For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
The young have many foolish ideas. The only thing that will teach them not to put them into practice is suffering the consequences of a few of them.
Every time I hear the Led Zeppelin song, “Thank You” I am reminded of this psalm…and am disappointed that the song is a love song rather than based on this psalm.
The song:
When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.
While I want to believe the song is true about me and my wife, I know that it is not. My love for my wife will last for my lifetime, but not beyond. However, God’s love for us will last beyond the crumbling of the mountains.
and the mountains crumble into the sea.
Let the oceans roar and foam.
Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge!
I will not fear when theses things happen because I know, and trust, the One who is Lord over them. The earth may quake, the mountains will crumble, the oceans may roar and foam, but God is Lord of all and none of those things will happen outside of what He ordains for them. He causes wars, and He ends wars. Through all of the turmoils of this life He says, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Paul gives an example how all who have a ministry for God should live and act. None of us should do anything which might cause someone else to reject God. In all we do, let us serve God, regardless of whether it results in people honoring us or despising us, praising us or slandering us. Let us remember that we can only serve God so long as we faithfully preach the truth. If the result of doing so is suffering and hardship, let us patiently endure that hardship.
I have always loved the beginning of chapter 3, but for the last 15 years it has had a special meaning to me. My wife and I gave out bookmarks with it on them at our wedding. That was a difficult year for my wife’s family. Her father was diagnosed with cancer early in the year and died at the beginning of summer. Her maternal grandmother died in early August. When we asked her Mom and her cousins if we should put off the wedding, they emphatically told us the family needed something to celebrate after all of the sadness. So we chose to put 3:1-8 on our wedding favors:
a time for every activity under heaven.
…
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
Our wedding was a reminder that God provides us joy to offset the grief of this life.
I have always found the rest of this passage depressing. “Everything is meaningless.” The writer’s point is that we will not find meaning in this world. The only meaning is by serving God. Everything else we might do will only be transient.