Bible Study Ecclesiastes, A Bible Study by Chopper & Reba.

[reba]

Growing in wisdom

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

Rollo sits quietly in class, waiting for the teacher and other students to show up.
Nobody comes.
He is alone.
So he leaves, his head hanging low.

 

[Christ_empowered]

Like I wrote in another post, I really liked Ecclesiastes...before I got saved (for real this time, lol). I dunno. It fit my melancholy fairly well.

Now...I think its insightful, but its not my favorite book of The Bible. Having said that...Ecclesiastes 3:22 speaks to me now on a number of levels.

 

[dianegcook]

I may cause trouble in other threads but I am not trying to do so here.
It just seems to go with my territory.
But that aside, we need to establish if these verses are literal or not.
Otherwise, we may never get past the first 12 verses.

All verses here seem to be very literal to me.
The problem with verse 5 is that it indicates the sun moving around the earth rather than the earth moving around the sun.
This causes for an investigation of our hearts.
Do we believe the Word of God or do we believe worldly science.
If we choose to believe science, then someone must come up with a legitimate explanation of verse 5, or call God a liar, or say the Bible is not the inspired word of God, or come up with some other worldly explanation as to why we should not take this verse literally.

I see verse 5 as looking at it from earth, under the sun.
We do have sunset here,but we know it doesn't set.
We have sunrise, but we know the sun doesn't rise.
All things is vanity under the sun, when you build a house it will just go to someone else, when you die.

 

[dianegcook]

Just wanted to add, it speaks of the flesh under the sun.

 

[Angel]

Ahhh interesting
That makes more sense

 

[th1b.taylor]

1:9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

What does this mean exactly? Technology is new under the sun.

My dad often said the more things change the more they remain the same. Both of these carry a like meaning but until my mid-forties, neither could clearly be seen by me to hold any relevance to life. We'll use war for a moment. In Vientnam we did not have any Smart Bombs and we had to Carpet Bomb to have any effectiveness. But for all the hundreds of thousands f bombs we dropped, not one single target could be captured and held without men on the ground to occupy the ground and hold it.


Today we have all manor of Smart Bombs and delivery systems such as our Tomahawk Missals. Our Tomahawks can be programmed to find Bill Taylor as he is dressed in Blue Jeans, Black Cowboy Shirt, Black Cowboy Boots and a Silver Belly Stetson style Cowboy Hat. The Tomahawk will orbit over the location it is sent to and will not attack and explode until it sees me dressed exactly as the programming requires. All very useful but there is still no way to capture the Building without those same infantrymen that were required in Vietnam, that were required in Korea, that were required in WW II and were required in the war of 1776.

In reality, nothing ha changed.

 

[AirDancer]

1:9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

What does this mean exactly? Technology is new under the sun.

I've always identified this verse as names and faces change, but personality types remain the same regardless of where one goes.

The cycle of life continues, just as a gold ring does not have a beginning nor end. Babies are born; kids try to bend the rules; adults mature as they age, catching their kids trying to bend the rules; grandparents try to help both their children and grandchildren.

Technology develops, just as early city-states developed a form of indoor plumbing. Mankind went from hunters/gatherers ... we're still hunters/gatherers, albeit in varying forms. (For instance, I don't kill chickens or cows to have food, but I do have to hunt out the grocery store to gather the foods I need)

There really is nothing new under the sun.

 

[Angel]

My dad often said the more things change the more they remain the same. Both of these carry a like meaning but until my mid-forties, neither could clearly be seen by me to hold any relevance to life. We'll use war for a moment. In Vientnam we did not have any Smart Bombs and we had to Carpet Bomb to have any effectiveness. But for all the hundreds of thousands f bombs we dropped, not one single target could be captured and held without men on the ground to occupy the ground and hold it.


