For a description of the (Y2) reading plan, see the “About” page.
Heb. 5
Contrast the mature with the readers of this letter (v. 11-14). Our faith walk with God is not something to be taken casually or to set idly on the shelf. If we don’t stay actively engaged with it every day, it will atrophy, like muscles that we don’t use. When this happens we become vulnerable to deceptions and, “[we] need someone to teach [us] the elementary truths of God’s word all over again” (Heb. 5:12b). Been there. Done that. I know it’s true.
When I first came back to reading God’s word several years ago after an extended departure from it, though I had a lifetime and much education in it, most of it made little sense to me. Like the rest of Hebrews’ readers, I had stopped trying to understand it. We can’t hold fast to anything with weak, unused muscles. So if we want to hold fast to faith we need strong ‘God muscles’. Like our physical muscles, if we want our ‘God muscles’ to grow and stay strong, they need solid food and exercise. We need to constantly seek and apply understanding.
Ecc. 9-10
What injustices or inequities have you observed in the world? What is your response? The only thing that comes to mind after reading this is that we live in a fallen world. Nothing is as it should be. And none of it makes any sense. Even the Teacher’s own words seem to go back and forth and contradict. He seems to believe that it is better to choose what is good and do what is right, even though he sees no better outcome from it. But he doesn’t exactly make a strong argument for it.
One thing I note, though, is that he keeps repeating the phrase “under the sun”. So he is looking at life on earth from an earthly perspective. What he sees in that is certainly no place to hang your hope! Perhaps the message for me here, then, is to look heavenward and examine my motives. For what do I toil and where do I store up my treasures? Anything I gain for this lifetime is clearly a waste. There are no guarantees in any of it except that I end up dead and forgotten like everybody else. What I do for God, however, and what I store up for heaven – those things are eternal.
Life is short, hard, and often makes no sense. But God has given us hope in all of it. So instead of focusing on all that is “under the sun”, I can choose to focus on God. That gives me the freedom to be content, enjoy what I have, and put my all into whatever God gives me to do, as the Teacher suggests.