Ecclesiastes 3 1

The Stroller: 'Nothing new'

Chickens in the city? Converse Heights, of all places? Oh, my! Speaking words found in Ecclesiastes, Lib Smith says, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” She remembers when she was a kid living on Otis Boulevard in Converse Heights, where her grandparents living on the same street had chickens. “Not only that, but Bobby Chapman just down the street had a pony. So I had to laugh when reading that the doctor living in Converse Heights wants permission from City Council to have a chicken coop. Chickens were there long before this council.”

‘HAD THEIR DAY’: James Price of Inman smells a rat in the pricing of gasoline: “The government and everybody made us believe it was coming down, and folks went to the resorts and traveled again, and as soon as they did, the price shot back up. Maybe they had their day just lying to people.”

‘OUTSTANDING’: Ted Young of Woodruff was mighty impressed by the work of Laurens Electric during a recent storm. “They deserve kudos,” he says. “A tree fell across my power line on a Friday night, and I called at 1:30 in the morning to report it. I was expecting it to be a miserable weekend without power, but they surprised me. They had the line repaired and my power back on by 3:30 that morning. That’s outstanding work. They really did a fine job.”

‘NASTY HABIT’: Christian McDaniel of Spartanburg corrects the Stroller reader’s statement that more people are killed by alcohol than cigarettes. “It amazes me that in this age with Google as a reference that people make claims without looking up the facts,” says Mr. McDaniel. “You can Google the question as to which kills more between alcohol and cigarettes, and the resounding answer is cigarettes. More than 3 million people die in America each year from firsthand smoke. Add another 50,000-plus from secondhand smoke. I’ve never heard of a person dying from a secondhand martini. And when you are drinking that Crown and Coke at the bar, it has absolutely zero effect on my health. Cigarettes kill the smoker and the people around the smoker. The butts of the cigarettes also never go away, which means those butts that are thrown down stay there as unsightly litter. Seems to me everything about cigarettes is negative. I’m proud Spartanburg wised up and banned smoking. It’s a nasty habit.

Nicodemus @ Nite: Remix - Retelling of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

"What do workers gain from their toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.  That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil - this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.  God does it so that people will fear him.

Preaching Christ from Ecclesiastes, Foundations for Expository Sermons

Ecclesiastes, Why Everything Matters

Be Satisfied (Ecclesiastes), Looking for the Answer to the Meaning of Life

The book of Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8