Old things New Podcast

Pray Read: Ecc 5:1-7. Meditation As Solomon opens up his words of wisdom on worship, he starts with this basic instruction: come to listen. Verse one says: “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.” In the first place, we know that Solomon is talking about worship because...

Pray Read: Ecc 5:1-7. Meditation In the words of John Piper: “ Mission exists because worship doesn’t. ” In John 4, Jesus tells us that God is seeking worshippers. The highest end for which we were created was to glorify God, to declare his excellence, to revel in his beauty, and to enjoy him forever. And yet, as we reflect on our own worship, how often are we truly so enraptured by God’s beauty t...

Pray Read: Ecc 4:4-16. Meditation Now we have a peculiar little story in verses 13 through 16, it’s almost a parable. Solomon tells the story of a foolish old king who did not know how to take advice. We will open this up a bit more later, but for now notice the old king. What was the defining mark of this king? That he did not know how to take advice. He did not listen to people. He had cut himse...

Pray Read: Ecc 4:4-12. Meditation We’ve seen that envy and laziness as forces of individualism, but Solomon has two more insights to give. Reading from verse 9: “ Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they...

Pray Read: Ecc 4:4-5. Meditation Solomon has another observation on individualism for us in verse five: “The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.” Now, like last time, you might be asking again: What has this got to do with individualism? Let me try and show you. Notice the description of this man. The first thing we see is that he is lazy. He sits, he folds his hands, and he does nothing....

Pray Read: Ecc 4:4-8. Meditation There is a prevailing sickness in our culture today. You will find this sickness quarantined behind closed suburban doors and high fences. You will see its symptoms in next door neighbours avoiding eye contact and a friendly wave. There are train carriages full of this disease all across our major cities each day. You notice it when you look up from your phone and...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:16-4:3 Meditation Verse 21 is one of those awkward Ecclesiastes sayings. It’s one of those verses that makes Christians want to avoid the book altogether – and plenty, it would seem, do just that. I want to take a moment to explain it. Let’s just start by reading it together: “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?” St...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:16-18. Meditation Let’s face it, the last two meditations have been heavy going. And yet, even in this seemingly grim passage, Solomon gives us a spark of hope. As we consider this spark in light of the gospel, it bursts into full flame. Solomon has already shown us that injustice exists, that judgment is coming, and that none of us are innocent. But here is where he wants to take...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:16-18. Meditation In our last meditation we faced up to the hard reality that injustice exists. Now, if the average western person was writing the script, our next play would be this: injustice needs to be dealt with. Makes sense. But if we want justice, we need to realise things might not turn out how we expect. Qohelet does take us on a next step, and it seems counter-intuitive...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:16. Meditation One of the most common objections to Christianity you will ever hear is this question: If there is a God, why does he allow suffering? Nobody likes it when things hurt. Perhaps people have raised this question with you before. There are unbelievers who deny God, and then the reason they give is because they think he should not or would not allow suffering if he real...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:9-13. Meditation Solomon says in verse nine that the deepest pulse of the human soul is the desire for beauty and joy and goodness. We long for it. We want to see it, and taste it, and touch it, and hear it. We want fulfillment and laughter, and wonder, and beauty, and joy. There is an insatiable, ravenous desire in every heart, longing to be satisfied with goodness and beauty. We...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:9-11. Meditation Solomon has challenged our perception of the good life, showing us that life as a gift from God is itself a goodness to be thankful for. And yet, the question stubbornly persists, doesn’t it? Is there any good in life? We still want and desire what is good, and with the brokenness of the world around us, the question is pressing. And Solomon has more to say to us....

