To all members of PaRD.

Grace and peace to you from CPK001. Tonight is the third series of the book of Ecclesiastes that we are studying at Church. I have been taking notes and I am going to try and portray what I heard at Church onto here.
When we think of the book of Ecclesiastes what do we think it is about? "Vanity of vanities/everything is meaningless". We shall look into this book and ask: What's the point of WORK?

For this part of the series we will be looking at the second part of Ecclesiastes Chapter 2.

Ecclesiastes 2:12-26

The Vanity of Living Wisely
12 So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. 13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.

The Vanity of Toil

18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

Tragedy

Let's start with a tragedy that happened almost a week ago in Hunter Valley. Ten people were killed in wedding bus crash. "At least 10 people have died and 15 others are in hospital after a wedding bus crashed in an Australian wine region north of Sydney, officials say."

Many people were injured or died, through no fault of their own. What would people do or say about this? "It's unfair", "It's the bus driver's fault". Play the blame game.

Let's first at 3 sections that divides the Bible.

Genesis 1-2
Everything in-between
Revelation 21-22

We are participants in the new age. Eve is the first one who uses the word wise as she sees the fruit for gaining wisdom.

Jeremiah 8:8-9

8 “‘How can you say, “We are wise,
for we have the law of the Lord,”
when actually the lying pen of the scribes
has handled it falsely?
9 The wise will be put to shame;
they will be dismayed and trapped.
Since they have rejected the word of the Lord,
what kind of wisdom do they have?

There are two pillars of Wisdom

1. Fear God
2. Turn away from evil (This is also known as keep His commandments)

We see this at the end of Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 12:13

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Now we look at Ecclesiastes by verse.

Ecclesiastes 2:12

So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done.

Who is the one who comes after us?

Verse 13

Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness.

Wisdom > Folly

Verse 14

The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them.

2 facts in life, death and taxes. Except for Enoch and Elijah. That is a small group, don't rely on that.

Many of us put off thinking about death. How many of us have made our Wills? The older people would have but what about the younger people? How many people on that bus would have had their Wills made?

When we die we take nothing with us, there is no control after we die. Death can come at any moment.

Verse 15-16

15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!

This is indeed depressing but it's something that we'll all have to deal with. We're all in the same situation.

Under the Sun; this means a state of impermanence.

Everything is meaningless unless you have an anchor for the soul.

Verse 17-19

17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.

The Vanity of Toil

18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.

The one who comes after us is the one who gets the inheritance.

Who came after King Solomon? Rehoboam came afterwards. What was he given? Rehoboam was given 12 tribes of Israel and lost 10 tribes.

Times change, if you give your inheritance to someone then you must let them decide what to do. You can try to say to use the inheritance for this particular thing but you have no control after you die.

Verse 20-23

20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

When you toil, all you do is leave it all for someone who did not toil. This is vanity and a great evil. This brings about grief and pain.

Verse 24

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,

Yet there is light at the end of the tunnel. There is chaos and a dark night without God.

Psalm 19:1-2

1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.

We see the glory of God in creation. This is God's gift to us, to enjoy life and to eat and drink.

Verse 25

for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

In God we can find satisfaction and enjoyment.

Is work a bad thing? In Genesis Adam is told to work the ground. For 6 days he'd work and rest for one day.
For Adam and Eve there is a future expectation for their eternal home.

1 Corinthians 15:42-46

42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.

After Genesis 3 work became burdensome, frustrating.

Ever work a Word or Excel Document and the application crashes? You then lose all your work. Or you are hammering and the nail doesn't go in?

We want Christians to be the salt and light in the Community. You want Christians in Law, in the Supermarket and the Office.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:5

5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

1 Corinthians 1:25

25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Just look at the Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12:13-21

The Rich Fool stores wealth but his soul is required of him.

To conclude:

1 Corinthians 15:58

58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Next week we will explore and ask: What's the point of TIME?

Work gives us a sense of purpose and allows us to contribute to society.

work lets us buy cool shit so we can work more to buy more cool shit. This is just the burden of capitalism, the craving for more.

Making Work Cool is what needs to be done to promote younger generations to work.

I remember around the 90s there was a shift from blue collar work to white collar work being glorified.
Well we need more blue collar workers NOW, They keep the gears greased and the wheels turning.

It is cool to have a job and work. And we need to instill this into young people.

I don't think I've met a single person who has told me they work for either of those reasons. Most of the time it seems to be that they don't want to starve or be homeless, or they have to provide for their children (reproduce the labor force, very honorable)
Well actually, I might be wrong. I believe some guy I know still works as a community manager because his wife divorced him and he has no hobbys heh, maybe it is his purpose

There have been times I have been laid off for months on end. I have plenty of money for situations like that. Starving was never a question, nor was a noticeable change in my family’s lifestyle. It is incredibly painful for me as a man not to be able to contribute to my team. Having a common goal and working towards that goal is what makes most of my days worthwhile.


Hell, even a slow day like today is excruciating.

This post was edited by YeeHaw on Jun 18 2023 08:37am

He who does not work, shall not eat

Work is fundamental as it produces absolutely everything that humans consume, work is fundamental for humans to meet their material needs. Through knowledge of this fact work also provides people with spiritual contentment.

This post was edited by El1te on Jun 18 2023 11:46am

Work is good but we fetishize work for its own sake.

Not all work is meaningful and brings value to your life. Some work is crap work, and some work is fulfilling, and some work that should be fulfilling is made into crap work by the system we work in.

We should do our best to eliminate crap work through automation and leave the fulfilling roles.

It sucks that we are alienated from the product of our work in so many roles. For a while I worked in lab testing, and our final result was a number on a spreadsheet going to a client. We could have been working on the next cancer breakthrough and we would never know because it was just a number on a spreadsheet with a coded name.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Jun 18 2023 11:58am