Ecclesiastes Part 3

This one is pretty short...


Ecclesiastes Chapter Three

Verses 1-8

Everything has a time and a purpose on earth – even things that have bad connotations, such as death, mourning, killing, and hatred.  Although this was not God’s original plan, these things are now present in His creation.  But God is telling us that even these things can be used by Him – even these things have a time and a purpose.  In giving a positive and its corresponding negative, we are reminded that when we are in bad times, there is a purpose for them, and that there will be a time for good times again in the future.  This also serves as a reminder in the good times that there will be bad times – we shouldn’t waste our time in meaningless pleasures (though there is nothing wrong with enjoying life), and instead enjoy and treasure those times and use them to distress.

Verse 11

God puts eternity in our hearts – He lets us know that this life is not the only one, but that there is life after death, and He causes us to naturally have a desire for that.  Also, He makes everything beautiful in its time – He can make things beautiful that we do not think of as beautiful.  And even the things we think of as beautiful, if we try to do them out of context and not in their time, they will not be beautiful.

“A Time for Hate”

God tells us through Solomon that there is a time for hate, and yet years later, Jesus tells us that we are not to hate anyone, and that we are to love even our enemies.  I think that maybe he is talking about a hatred for things, not people.  We are allowed to hate, but we are not allowed to hate people.  Exempli gratia, we can hate a person’s sin, but not the actual person.