“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”
– Ecclesiastes 12:13
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you know why there are schools? Do you know why there are textbooks? Do you know why there are teachers? A school is a centralized structure that has been specifically designed for kids like you to be sent to to be mass educated. A textbook is a compilation of course specific information that has been arbitrarily edited to be a mass instructional tool to a group of kids like you who end up in that course’s designated school classroom. A teacher is a conditioned class presenter who has been tasked to mass indoctrinate the kids who end up in his or her school classroom to his or to her assigned course textbook. Do you listen to your teachers? Do you believe what your teachers say? Do you do what your teachers tell you to do? What if there was no school near where you live? What if the school near where you live only offers classes through the sixth grade? What if there is no capacitated guy and/or gal to teach the classes in the school that is closest to where you live? If you were kids who were living 25 years ago in a village in Bolivia, your school options would have been limited to schools that only went through sixth grade, to schools that at times cannot find a guy and/or gal who has been or is in the process of being enabled to be a teacher and to schools that are affiliated with the Catholic Church. When your grandmaa and grandpaa – as missionaries on South America Mission field missionary team, were living in Concepción, Bolivia 25 years ago as the administrators for the rural resident Bible education and leadership training program that they implemented in Concepción, the population of Concepción was about 1800 guys, gals and kids. Your grandmaa and grandpaa were told one day by a guy who lived in Concepción that 600 of the guys, gals and kids who were living in Concepción were directly tied to the Catholic Church in Concepción because of a guy or gal in their extended family being employed by the Catholic Church, that another 600 of the guys, gals and kids who were living in Concepción were dependent – because of being members of the Catholic Church in Concepción, on the Catholic Church for their daily survival and that the remaining 600 guys, gals and kids who lived in Concepción were ‘pagans’ – even though some of these guys, gals and kids were evangelical Christ-followers, because they were not Catholic Church adherents. Some villages or communities within 30 kilometers or so of Concepción had a school that the government of Bolivia was behind the Catholic Church constructing and administrating. Schools that were located outside of Concepción only went through the sixth grade. A dad and/or ma purportedly was required to send his/her/their kid through the first two years of school and then . . . if the teacher who had been hired for a year to teach in a village or community school became sick or . . . the school would have to be closed to having classes that day. If a kid’s dad and/or ma were okay with their kid continuing with his or her education, the kid would find a room in a house in Concepción to stay in – as Concepción has a school that goes through high school.
After Solomon asked God for the gift of wisdom – which God gave to him, Solomon may have become the most intelligent guy to ever live on planet Earth. Ecclesiastes 12 has Solomon – who is now possibly an old codger, ruminating ruefully back to the days when he was a young kid and before he had become a beleaguered bureaucrat. In spite of his mind-boggling, God-gifted insights, Solomon – when he wrote his Ecclesiastes missive, seems to be to your grandpaa already on the slippery slope of God taking away from him the spiritual discernment that He gave him because of his pursuit for political advantages by marrying heathen foreign gals whose dads and/or mas were other country’s or people group’s positioned leaders, because of his voluptuous out of control living and because of his tyrannical, autocratic policies that were splitting allegiances among God’s specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals. Even though Solomon ends his Ecclesiastes notes by writing that he – as the ‘Teacher’, was wise and that what he – as the ‘Teacher’ had imparted as knowledge was what he – as the ‘Teacher’, had found to be upright and true because he – as the ‘Teacher’ had arduously pondered for and had assiduously searched out the right words and that he had put these words into proverbs, Solomon did not put into practice in his own life what he knew to be upright and true in the eyes of God. As the light from the sun, moon and stars was figuratively becoming darker to Solomon, Solomon knew that the keepers of his house – which were his eyes, ears, limbs, etc., were no longer functioning like they once had, that the almond tree – which was his white hair, was a sign to everyone that he was now an old geezer and that the grasshopper – which was his legs, were no longer as agile as they had once been. Solomon had acquiesced to knowing that the silver cord that was holding up the golden bowl of burning oil – which was his life, had become frayed to the point of breaking.
After a lifetime of misfires, false steps and bad judgment calls, Solomon may finally have gotten it. Solomon sums up in verse 13 his constant refrain of what ‘meaningless’ has led him to, “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” How has God been teaching you through His textbook – the Bible, while in planet Earth’s life school that teaches you about Him?
Ecclesiastes 12 (1162)