{"id":28161,"date":"2023-10-03T22:00:27","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T05:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/ecclesiastes-2_1-11-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-09-12T14:13:29","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T21:13:29","slug":"ecclesiastes-2_12-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/ecclesiastes-2_12-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Do We All Really Share the Same Fate?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ecclesiastes 2:12-16 \u00a0 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Ecclesiastes 2:12-16.\u00a0 In case you\u2019re wondering, since I believe that Qohelet, the main speaker in Ecclesiastes, is best identified as Solomon, I will refer to him interchangeably as Qohelet or Solomon.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Ecclesiastes 2:12-16 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done?
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then I thought in my heart, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said in my heart, “This too is meaningless.”
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 12-16:\u00a0 In the book of Proverbs, a younger Solomon was so sure that wisdom was supreme and worth chasing after, even if it cost everything a person have.\u00a0 As verses 13-14 say, Solomon saw that \u201cwisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.\u00a0 The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness\u201d.\u00a0 Yet here an older Solomon is now struck by the realization that both the wise and the foolish die just the same, \u201cthe same fate overtakes them both\u201d (v14).\u00a0 Both will be forgotten one day (v16).\u00a0 So why bother being wise, older Solomon wonders? (v15)<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s right?\u00a0 Older Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:12-16 or his younger self in Proverbs?<\/p>\n

Does the same fate really overtake both the wise person and the fool, as older Solomon suggests (v14)?\u00a0 On the surface, yes.\u00a0 If you speak in purely earthly, worldly terms with no hope for eternity, older Solomon\u2019s position is correct insofar as both the wise person and the fool will die.\u00a0 But if, as Jesus says, there is life beyond the grave, if each of us will give an account to God for the way we lived on earth, and if our eternal destinies depend on how we lived temporarily on earth, then older Solomon\u2019s conclusion in Ecclesiastes 2:14 is wrong: the same fate does not overtake the wise person and the fool.\u00a0 Rather, the wise person and the fool will have completely different trajectories in eternity: one will be with God in heaven and enjoy great reward, while the other will be apart from God in hell with great regret.<\/p>\n

We need to make a choice.\u00a0 Will we listen to Solomon and accept his take here?\u00a0 Or will we filter his words through the words of someone greater – Jesus – and realize that there\u2019s more to the issue than what Solomon offers here?<\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, thank You for showing us that physical death is not the end of any of us, that our existence goes beyond our physical days on earth.\u00a0\u00a0 Thank You in You we have hope that is stronger than the grave and a life that outlasts it too.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2021 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Ecclesiastes 2:12-16.\u00a0 In case you\u2019re wondering, since I believe that Qohelet, the main speaker in Ecclesiastes, is best identified as Solomon, I will refer to him interchangeably as Qohelet or Solomon.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Ecclesiastes 2:12-16 (NIV)
\n12\u00a0\u00a0Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done?
\n13\u00a0\u00a0I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.
\n14\u00a0\u00a0The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.
\n15\u00a0\u00a0Then I thought in my heart, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said in my heart, “This too is meaningless.”
\n16\u00a0\u00a0For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!
\n\u00a0
\nOn verses 12-16:\u00a0 In the book of Proverbs, a younger Solomon was so sure that wisdom was supreme and worth chasing after, even if it cost everything a person have.\u00a0 As verses 13-14 say, Solomon saw that \u201cwisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.\u00a0 The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness\u201d.\u00a0 Yet here an older Solomon is now struck by the realization that both the wise and the foolish die just the same, \u201cthe same fate overtakes them both\u201d (v14).\u00a0 Both will be forgotten one day (v16).\u00a0 So why bother being wise, older Solomon wonders? (v15)\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28164,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28161\/revisions\/28164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}