Study Questions - Bible Discovery [25]

Date: October 3, 2004
Passage: Ecclesiastes 7:8-18
Message: How Then Shall We Survive (2)
Series: Bible Discovery [25]

The sign on the office wall read –
57 Laws of Success
# 1 Deliver the goods
# 2 The other 56 don’t matter.
There are some things that just have to come first in life.
What are some of the things in the Christian life that are fundamental to all other things?

Solomon gives us three more survival tips.
1. Patience is better than pride v8-9
* “Timing is everything” Discuss
* What is the correlation between patience and pride?
* “Patience is the art of living in someone else’s time zone” Discuss
* Read 1 Peter 5:6-11 Share something that impacts you from this passage.
* Share any personal experience where you struggled with ‘timing’

2. Wisdom is better than nostalgia v10-12
* Why do we tend to refer to the past as “the good old days”
* Share something you are grateful for from the past.
* How would you say these days are different from the last generation?
* How is it different for Christians / Church today?
* Read 2 Timothy 2 What was on Paul’s heart?

3. Balance is better that extremes v13-18
* Solomon discovered that life doesn’t always work out the way it “is supposed to” Read Ecclesiastes 9:11 Discuss
* Solomon warns against two extremes –
(a) Being over-righteous v16 What does over-righteous look like? Why does the Church tend to look “more righteous” than it often is?
(b) Being over-wicked v17 What does living a life without God look like?
* Read v18 Does avoiding extremes mean that a Christian really doesn’t have a conviction one way or another? Is it the equivalent of sitting on the fence? Why / Why not?