What's Ecclesiastes about?

Life is sometimes hard and meaningless

and it’s better to accept that than to pretend everything is happy

The book of Ecclesiastes (pronounced “Ekl-lees-ee-ast-ees”) is probably the strangest book in the Bible. It is written as a sort of autobiography of a preacher (which is the meaning of “Ecclesiastes”), but this preacher believes there is no point in life, so we should enjoy what we can when we can. That might sound at first like an invitation to greed, but the author clearly doesn’t mean that. He simply means that we shouldn’t fool ourselves into imagining that somehow everything makes sense if we could only figure it out. In the English translation the phrase “Vanity, vanity, everything is vanity” means something like “Pointless, pointless, everything is pointless.” It’s a puzzle why the ancient Hebrews included in their revered scriptures a book that seems to say there is no point to life. Perhaps the reason is that their faith had matured to the point that they could even include criticisms of God in their scriptures. That’s a profound insight, and leads us beyond a faith that is too simple to be taken seriously.

How is Ecclesiastes important for us?

In some ways this book has a parallel insight to the book of Job. Both take seriously the fact that God doesn’t intervene in the world in the way we wish God would, and suggest that the only meaning in life is to face this fact and do one’s best to live with integrity while enjoying the things God gives temporarily, without ever abandoning other people.