Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we started Ecclesiastes, which is part of the wisdom literature in scripture, and tomorrow we'll finish it.

It's written by someone called the preacher or the teacher,

and that may or may not be Solomon, but many people believe it points to the life of Solomon,

regardless of who wrote it. This book is ultimately about a grand experiment that the main character

sets up. He has lots of resources at his disposal, and he wants to find out how to live the best, most

joyful kind of life. Then he unpacks everything he learns so that we don't have to go

through this experiment for ourselves. He basically buys every single thing on Amazon and writes

a concise 12-chapter review sharing all his data with us to let us know what's worth our time

and energy and money. Right out of the

gate in verse two, we get an idea of how he feels about it all. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, he says.

The word he uses for vanity here is hevel, which means vapor or smoke. But it also carries

the connotation of something that's hard to grasp.

He uses this word 38 times in this book, so it's definitely part of his overarching theme.

Here are some of the things he learns through his observations.

He starts out addressing work.

All hard work is eventually negated by death.

You and I see this all the time.

Buildings decay, technology is outdated, and even our income is diminished by taxes. It's just a reminder of the futility of work.

Not only that, but our names will be forgotten when we die. And even amassing knowledge

doesn't enhance the preacher's life. He basically says ignorance is bliss. 118 says,

In Much Wisdom is Much Vexation, and He who increases knowledge increases sorrow. He's worked hard,

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