◄ Ecclesiastes Devotional Commentary ►
Ecclesiastes 1:2
From start to finish, the book of Ecclesiastes declares the utter futility and complete meaninglessness of life without God. Whether it is referring to work or pleasure, wisdom or wealth, power or prestige, entertainment or virility, life or death, ALL is considered futile and worthless when God is excluded from the equation.
It is Solomon read more...
Ecclesiastes 3:1
So many verses in scripture come back to the foundational truth that God knows best and wants us to trust Him in all things and at all times. He made the world and governs the universe, and is never phased nor astonished at what is going on in the world at large, nor the troubling circumstances that are happening in the individual lives of His children.
Times and seasons have been foreordained by God. He even knows the number of read more...
Ecclesiastes 3:11
When God created the world, it was good. Indeed, God saw that all that He had made was very good. And although we can truly say that He made everything with resplendent beauty, everything He made was fitting and just right. We read in this verse that God "has made everything appropriate in its time." God made everything suitable for purpose at its appointed time.
God's entire creation unites together in a wonderful read more...
Ecclesiastes 4:9
When life is lived without God, life is futile and meaningless. Human effort, intellect pursuits, pleasure seeking, a power grab, personal prestige, or the accumulation of wealth, is identified by Solomon as being utterly vain. When the Lord is eliminated from the human heart, then the circle of life and the inevitability of death expresses nothing but hopelessness. When God is excluded, then the enemy has full sway in a life.
It read more...
Ecclesiastes 4:12
As Ecclesiastes unfolds, contrasting pictures emerge from its pages. We see secular wisdom at variance with the divine wisdom from on high. We discover the wonderful hope we have in our eternal God, as the antithesis of man's devastating despair in this fallen world system.
We hear of the futility of man's fleshly accomplishments and the emptiness and pain that permeates every aspect of life, when God is excluded. We discover that read more...
Ecclesiastes 7:9
The vain, meaninglessness of life without God and the vital importance of having the Lord in our lives, is summed up at the end of the book of Ecclesiastes: "We are to fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man."
There is so much that can be learned from the preacher who wrote Ecclesiastes for he spent the best years of his life pursuing every kind of meaningful activity the world read more...
Ecclesiastes 9:12
It was most likely King Solomon who penned the unusual book of Ecclesiastes. God granted the young king the gift of wisdom and discernment, and there is much in his writing that pertains to the value of acquiring godly wisdom. But as one traces the life of this famous and fabulously wealthy king through Scripture, we discover that he did not always make the best choices in his own life, as king of Israel. And despite his great gift of wisdom, he often exhibited read more...
Ecclesiastes 9:18
In much of his writing, we see Solomon discussing inanimate objects and abstract concepts as if they were real people, whose actions, attitudes, and behaviours, need to be pursued or avoided - and often they are identified in the feminine gender. Likewise, we often find him using similes, metaphors, comparisons, and contrasts, which help to deepen our understanding of Solomon's precepts and principles.
Folly and Foolishness is read more...
Ecclesiastes 12:13
Solomon was a man whose life seemed to overflow with the sort of blessings that so many chase after today: fame and fortune, glory and honour, prosperity and power, riches and authority, longevity and foresight, talents and skill, cleverness, aptitude, artistry, and wisdom: "Wine, women, and song."
Solomon was an anointed king of Israel and prophet of God who had been chosen to rule over His people, and who had read more...