All is Vanity: Ecclesiastes 12
Chapter eleven ended with a challenging charge, remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity (11:10). Both youth and the dawn of life are vanity. A mere…
All is Vanity: Ecclesiastes 11
The Preacher is nearing the end of his sermon, and chapter eleven is no less satisfying for those who’ve come to recognize the vanity of our lives, rightly tuning our ears to wisdom as we walk by faith not by…
All is Vanity: Ecclesiastes 9
But all this I laid to heart says the Preacher at the start of chapter nine. All this is a fancy way of saying, “let’s pause and go back a few steps before bounding ahead”—back to the end of chapter…
All is Vanity: Ecclesiastes 7, Pt 2
Chapter Seven was simply too rich to pack into one post (you can read Part One by clicking HERE). In this second half, the Preacher continues to lay out astounding wisdom for us today. Astounding, because I literally had to…
All is Vanity: Ecclesiastes 7, Pt 1
The wisest man to walk the earth penned the Proverbs, a book of wisdom, and Ecclesiastes, this sermon-style book. The Preacher, he called himself, spends much of Chapter 7 contrasting wisdom and folly, and inevitably pointing us to the One…
All is Vanity: Ecclesiastes 6
There is a grievous evil (6:2) witnessed by the Preacher, and it lies heavy on mankind (6:1). Heavy, like a weight. Like a burden. And the evil? The Hebrew root word actually transliterates to be a sickness, a disease. The…
All is Vanity: Ecclesiastes 5
The Preacher’s sermon is getting serious. Seriously. Guard your steps when you go to the house of God (5:1a). That’s some fear-talk, the fear of the Lord. Like a lens exposing our sin and our filth—we’d much rather talk of…
All is Vanity: Ecclesiastes 2
The Preacher said in his heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure: enjoy yourself.” He searched with his heart how to cheer his body and how to lay hold of folly till he might see what was good…
All is Vanity: Ecclesiastes 1
The words of the Preacher, the wisest man to walk the face of the earth, begin with the line, “Vanity of Vanities”. The root Hebrew word transliterates to mean a mist, a vapor. It denotes the transient, short span of…
Manna for Today
(Click here to download this poem as a PDF file) Stretching my tingly feet side to sideCrusty eyes open at the breath of dawnI moan and groan, forcing faith’s whisper:I’ll rejoice, Lord, after I yawn Rejoicing comes easy when the…
