Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Beauty in Time | The Writings | Ecclesiastes 3

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

Do the seasons of life have a purpose? Am I making the most of the time I have? If time is running out, why do I long for eternity? In today's episode, Jeff speaks on the famous poem in Ecclesiastes 3, showing us how the seasons of life point us to our eternal home. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Ecclesiastes 3

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. 1965 was a big year for engaging with the Bible in the United States. It's possible that more Americans were encountering the Bible that year than in any other year the decades surrounding it. The same is true for Canada and the United Kingdom all over the modern West. What caused this sudden surge of connecting with Scripture? Well, in 1965, the song Turn, Turn, Turn, was released by the Birds, reaching number one on the U.S. charts by the end of the year.

This was a landmark moment in Bible engagement, because almost the entirety of the song, Turn, Turn, Turn, is simply singing the first eight verses of Ecclesiastes 3, with a handful of lines added by Pete Seeger. With so many lyrics coming straight from the Bible, it's possible that this song, Turn, Turn, Turn, Turn, is the number one song in the U.S. with the oldest lyrics ever. Now, it seems most interesting is how this song connected with so many people in the modern West.

Now, of course, Pete Seeger added in some thought-provoking lyrics, and the birds recorded a catchy tune. But why did so many people unintentionally memorize and soak up this portion of the Bible? There's something about the truth in this portion of Ecclesiastes that explains and interrogates our experience as human beings. So what is it? Why does it matter? Ecclesiastes 3 is going to take us on a whirlwind journey of convicting and comforting perspectives.

So with that in mind, let's just stop. Ask for God's presence to anchor us during our time through this chapter. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life and breath, and thank you for your word. Jesus help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in Ecclesiastes 3. As we read these words, let these words read us and restore us in Jesus' name. Amen. So Ecclesiastes 3 starts with a poem that lists 14 phrases exploring the fullness of our experiences in the world. These phrases are organized as marisms, portrays two extremes of a particular theme to represent the totality of it.

So here's how it works. There's a time for birth and a time for death, planting and uprooting, killing, killing, killing, and healing, tearing down and building. This is the Bible's way of describing every part of our existence as human beings. Some scholars even interpret a kind of significance behind the presence of there being 14 marisms here. Being a multiplier of seven, it conveys a sense of completeness. So these first eight verses outline the fullness of life under the heavens. I think this is one of the reasons that this song was so appealing to people when the birds came out with Turn, Turn, Turn, turn. We all realize that we can't escape this world. We can't spend our days, our breath, our lives

in any place but this. But here's a key point from Ecclesiastes 3. It's not just that these things happen, it's that there is a time for these things to happen. The theological truth at play here is God's sovereignty over all things. There's an order to creation. That's why we call it the created order. There's a time for everything. because God is holding all things together. This impresses a reality on us that feels uncomfortable for most modern people. We are not in control of these times and seasons. What do we do with the fact that the times and seasons of life

are things that we don't control but must receive? We get a window into that in the next section of Ecclesiastes 3. First 9 picks up with an inquiry that ratchets up the tension for us, asking this, what do workers gain from their toil? What do workers gain from their toil? If it's true that our times and seasons are in God's hands, not in ours, then what do we have to gain from our effort?

Do our lives make a difference? Does anything matter? Now before we see how Ecclesiastes answers that question, let's go a step further and see how this problem, this question, is exacerbated by the realities of injustice and death. So we read this in verse 16. I saw something else under the sun And the place of judgment

Wickedness was there In the place of justice Wickedness was there We go on to verse 19 Surely the fate of human beings Is like that of the animals The same fate awaits them both As one dies so dies the other

All have the same breath Humans have no advantage over animals Everything is meaningless or vanity All go to the same place all come from dust, and to dust all return. Okay, that's heavy stuff. But stay with me. Before you throw your phone out the car or toss it in the blender,

let's listen to Ecclesiastes finish its argument. The fullness of the message here is rounded out in verses 11 through 13. First, verse 11 gives us a kind of bittersweet, humbling message about the significance of life under God's sovereign care. We read this. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Now think about that for a moment. Everything is beautiful in its time. Yet there's an eternal

ache in our hearts that we can feel, and yet we're not able to fully fathom how it fits into the bigger movements of God's plan. This observation sets up one of the big takeaways of this chapter. Ecclesiastes 3 is trying to help us embrace our limitations in this world so we can also embrace a longing for something beyond this world. In his book, Why Everything Matters, Philip Reichen reflects on an early church father named Olympiadorus, who said that, by instructing through enigmas, Ecclesiastes guides us to the other life. Read that again from Olympiadorus.

By instructing through enigmas, Ecclesiastes guides us. us to the other life. This chapter in Ecclesiastes makes us long for another world, the world that awaits us when heaven comes to earth and all things are made new. Now let's just pause with this point in mind for a quick nerdy comment. It's fitting that in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word for meaningless, vanity or vapor that's used here in Ecclesiastes 319, it's also used in Romans 820 by the Apostle Paul when he's describing the longing for renewal

that will one day come when Jesus returns to restore all things. He writes this, for the creation was subjected to frustration or futility. That's the same word at play here for meaningless or vanity. Not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay

and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. So our longing within the created order should stir us with a longing for the recreated order. Ecclesiastes drums up our desire for this kind of world, and Jesus is the one who delivers it. There's a beauty in our longing for a time and a season, for a reality that will last forever when everything sad will come untrue.

But the beauty here in Ecclesiastes 3, it doesn't just carry a future orientation. Versus 12 through 13, they mention a kind of beauty in our lives today. We read this. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy, to do good while they live, that each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil. This is the gift of God. At the end of this chapter, verse 22 says,

So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. The beauty in our longing points ahead to the new heaven and new earth. Yet there's also a beauty in our day-to-day existence, that's there if we would just see it. Life is not just an ongoing experience of necessary nonfiction. There's a meaning in the mundane. There is wonder in your work.

There is delight around your dinner table. All of it is a gift from God. Frederick Beekner puts it this way in his work now and then. Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and the pain of it, no less than the excitement and the gladness. Touch, taste, smell your way

to the holy and hidden heart of it. Because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. Man, Beechner nails that so, so good. Touch, taste, and smell your way to the holy, to the beauty. Ecclesiastes 3 presents us with a kind of tension.

We shouldn't try to resolve it too quickly. We're meant to enter. her end to that tension, to sit in it, to let it recalibrate our senses. This chapter points us to our longing for life as it should be. When we experience the fullness of existence under the heavens, we should rightly ache for the renewal of life when Jesus returns. And yet, that desire for restoration should never cause us to miss the gift of this day, of this meal, this work, this conversation. All of it is a gift from God. How does Ecclesiastes three help you long for the eternal beauty that will exist in the world to come? How does it help you embrace the beauty in our world

today to receive every moment as a gift? Heavenly Father, we do long for the liberation and freedom of all creation when Jesus returns. Stir our hearts and our minds to desire your coming kingdom. and as we anticipate that beauty in the world to come, help us receive the beauty that you have for us today in our workplaces, our families, our conversations with friends. Every day is a gift from you. Help us receive that gift and give glory to you, the giver.

We love you, we need you. In Jesus' name, amen.