Introducing Ecclesiastes (5 of 5)
It was a beautiful day, sun shining, warm temps. The little girl was outdoors riding her bike, helmet on. She had gotten very good at it, in large part thanks to all the time her dad had spent with her.
Her face carried a mix of delight and determination as she peddled steadily along the suburban sidewalk. She didn’t notice the workman’s panel truck backing up from the neighbor’s driveway.
The whole community turned out for her funeral. At the front of the church stood her portrait, her smile sweet and a sparkle in her eye. Her parents and siblings were devastated. All the neighbors shared their grief.
How could something like that happen? To make things even more confusing, the family was a strong Christian household. Couldn’t God have kept this tragedy from happening? Shouldn’t he have?
Stories like these capture the struggles and seeming senselessness of life. What are we to think? How do we gain our bearings? Where can we find hope and meaning?
Ecclesiastes is a book of the Bible that helps us address these questions. Through an inventory of ordinary life, God leads us to take stock of the angst we all experience and so calls us to be realists in what we witness and experience. But he doesn’t leave us there, throwing up our hands in frustration or throwing in the towel in despair.
Through Ecclesiastes God outfits us with spectacles of wisdom. These lenses of faith are not rose-colored, like we might use by putting on some happy face, even when our spirits are crushed and worlds reeling. These prescription lenses of wisdom from above enable us to be redemptive realists that know God and trust in God while we press on through thick and thin.
At its core, Ecclesiastes leads us away from empty hope, what we might call clouds without rain, and leads us to the Redeemer himself, Jesus Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3).*
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Coordinates of Wisdom
Chapter 2 Vanity Fair
Chapter 3 Vanity of Planning & Organization
Chapter 4 Vanity of Family & Friends
Chapter 5 Vanity of Financial Security & Possessions
Chapter 6 Vanity of Pleasure & Entertainment
Chapter 7 Vanity of Education & Wisdom
Chapter 8 Vanity of Religion & Service
Chapter 9 Vanity of Strength & Beauty
Chapter 10 Bonfire of the Vanities
Conclusion Verity of Verities*From the Introduction of Under the Sun: Redemptive Reality in the Book of Ecclesiastes (Stanley D. Gale, Shepherd Press, 2025, 144 pages)
Unless otherwise noted Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
