Ecclesiastes wrestles with the brevity of life, not its meaninglessness…..
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…..

The Bible’s Problem Child Ecclesiastes has been called “the black sheep of the Bible.” It has been called the “problem child of Scripture.” Iain Provan has commented, “Ecclesiastes has a long history of perturbation behind it.” And yet for all its bad press, the book has always captured my attention. When I was in college I took an elective on wisdom literature, trying to better understand Scripture’s “problem child.” When I was in seminary, I took another class that covered Ecclesiastes. Although I was able to grow some in my understanding of the Bible’s “black sheep,” I could not unravel the mystery. I collected articles, books, and commentaries. I read, I asked questions, read more, and still the message of this book eluded me. The mystery of the book is wrapped up in so many of the apparent pessimistic and even contrary statements to what is in the rest of the Bible.

This book was like a jigsaw puzzle to me. Some expositors held up various pieces and claimed to know what the picture on the box was supposed to look like. But those claims always sounded off or incomplete. Was I chasing the wind? In the back of my mind, I wanted to preach Ecclesiastes, but I knew I was not ready. I had not found the corner pieces of the puzzle. I had not discovered the edges. It is a fool’s errand to try to put a puzzle together without the corners and edges. I knew I needed to see the forest if I was ever going to understand the trees. My “hebel moment” gave me the impetus to put the puzzle together. I was driven………

My journey in Ecclesiastes has led me to believe that this is a wonderful, even positive book that shows us that life is a gift from God which is to be enjoyed for His glory. Hebel is not meaninglessness, it is vapor, breath, or mist (as I will demonstrate). Ecclesiastes wrestles with the brevity of life, not its meaninglessness……-Brian Borgman

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…….- David Gibson

Recommended Resources: 

“Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches us to Live in Light of the End”

By David Gibson

“Don’t Waste Your Breath: Ecclesiastes and the Joy of a Fleeting Life”

By Brian Borgman

Soli Deo Gloria