Now playing:
It
seems appropriate that my first real post on this blog is
music-related. Switchfoot's latest CD "Nothing is Sound" has been stuck
in my CD player recently. In my mind, it's an interesting musical
exploration of the book of Ecclesiastes, which at one time was my
favorite book of the Bible. Full disclosure: I was not in a positive
state of mind spiritually at that point in my life. Nevertheless, the
truths found in Ecclesiastes are vital for us to understand as
Christians...but like all biblical truth must be placed in the context
of all scripture. Otherwise, we are likely to despair.
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." Ecclesiastes 1:2 (NIV)
Yikes!
Can I get some Prozac, please? Everything is meaningless? So what's the
point? Not to pull a Bill Clinton, but the question is...what does the
Teacher mean by "everything"? I believe the Teacher is referring to the
things that this world system considers real, important, and valuable.
Things like wealth, position, power, happiness, education, etc. All
these things are meaningless because the world that we see is not the
point, the spiritual world is the point. I'm not espousing some sort of
Gnostic spirit/body duality. I'm just saying that the spiritual world
has priority, the physical world is simply the tool God uses to mold
our spirits into the image of Christ.
This is what Christ means
when He says "store up for yourselves treasures in heaven". He's saying
the treasures of this world are meaningless, the treasures of the
Kingdom of Heaven are what's important. And so, the struggles, trials,
and pains of this world are meaningless except for the fact that they
are refining us as Peter writes:
"These
have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which
perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may
result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."
1 Peter 1:7 (NIV)
So what is the meaning of life? As the Teacher says "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."