I like the book of Ecclesiastes.  It frequently gets a bad rap because everyone thinks it is miserable and meaningless.  When the author repeats, “meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless,”  it begs the question, “Isn’t your own writing meaningless, then?  So, why don’t you shut up and depress someone else?”  Of course, this is not what the book is about.

In September, we will start studying Philippians as prep. for The Chapel (www.chapel.org) series Joyride.  Until then, let’s get a little more deep and meaningful in a potentially dark and Gothy kind of way.

Exercise:

1. Get a Bible with introductions to the books.  An NIV Study Bible will do.
2. Who is the author of the book?  I assume that it is NOT Solomon.
3. What was the author of the book intent on saying?
4. How does this book address our generation who pursue many things and come up empty?
5. Read through the book once (Approx. 1/2 hour)
6. Where are there apparent contradictions?
7. What words or phrases stood out?

Over the next couple of weeks we are going to go deeper into the book section by section.