A new perspective on finding joy (Ecc 3:10). Pray Read: Ecc 3:9-11. Meditation One thing we must always remember, says Solomon, is who is running the show. Take a look at verse 10: “I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.” Stop for a moment. Do you see what he did there? Solomon’s very first response to the bigger question he’s asking here (i.e. is there...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:9. Meditation In the spirit of Ecclesiastes, let me pose a very un-cheerful question to you: If there was nothing good in life, would you really want to be alive? If misery was your only companion, would you want to be here? I think our honest answer to that question would have to be no. If there was no good, no beauty, no satisfaction, peace or joy, if there was only pain, and su...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:1-8. Meditation There is a time to weep and a time to mourn . What we see here is that we must be prepared, because days of sadness will come. The goal of this life is not to be always happy or always comfortable, because there is a God-appointed time to mourn. Living in a fallen world means that we should expect tears and mourning at times. As Solomon says elsewhere, there will b...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:1-8. Meditation There is a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted. There will be seasons of hard work in life. Planting is by definition a time when you invest rather than gain. You work hard, and you give of your resources. This runs counter to the right now mindset of many Australians, who would rather spend in advance than work hard at the grind-stone and save. Y...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:1-8. Meditation There are particular seasons of life that Solomon brings to our attention in verses 2 to 8, and he starts with the big guns. There is, he says in verse 2, “a time to be born, and a time to die.” These are the great realities of time, the bookends of life. There is a time to be born, and this reminds us straight away that we are not in charge. When we were born, we...

Pray Read: Ecc 3:1-8. Meditation “Time flies,” we often say, don’t we? And probably it would be a cliché, if it weren’t such a constant and powerful reality. Time really does fly by. As children, we don’t tend to notice it. I distinctly remember waiting for my parents to stop talking after church on Sunday; five minutes felt like an eternity. In our twenties, we feel invincible, and existence stil...

Pray Read: Ecc 2:24-26. Meditation We see a change in Solomon starting at verse 24, because in God’s plan of redemption our labour may become fruitful again. So let us take a quick look at verses 24 and 25: “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have...

Pray Read: Ecc 2:18-23. Meditation Ecclesiastes is like a labyrinth, a giant maze. One of the things Solomon does in this maze of life under the sun is show us which paths not to walk down, the dead ends, and which paths we should walk down, the paths that lead and instruct us in the fear of the Lord. Remember, that is where Solomon wants to take us ultimately. This book is designed to teach us to...

Pray Read: Ecc 2:18-26. Meditation One very important question every Christian should ask is this: What are you supposed to do once you have become a Christian? What should or will change in our lives? Is it only our Sunday mornings that change, or does being a Christian shape our life during the week as well? Some imagine that it means becoming hyper spiritual. Perhaps it involves becoming discon...

Pray Read: Ecc 2:14-18. Meditation We find a most peculiar encouragement in Ecclesiastes 2:17. Look again at the end of verse 17: all is vanity and a striving after the wind . All is a breath. All is fleeting. All is insubstantial. The blessing I am speaking about here is this: that life is short. Now maybe that shocks you. Maybe you are thinking, short? I do not want life to end! I want to see my...

Pray Read: Ecc 2:12-14. Meditation Solomon’s point in this passage is not so much to highlight the value of wisdom, which we considered in the previous meditation. He does far more of that in the Book of Proverbs. No, his purpose here is to point out a certain frustration in life that seems to be at work in spite of wisdom: the reality of the suffering of the wise. You see, we may be living wisely...

The Goodness of Wisdom (Ecc 2:12-14). Pray Read: Ecc 2:12-14. Meditation If nothing under the sun can give us lasting joy, where do you go from there? It can feel as if there is nowhere else to go. So do you give up? Do you despair? In this passage Solomon tries something else. He asks the question: If “stuff” is not the answer, what about wisdom itself? Can you find peace and meaning in this life...

And so, at the end of all, Solomon looks back and realises that there is no hope for lasting happiness under the sun. Where does this leave us? Are we destined for disappointment? Is despair our only option? Is our desire and search for contentment a form of madness? We have seen the dead ends, have we not? Money, alcohol, music and the arts, industry, technology and grand projects, and sexual lov...