Ecclesiastes 1

Overview:

Ecc in Hebrew → the preacher, the one who speaks to an assembly Theme: Vanity (emptiness) Key Scriptures: 1:13-14, 12:13-14

Chapter 1:1-1:11 → Introduction Chapters 1:12-6:12 → The Vanity of All Things Chapters 7:1-12:7 → Counsel Concerning Wisdom Chapters 12:8-14 → Conclusion

Purposes: 1. To show that trust in God is the foundation of peace 2. To show the insecurity of trusting in anything other than God 3. To show that God brings meaning to life

Messages: 1. God is the essence of life and outside of him is either presumption or despair. 1. Unless we recog His existence, mankind falls into either the presumption that he is the center of the universe (humanism) or the despair where everything is hopeless resulting in nihilism and the suicidal of society. What is sanity and how do we avoid these extremes? 2. Without an ultimate meaning of life, all the other meaning in life becomes meaningless. 1. The litle things in life can give us meaning but they don't necessarily add up to the BIG thing. We need an ultimate purpose from God to make meaning of all the other things in life together. 3. The duty of man is to worship God in faith and obedience.

theosu

v.13-14

I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! ¹⁴I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.