Today we have all manor of Smart Bombs and delivery systems such as our Tomahawk Missals. Our Tomahawks can be programmed to find Bill Taylor as he is dressed in Blue Jeans, Black Cowboy Shirt, Black Cowboy Boots and a Silver Belly Stetson style Cowboy Hat. The Tomahawk will orbit over the location it is sent to and will not attack and explode until it sees me dressed exactly as the programming requires. All very useful but there is still no way to capture the Building without those same infantrymen that were required in Vietnam, that were required in Korea, that were required in WW II and were required in the war of 1776.

In reality, nothing ha changed.

that is interesting...
were you scared when you were at war?

 

[th1b.taylor]

that is interesting...
were you scared when you were at war?

A good friend from the war has said and I quote him, "Bravery is mounting up when you are scared to death and doing the job any way." I did three tours, thirty months and if any man or woman ever tells you they were not scared, one of two things are, instantly, true, either they were what we know as a Saigon Warrior or they are a perpetrator of stolen valor.

In my personal case, with a life expectancy of three and a half minutes from the time we took off, a smart man knew every flight was the last. And with Bullets that burn green and look the size of footballs flying at my ship and then a B40 rocket and a couple of RPGs, all visible, flying at the ship you are either scared or stupid and dangerous to everybody. And then you get to fly as high as four thousand feet, with an Air Controller keeping you safe and you look away from the center column and look straight toward the ocean and there is a sixteen inch shell fro the USS New Jersey coming straight at you. A shell out of the New Jersey looks just like a fifty-five gallon drum flying at the chopper.

Yes mam, I was scared every day.

 

[Chopper]

Yeah for all but 3 to 4 hours a day. I have found a working formula for the Opiod induced constipation. I was give a red stool softner to take twice a day and the VA also has me on a synthetic mother's milk, Lactulos or something similar in name but my dosage has gone to high and it quit working. I, on my own, added two heaping teaspoons of Miralax and slowly puled that beck until I use one rounded teaspoon plus my scripts and that releaved a great deal of the pain caused by the OIC. I feel good enough that I talked Deeter into allowing me to buy a Raspberry Pi 2 single board computer for 35 and now I am looking for people to restore photos for to get another fifty so I have all I need to put the Raspberry into service as a personal Cloud accessible only from my home network. I feel a god bit better.

And you?

Hi you old Warrior. I was just listening to the news that ISIS is a real threat and getting worse by the day. Hey, if we had a platoon of about a hundred of Bill Taylors, ISIS would be no more!!

I'm so sorry that you're having bowel trouble. For me, I use "Docusate Sodium. It's an orange pill and you take 2 at bedtime. If you do that regurally, in about 3-4 days you'll go each morning. If you haven't tried them, they might help. They are across the counter med.

I need to pray for you more, that's for sure.

Love You Bill, I sure do.

 

[th1b.taylor]

Hi you old Warrior. I was just listening to the news that ISIS is a real threat and getting worse by the day. Hey, if we had a platoon of about a hundred of Bill Taylors, ISIS would be no more!!

I'm so sorry that you're having bowel trouble. For me, I use "Docusate Sodium. It's an orange pill and you take 2 at bedtime. If you do that regurally, in about 3-4 days you'll go each morning. If you haven't tried them, they might help. They are across the counter med.

I need to pray for you more, that's for sure.

Love You Bill, I sure do.

Thanks Chopper. All that man Bill Taylor would be good at is to insert real heros into position and to keep them supplied. I worked with heroes every day, we called them Grunts!

 

[Chopper]

Thanks Chopper. All that man Bill Taylor would be good at is to insert real heros into position and to keep them supplied. I worked with heroes every day, we called them Grunts!

Yea, I heard that word used by my Son Skip. He was a Marine Sgt. Not because he's my Son but he was the roughest toughest Marine I ever knew. When he was at Paris Island, he set the record for push ups. The Commander challenged the Dept. of Navy to a contest with the best push up "squid" that they had.

I guess it was quite an event. My Son Skip representing the US Marines against the US Navy. Skip did 287 push ups compared to 265 of the sailor. Yea!!! The Marines Won!! At Paris Island there is a plaque with Skip's name on it recording the official record.

Go Marines.

