LABC Sunday Worship – July 31, 2022
Please join us in worship (In-person, YouTube, Zoom) this last Sunday of July 2022. Pastor Jim’s sermon will be “Let the Wind Chase Us.” The central scriptures will be Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:8-13 and Luke 12:13-21.
The Bulletin – Bulletin 2022-0731
The Scripture Readings – 20220728111645776
Some thoughts on Ecclesiastes –
The book of Ecclesiastes is usually called “skeptical” Wisdom or “dissenting” Wisdom. The author of Ecclesiastes, the Teacher, is a sage who has lived long and has grown weary of life’s vicissitudes. Death makes fools even of the wise. What does it matter how hard one works if after death one’s name is forgotten and one’s riches are given to someone else (Ecclesiastes 1:11; 2:18-19)? All is hevel (Ecclesiastes 1:2). The refrain runs throughout the book (25 times in all). Though traditionally translated “vanity,” hevel is better translated “absurdity, meaninglessness, vapor.”
And yet, the Teacher is not a nihilist. Like the author of Proverbs, the Teacher recognizes a certain reliable order that God has put in creation, a time and a season for everything (3:1-8). And the Teacher advocates humility, which is closely related to the fear of the LORD. We are to recognize our own mortality in the face of God’s eternity and be appropriately chastened: “I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe [literally, “fear”] before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).
The knowledge that life is hevel (fleeting, ephemeral) should lead us neither to asceticism nor to licentiousness. It should lead, instead, to humility and to a proper delight in the gifts of God. But such humility and delight are sometimes hard to come by in human nature.
Professor Kathryn M. Schifferdecker
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXa-HA2ygn69k8Ifiz2Du2g
11:45 AM – Bible Study with Pastor Carolyn (ZOOM, Library)
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