Study Questions - Bible Discovery [23]

Date: September 19, 2004
Passage: Ecclesiastes 1:1-18
Message: How Then Shall We Understand
Series: Bible Discovery [22]

“Trivial” is a description that will vary upon one’s perception. What one will call trivial, another will call important. If we were honest with ourselves we are often more obsessed with trivia than reality. We often give ourselves more time pondering over life’s trivial questions than asking the essential ones.
Why am I here?
Where do I find meaning in life?

1. Talk about what you regard as trivial in the light of our world.

2. Share anything you know or remember from the book of Ecclesiastes.

3. Solomon makes some observations in Ecclesiastes 1

1) Life is UN-REWARDING v3-7
There is an expression, “I just want to get off the wheel”.
How do we deal with the continuous cycle of life?

2) Life is UN-FULFILLING v8-10
G K Chesterton said, “Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy”. Discuss

3) Life is UN-APPRECIATED v11
What is it about us that needs to be noticed and remembered?

4) Life is UN-CONTROLLABLE v12-15
Solomon had to face the reality that there are some things that cannot be changed. Consider what some of these things might be in your life.

…….what is lacking cannot be counted (v15)
How much we know cannot make up for what we don’t know.
We cannot satisfy what is lacking by filling it with a host of other things.
How do we try and ‘make up’ for what is lacking in our lives?

5) Life is UN-REASONABLE v16-18
It was a had thing for the wisest man who ever lived to admit that wisdom was more difficult to life out than to write down.
What sorts of things do you know, but find hard to live out?

Read Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
Solomon has discovered that everything under the sun is trivial.
It would be simple to conclude that nothing matters, but in these verses he concludes that EVERYTHING MATTERS.
What leads him to this conclusion after all he has discovered about life?