 

[th1b.taylor]

One, very, good man, Chopper. And at this point some wonder whaqt this has to do with the passage of scripture. You see, I loved and still love those Grunts. At Fort Benning we stole the 11th Airborne's patch and changed the Airborne Tag to an Air Assault Tag.

We had fight after fight over that because we were proud (vain) and if you look around, for all if our effort, nothing changed. In fact, instead of getting tougher, soldiers have gotten softer because of political correctness.

Nothing has moved any closer to God, in fact, when I entered Basic, Boot Campo to a Marine, I wa handed a pocket sized New Testament and today, what a few preferred not to happen then, today does not happen except on isolated occurrences.

Nothing has changed, the God that built the hedge around Bill Taylor and his crew is not all that welcome in the Service today.

 

[Chopper]

Thanks. Now back to the topic.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

I used to run with street punks, and I thought I was awesome. I had a multicolored mohawk, several piercings, cool clothes, popular friends.
How stupid! Now? I don't want to stand out. I don't want to drink or use. I am extremely careful about the people I let in my life. And I value God over vanity. Sometimes the world teases me, but if I do get mixed in I get out asap.

You are already wise.
Now, as a wise person, you will add to your learning.

 

[Chopper]

Good remarks everyone. Rollo, come on back, schools in session, don't be tardy or you'll see .

Ecclesiastes 1:13 "And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
1:14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
1:15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
1:16 I said in my heart, "I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge."
1:17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
1:18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

What an interesting statement of Solomon. "to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven" I wonder, what was he thinking?

At this point in time for Solomon, there doesn't seem to be any purpose for his life. I find Solomon's statement, being a psychologist, classic depression. This kind of depression leads to suicide.

I wonder what kind of situations would prompt Solomon to make this statement, "he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."

Hmmm any thoughts?

 

[Rollo Tamasi]

Good remarks everyone. Rollo, come on back, schools in session, don't be tardy or you'll see .

Ecclesiastes 1:13 "And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.
1:14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
1:15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
1:16 I said in my heart, "I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge."
1:17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
1:18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

What an interesting statement of Solomon. "to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven" I wonder, what was he thinking?

At this point in time for Solomon, there doesn't seem to be any purpose for his life. I find Solomon's statement, being a psychologist, classic depression. This kind of depression leads to suicide.

I wonder what kind of situations would prompt Solomon to make this statement, "he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."

Hmmm any thoughts?

Consider God giving you great wisdom to understand something in the Bible.
Then as you go to share it with people, nobody understands because nobody has your wisdom.
Instead, people think you are a nut or something.

Consider the wise man living alone outside the village.
When people have questions about life, someone might go to him for an answer.
But why does he live outside the village all alone?
Because nobody understands him.
Nobody can relate to him.
They are afraid of him in a sense.
But even so, they still know he has the answers that they seek.

Think how vexing it can be to have the wisdom to help others but no one will receive it.

At least that's my idea on the subject.

 

[JohnDB]

Man, in his vanity, tries to be unique. He tries to stand above the rest through innovation and entrepreneurship and development... Of various forms.

And still we don't stand out. Time marches on and people stubbornly refuse to change for the better. We try hard to make things easier and better for our children... But they have only new things to struggle with. The sun rises and sets and day to day tasks await us all generation after generation. We create something new only to find someone else has created the same thing years ago. We aren't special... Only normal and common.

 

[Chopper]

Consider God giving you great wisdom to understand something in the Bible.
Then as you go to share it with people, nobody understands because nobody has your wisdom.
Instead, people think you are a nut or something.

Consider the wise man living alone outside the village.
When people have questions about life, someone might go to him for an answer.
But why does he live outside the village all alone?
Because nobody understands him.
Nobody can relate to him.
They are afraid of him in a sense.
But even so, they still know he has the answers that they seek.

Think how vexing it can be to have the wisdom to help others but no one will receive it.

At least that's my idea on the subject.

Now, that makes a lot of sense. You have great wisdom to figure out great wisdom.