Hey everybody, I'm Tim McEy and this is my podcast Exploring My Strange Bible.

I am a card carrying Bible history and language nerd who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth is

utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have.

On this podcast I'm putting together the last ten years worth of lectures and sermons

where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites

us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith.

And I hope this can be helpful for you too.

I also help start this thing called the Bible Project.

We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology.

You can find those resources at thebibelproject.com.

With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week.

Alright, this is the first of a new three-part series on the book of Ecclesiastes.

It's one of the more odd and unique books of the Old Testament contains all kinds of

fascinating and even scandalous ideas that you won't find elsewhere in the Old Testament.

These were three teachings that I did as a teaching pastor at Doer of Hope Church.

This first message is going to unpack one of the most important metaphors and words in the book itself.

The Hebrew word is Hevil, which means vapor or smoke.

And you'll discover what that means and the teaching that follows.

But just for one visual thing that happens in the message that you won't see because

you're listening on the podcast is at one point I pull out my new employee gift that

I received when I came on the pastoral staff at Doer of Hope, which was a hand-carved,

old Danish pipe and a bag of really high and English smoking tobacco.

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