. Ecclesiastes 1:7

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job all agree: the Bible doesn’t capture a freeze-frame of God and bind him to it. If we get on board with this idea, some other things the Bible says about God will make more sense.

Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

Who come to mind when you think of friends who help you “face the worst” (Ecclesiastes 4:12)? Thank God for those friends.

Path after path will be relentlessly explored to the very point at which it comes to nothing. In the end, only one way will be left.

James 1:19-20 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Ecclesiastes 7:9

A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without Him, who can eat or find enjoyment?

The book of Ecclesiastes is one of God’s gifts to help us live in the real world. It’s a book in the Bible that gets under the radar of our thinking and acts like an incendiary device to explode our make-believe games and jolt us into realizing that everything is not as clean and tidy as the “let’s-pretend” world suggests.

Dr. Hooykaas, speaking of the four "Gospels," and "Acts," says of them: "Not one of these five books was really written by the person whose name it bears, and they are all of more recent date than the heading would lead us to suppose." "We cannot say that the "Gospels" and book of "Acts" are unauthentic, for not one of them professes to give the name of its author. They appeared anonymously. The titles placed above them in our Bibles owe their origin to a later ecclesiastical tradition which deserves no confidence whatever." (Bible for Learners, vol. iii. pp. 24, 25.)

Can we say as much for what is termed "the religion of Christ?" No! this religion has had the aid of the sword and firebrand, the rack and the thumb-screw. "Persecution," is to be seen written on the pages of ecclesiastical history, from the time of Constantine even to the present day. [444:1] This Christian emperor and saint was the first to check free-thought.

Ecclesiastes 3 A Time for Everything 1 For everything there is a season,    a time for every activity under heaven. Eclesiastés 3 Todo a su debido tiempo 1 Hay una temporada para todo,    un tiempo para cada actividad bajo el cielo. 2 A time to be born and a time to die.    A time to plant and a time to harvest. 2 Un tiempo para nacer y un tiempo para morir.    Un tiempo para sembrar y un tiempo para cosechar. 3 A time to kill and a time to heal.    A time to tear down and a time to build up. 3 Un tiempo para matar y un tiempo para sanar.    Un tiempo para derribar y un tiempo para construir. 4 A time to cry and a time to laugh.    A time to grieve and a time to dance. 4 Un tiempo para llorar y un tiempo para reír.    Un tiempo para entristecerse y un tiempo para bailar.

Charlotte, remember grace. Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve. No matter how many times we mess us, God is still right there extending us grace. With this being said Keith, you have to know your responsibility as a husband is far more than simply being the head of your household. The bible tells us in Ecclesiastes nine, verse nine, to enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.

Work Is a Spiritual Activity Ecclesiastes 9:10 Our lives on earth will be different from our lives in eternity. The demands we are to undertake will not be like those after death. Our best response is to be committed today in our work, tasks, job and responsibilities; we must be as diligent and engaged as possible. Wherever we work, whatever we do, we are to do it with all our hearts, “as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). As Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.

A leading common sense–based reason for exploring other animals’ realities, which is also a scientific one, is the pursuit of truth. Science since the seventeenth century has developed a collection of subfields that reflect our considerable abilities to inquire in disciplined and creative ways about the universe we share with countless other organisms and inorganic objects and systems. A standard goal in all these sciences is “the truth,” which coincides perfectly with our natural curiosity. “Getting it right” about the realities around us also helps us have confidence in our ethical judgments about the world around us and its nonhuman creatures. Another common sense–based reason for trying to learn about other animals is that humans have long recognized similarities between humans and many other living beings. Traditional sources, such as the Bible, the Qur’an, sacred writings from India and China, and the stories of indigenous peoples, often reflect the commonality attested to in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes (this translation is from the Revised Standard Version): For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth?

People ought to enjoy every day of their lives. (Referencing Ecclesiastes Chapter 11 in the Bible)

And Solomon says: Be not overmuch righteous; [ Ecclesiastes 7: 17 ] for restraint should temper righteousness.