Description
If there is one book in the Old Testament that has the most hopeless theme, its most probably Ecclesiastes; “All is vanity” or all is in vain and meaningless. That a what a person of King Solomon’s calibre says. He already states the theme of the book by stressing that life is not worthy living in 1:2, “Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless”. He then mentions all kinds of activities associated with maximum wellbeing; how he devoted himself to studies of wisdom [1:13], new technologies [1:10], hard work [1:8] and then concludes, “l have seen all the things are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind” [ Eccl 1:14]
Finally, a very positive conclusion in the last chapter of the book; to make this meaningless life meaningful. “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” [Ecclesiastes 12:13]. We were actually created to worship God; that is our duty number one! Its therefore only when we learn to trust and serve God that we find meaning for this life that is otherwise “meaningless”. Is life therefore meaningless? Yes, it is meaningless until one discovers that we were created to Fear God and keep his commandments.
This therefore makes the theme of this year 2024. Two key words are meant to unveil the real message of this verse, that is Fear and secondly, keep. Fear refer to the feeling of awe or conviction that God is a great all-powerful God, but It also means the readiness to regard God’s word as a command which should be obeyed and acted upon without question. If God can say, “stop”, when you have made up your mind to go, can you stop and heed God voice? Emphasis here is about the things we should stop doing because God has said it.
The second word, “keep” means obey the instructions, do the right thing. Emphasis here is about things we ought to do practically. It’s about the service for which we have been created to do. The two are what defines a Christian; that is to refrain from what has been forbidden by the Lord and doing what you perceive to be a service to God. The most important service is proclaiming the good news to all creatures as per Matthew 28:18-21.
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