WISDOM J.I. Packer: Not until we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God's holiness and sovereignty, acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours. Ecclesiastes 7:15-29 In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 7:15-29

FOLLY R.A. Torrey: Men will give you many reasons why they are skeptics, many reasons why they are infidels and agnostics and atheists, but in the great majority of cases the real reason is this — men hope by the denial of the existence of God to hide themselves from the discomfort of God's acknowledged … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 6:10-7:14

UNSATISFIED J.C. Ryle: Money, in truth, is one of the most unsatisfying of possessions. It takes away some cares, no doubt; but it brings with it quite as many cares as it takes away. There is trouble in the getting of it. There is the anxiety in the keeping it. There are the temptations in … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 5:1-6:9

WICKEDNESS C.S. Lewis: I have gained something I might not have gained from a flawless, ethical exposition. The shadows have indicated (at least to my heart) something more about the light. Nor would I (now) willingly spare from my Bible something in itself so anti-religious as the nihilism of Ecclesiastes. We there get a clear, … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:16

TIME Derek Kidner: We are like the desperately near-sighted, inching our way along a great tapestry or fresco in the attempt to take it in. We see enough to recognize something of its quality, but the grand design escapes us, for we can never stand back to view it as the Creator does, whole and … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

TOIL G. Campbell Morgan: Ecclesiastes is an inspired confession of failure and pessimism, when God is excluded, when man lives under the sun, and forgets the larger part, which is always over the sun, the eternal and abiding things. If you want to know what a man of great privilege and of great learning and … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 2:12-26

MYSELF Derek Kidner: A wisp of vapor, a puff of wind, a mere breath – nothing you could get your hands on; the nearest thing to zero. That is the vanity that this book is all about. This airy nothingness is not seen as a mere flicker on the surface of things, where it might … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:11

VANITY Qoheleth forces us to look at the brevity of life and our attempts to find meaning. He forces us to reassess our values and our pursuits.   Just as order points to an orderly Creator, just as a longing for justice points to One who is truly righteous, so does disappointment with the temporal … [Read More...] Ecclesiastes 1:1-11