{"id":28173,"date":"2023-10-06T22:00:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T05:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/ecclesiastes-3_1-13-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-09-12T14:40:49","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T21:40:49","slug":"ecclesiastes-3_14-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/ecclesiastes-3_14-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Just Rely on Your Own Observation, but also on God\u2019s Revelation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ecclesiastes 3:14-22 \u00a0 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Ecclesiastes 3:14-22.\u00a0 In case you\u2019re wondering, since I believe that Qohelet, known as the \u201cTeacher\u201d and the main speaker in Ecclesiastes, is best identified as Solomon, I will refer to him interchangeably as Qohelet or Solomon.<\/p>\n

Ecclesiastes 3:14-15 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 14-15:\u00a0 These two verses carry with them the same kind of peace, profundity and depth that verses 1 to 13 carry.\u00a0 In particular verse 14 speaks of the sovereignty of God, how whatever God does endures and you can\u2019t change it.\u00a0 Verse 15 speaks of how from God\u2019s perspective, since God stands outside of time and space, to God everything is already done.<\/p>\n

The last part of verse 15 \u2013 \u201cGod will call the past to account\u201d \u2013 is the toughest to understand.\u00a0 Does it mean, as some scholars suggest, that God tends to repeat the past, or that God looks to make right what has happened is in the past, or something else?\u00a0 It\u2019s not entirely clear, though right now I tend to favour the second option.<\/p>\n

Ecclesiastes 3:16-22 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment–wickedness was there, in the place of justice–wickedness was there.
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I thought in my heart, “God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed.”
\n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I also thought, “As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.
\n19\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless.
\n20\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.
\n21\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”
\n22\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 16-22:\u00a0 In verses 16-22 Solomon seems to shift back to his doubting, disillusioned tone from chapters 1-2.\u00a0 The shift happens at the very moment Solomon starts focusing again on what\u00a0he\u00a0<\/em>has seen, observed and thought.\u00a0 Based on his own observations and thoughts, he questions whether the spirit of humans goes to heaven while the spirit of animals does not.\u00a0 Perhaps the lesson for us here is that when we rely only on our own observations without any of God\u2019s revelation, the result is despair, hopelessness and more questions than answers.\u00a0 God made us not to rely on our powers of observation alone, but even more on the power of God\u2019s revelation in our lives.\u00a0 May you use your powers of observation and God\u2019s power of revelation to help you see the world as God would have you see it.<\/p>\n

Father, thank You both for the power of observation and the power of revelation.\u00a0 I pray that I would use my abilities to observe together with Your ability to reveal so that in Your Word and in Your world, I would see as You want me to see.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/p>\n

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

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Ecclesiastes 3:14-22.\u00a0 In case you\u2019re wondering, since I believe that Qohelet, known as the \u201cTeacher\u201d and the main speaker in Ecclesiastes, is best identified as Solomon, I will refer to him interchangeably as Qohelet or Solomon.<\/p>\n

Ecclesiastes 3:14-15 (NIV)
\n14\u00a0\u00a0I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.
\n15\u00a0\u00a0Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.<\/p>\n

On verses 14-15:\u00a0 These two verses carry with them the same kind of peace, profundity and depth that verses 1 to 13 carry.\u00a0 In particular verse 14 speaks of the sovereignty of God, how whatever God does endures and you can\u2019t change it.\u00a0 Verse 15 speaks of how from God\u2019s perspective, since God stands outside of time and space, to God everything is already done.<\/p>\n

The last part of verse 15 \u2013 \u201cGod will call the past to account\u201d \u2013 is the toughest to understand.\u00a0 Does it mean, as some scholars suggest, that God tends to repeat the past, or that God looks to make right what has happened is in the past, or something else?\u00a0 It\u2019s not entirely clear, though right now I tend to favour the second option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28175,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28173","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\/28173","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=28173"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28176,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28173\/revisions\/28176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}