Welcome to Gospel in Life.

Have you ever found yourself asking,

What if nothing I do really lasts?

Is this all there is?

In today's podcast, Tim Keller looks at how Ecclesiastes helps us face our doubts, fears, and uncertainties,

and points us to the lasting hope and significance we have in Christ.

The book of Ecclesiastes is very, very difficult, and I'm actually teaching it to try to give you

overviews. I think if anybody says, oh, this is great, and sits down and just read it through one time, you're just going to say, what in the world is this doing in the Bible? And we said last week that one of the reasons for this, one of the reasons for its difficulty, there are a number of them, and I can't go into all of them every time. I'm not here to give you a survey of Ecclesiastes, as much as I'm here to give you to pull out some basic themes that I think are relevant to us today.

But Ecclesiastes is the only book of the Bible that's written from the viewpoint of a skeptic, someone who is looking at life without God, someone who's seeking after truth and who's not standing in the place of a person who believes.

Now, one of the reasons why it's a little difficult is because in the very beginning and at the very end and a couple of places in the middle, it seems like the writer steps away from his doubt and begins to make comments.

And the reason for that, just to show my hand here, is my best understanding of what's going on,

is that this is a piece of work, it's a brilliant piece of art.

And it was also very typical in Old Testament times, in ancient times, and in that

part of the world, for a person to make a point by essentially taking on a role.

In the very beginning and the very end, the author talks about this ecclesiastes, this

teacher, this commentator. It talks about them in the third person, this teacher, this commentator.

He talks about him in the third person.

And then suddenly in chapter 1, verse 12, he goes into the first person and said,

I, the teacher, I did this, and I did this, and I did this.

And then at the very end, he comes back out and says, what have we learned?

Because what he's doing is he's, this is a man who is a believing person, who believes in God, but he goes into a role and explores what it's like and explores the doubts and the skepticism and difficulties of someone who's searching.

And that's one of the reasons actually why sometimes it's a little tough to interpret unless you understand that. But on the other hand, it's also one of the reasons why it's so relevant.

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