2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterlymeaningless! Everything is meaningless." 2 "Everything is meaningless," says the Teacher, "completely meaningless!" - P58
9 What has been will be again, what has been done willbe done again; there is nothing new under the sun. 9 History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sunis truly new. 10 Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! Thisis something new"? It was here already, long ago; it washere before our time. 10 Sometimes people say, "Here is something new!" But actually it is old; nothingis ever truly new. - P59
These are the words of the Teacher, the son of King David. Everything is mean-ingless. What do people gain from all their labors? Generations come andgo, but the earth remains forever. - P59
The sun, the wind, and the streams returnto where they come from. What has been done will be done again; there isnothing new under the sun. No one remembers the former generations. - P59
The Teacher, identified as a son of King David, starts his book of wis-dom with striking words of disillusionment: "Meaningless! Meaning-less!" - P60
The original Hebrew word describes something that has no sub-stance, like dust or vapor. - P60
The Teacher looks back on his life and realizesthat everything he once thought was gain will be reduced to nothingin the end. - P60
The labors of man only produce toil, and generations upongenerations appear briefly on the stage of life and then vanish, never tobe seen again. - P60
The fragility of human existence is the core truth thatunderlies the Teacher‘s wisdom as he takes us on a journey to discoverwhat is truly valuable in life. - P60
Employing a technique that is common in biblical wisdom literature. - P60
the Teacher surveys the various ways in which the natural world illus-trates his main point. Whether it is the activity of the sun, the directionof the winds, or the flowing of the streams, everything and everyonereturns to where it came from. - P60
Just as the sea is never full despite theconstant streams that flow into it, human beings are never satisfied nomatter what they see, hear, or do. - P60
Things that seem new and novel haveactually existed long before our time. It is therefore foolish to have apuffed-up sense of our own significance when the natural world aroundus is far more permanent than we will ever be. - P60
"The point of our miseries, our futility, our corruption, our groaning is to teachus the horror of sin. And the preciousness of redemption and hope." - John Piper - P60
Human beings crave meaning. As soon as children learn to speak, they begin to ask question after question, trying to make sense of theirworld. - P61
Yet in Ecclesiastes, the wise and godly Teacher tells us he hastried everything the world had to offer-power, achievement, plea-sure, you name it-and his one-word review of it all is, "Meaningless!" - P61
And lest we think he was mistaken, the apostle Paul, under the Spirit‘sguidance, expresses a similar sentiment to believers in Rome whenhe says that "creation was subjected to frustration" (Rom. 8:20). - P61
TheGreek word translated "frustration" can also be translated as "mean-inglessness" or "futility." So, Paul agrees that everything is indeedmeaningless. - P61
But he continues, "The creation was subjected to frustra-tion, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjectedit, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondageto decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children ofGod" (vv. 20-21). - P61
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