Ecclesiastes 5
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Important messages
Chapter 5
The vanity of talk
1. 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.
2. Be not rash
with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for
God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.
3. For a dream
comes with much business, and a fool’s voice with many words.
4. When you vow a
vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what
you vow.
5. It is better
that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.
6. Let not your
mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a
mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your
hands?
7. For when dreams
increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must
fear.
Five times in the biblical books of wisdom an almost
identical statement appears: “The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This is the point, at which vanity
ends and wisdom begins. In the midst of his discourse on life under the sun, a
negative report to be sure, Solomon interjects some jewels. One is found in
verse seven, “God is the one you must fear”,
and it is the secret to life beyond the sun that has lasting value. It is the
theme of the first seven verses. Though these gems may be few and far between in Ecclesiastes,
they carry more than enough weight to tip the scale of earth’s value system in
the right direction for the person, who knows how to measure and appreciate
them.
A reverent fear of God is beyond price, and it is a rare
asset in today’s society. When the time comes to approach the things of God,
see to it that it is done with the highest regard for his honor and worthiness.
Guard your steps… remove your shoes, when you come to the holy place of
encounter with the Almighty. Religious pretense is an enemy; it is not only
deceitful, it is evil.
Revelation 1:4-7
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Important messages
4. John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace
from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who
are before his throne,
5. and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead,
and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our
sins by his blood
6. and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory
and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
7. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even
those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.
Even so, Amen.
Grace and Peace from the Trinity
 |
| Isle of Patmos |
“Grace and peace”, was Paul’s
salutation in all 13 of his letters to the churches, as well as to Titus.
Curiously, he added “mercy”, when writing to Timothy. Peter uses “grace and
peace” in his second epistle and Jude adds mercy and love to peace. John in his
second letter also adds mercy, but now in Revelation, he gives the simple greeting,
which we find most commonly in the epistles. I simply want to point out that it
is important to understand that in the Word of God, these greetings are not
just customary, but carry the full weight of divine blessing.
This book is addressed
directly to seven churches in Asia Minor and they are literally the first
recipients of it. However, it is worth noting that there were more than seven
churches in this Roman province in John’s day. Given the symbolism and the
prophetic nature of the book, we can easily surmise that only seven were chosen
to serve a wider purpose. Seven is the number of perfect completeness and I
believe that these churches represent the church of all ages. I think that
their characteristics are the same as those we find in different churches in
every period of history. I also tend to think that each one represents a
dominant type of church in seven historical periods, the Laodicean church
standing for the dominant church of our times. I will write more about this, as
we come to chapters two and three.
Revelation of Jesus Christ
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Important messages
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| Landscape on Patmos; traditional site of John's cave is on the nearest hillside (the large, white building). |
I finished my annual reading through the Bible (twice through the New Testament) a few days ago and have been thinking of what book to study and present on this blogspot through the rest of 2018. Since we went through Daniel's prophecy last year, it is logical to follow with the book of Revelation. So we begin today. If some of you are wondering about the study of Ecclesiastes, we will continue to post articles here intermittently from those immensely important observations of King Solomon.
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