Today, we begin reading Ecclesiastes! Fr. Mike helps us understand the central theme of this book of wisdom literature—the meaning of life. What truly matters in this passing life? It's only because God exists that everything matters, and our choices and lives will endure into eternity. Today's readings are 1 Kings 7, Ecclesiastes 1-2, and Psalm 5. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
Full Episode
Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension.
Using the Great Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 149. We are reading from 1 Kings chapter 7. We're also beginning today, five days of the book of Ecclesiastes, one of the wisdom books. We're reading Ecclesiastes chapter 1 and chapter 2.
We're also praying Psalm 5 today. As always, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, the Second Catholic Edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year.
You can also subscribe to this podcast by clicking subscribe, and that would be wonderful. Now, one quick note before we begin Ecclesiastes. We're continuing with King Solomon in 1 Kings chapter 7. He's going to be building his own home and some other kinds of things. We're going to see some of those dimensions.
Like yesterday, we followed the building, the construction of the temple and what that looked like. Today, it's Solomon's, some other buildings that he's building. Ecclesiastes is one of the, as I said, one of the books of wisdom literature. And so it is classically ascribed to Solomon himself. Remembering that Solomon is the wisest man who ever lived.
This book of Ecclesiastes, this book of the Song of Solomon is, um, basically a wise person who's looking at the world and looking at how people are living, looking at how he himself has lived and is saying, this is all vanity. In fact, it'll say vanity of vanities. Everything is vanity. Well, one thing to keep in mind, that's kind of a strange translation.
It's the Hebrew word hevel, which is a word that means vapor. I guess that's so kind of vanity in the sense of not vanity. I'm so vain. We said King Saul was inordinately preoccupied with What people thought of him, that's vanity. This is more along the lines of vapor, meaning meaninglessness. So vanity in terms of meaninglessness, not vanity in terms of what people think of me.
So just keep that in mind. The author of the book of Ecclesiastes is kind of, it's ascribed to someone like King Solomon, the wisest. It is unknown exactly who is the author of Ecclesiastes, but that isn't necessarily important.
What's important is the heart of the book of Ecclesiastes, and the big question it asks, which is, isn't life, in the face of all these things, all the things you can do, all the ways a person can work to make a name for themselves, all the ways a person can simply strive to maximize pleasure in their life, is it all meaningless? Does it amount to nothing?
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