Year 8, Day 331: Ecclesiastes 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Ecclesiastes is a book after my own heart.  Perhaps it is better for me to say that my heart is after a book like Ecclesiastes.  There is much wisdom in the book – the kind of wisdom that people often try to sweep under the rug.

For example, one of the most popular quotes of Ecclesiastes is that there is nothing new under the sun.  While there are certainly new applications – what did the world do before social media, right? – the reality is that the motivations and drives behind the so-called new things aren’t really all that new.  Why is Facebook so popular?  People need to be heard (for whatever reason, good or bad).  Why do we all carry cell-phones around with us when twenty years ago most people would have balked at the idea of being reached everywhere they go?  Because in the end we want access to everything we want in the moment and are fundamentally impatient at our core. The reality is that Human beings are inventive people and we keep inventing new things.  But the inventions are simply things that try to meet age-old issues within human beings.

It goes back to a great analogy that we find in the passage.  The rivers continually run into the ocean, yet the oceans are never full.  Think about that for a second.  Why are the oceans never full?  Scientifically, we understand the process of evaporation and rain and climate.  Metaphysically, though, why are the oceans never full?  They are never full because their job is to receive the water from the rivers!  They are never full because they aren’t meant to be full.  In the same way, human beings are always inventing new things because we are trying to fill needs that we are unable to genuinely fill forever.

There isn’t anything new under the sun.  Human beings are human beings.  We have needs that never remain satisfied.  This is the foundation for Ecclesiastes.

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