Verses From Romans

I’m currently working through Ecclesiastes chapter 3. There’s a lot of meat in it and right now I just can’t stay focused enough. I’m about half way through but it’s becoming more of a chore than anything and I honestly don’t think I’d get much out of it if I went on right now so I set it aside for tonight. Instead though I thought I would revisit verses from Romans that I have highlighted in my Bible. I went through and copied all of them down into a journal a few months ago and it’s just incredible some of the stuff in there.

**note** all of the emphasis on parts are things that I had done when I copied them down into a journal.

Romans 6:14
For sin shall not be master over you for you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 8:6
For the mindset of flesh is death but the mind set of the Spirit is life and peace.

Romans 8:28
And we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.

Romans 8:31
God is for us who is against us?

Romans 8:37-39
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 13:1
Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.

Romans 13:10
Love does no wrong to a neighbor therefore love is THE FULFILLMENT of the law.

Romans 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provisions for the flesh in regards to its lust.

Romans 14:8
For if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore whether live or die, WE ARE THE LORD’S.

All of the above verses were taken from the New American Standard Bible Updated Edition.

And I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving

Chapter 2 Goals Are Pointless

Ecclesiastes Chapter 2
This chapter is a bit ironic because Solomon goes through and points out all the things that people strive for. Then he uses his wealth to attain them and ruins it by saying it’s all pointless.

Vs. 2: Here Solomon talks again about how happiness is pointless. It reminds me of the feeling you get after you go to a party or a theme park or any other really fun place and you get a natural high but slowly it all goes away and you just wish you were still there having fun. I count myself blessed by the fact that I can usually stay fairly cheerful but doubt still creeps up and I get the sense of pointlessness.

Vs. 3-11: This is where Solomon basically crushes every ones dreams and goals.
Drunkenness: Pointless
Built Houses: Pointless
Vineyards: Pointless
Gardens: Pointless
Slaves: Pointless
Wealth: Pointless
At one time or another everyone has longed for some of these things and worked on them to find purpose and joy: home ownership, tending to a garden, trying to find joy at the bottom of a bottle, wealth, and perhaps not slavery but other worldly positions.
I find it fairly interesting that so far Solomon hasn’t discussed friendship, companionship, or love. Perhaps he addresses them later in the book but so far, almost everything pointless has been tangible.

Vs 12-13: Solomon mentions here that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. I’m not sure if he means that wisdom is stronger than folly or if he means it replaces folly. It doesn’t really matter though as he goes on:

Vs 14-17: Death, death claims everyone. Wise or foolish everyone dies and is forgotten regardless. This makes me wonder how many incredible men of God have been forgotten. Whether they are in the Bible and just hidden inside some of the more “boring” books or possibly even ones that aren’t put in the Bible.

Vs. 18-23: Here Solomon talks about how everything is even more pointless because all you achieve is eventually given to someone who didn’t have to earn it and you have no control over what they do with it. This must be hard for parents when they want the best for their children but don’t know if their kids will be responsible with what they’re given.

Vs. 24-26: This is one of the first parts of the book where Solomon isn’t a complete pessimist where he acknowledges that God does allow us to experience and enjoy pleasure and thank God that he did give us that.

Chapter 1 an Introduction to Futility

Vs 1 - It's really interesting that Solomon calls himself "Preacher" here and also through the rest of the book. I looked up what preacher ment in the dictionary and it said that it meant "One who preaches." so then since it was right above it I looked up "preach" and here is what I found:

1. To proclaim or put forth in a sermon: preached the gospel. 2. To advocate, especially to urge acceptance of or compliance with: preached tolerance and peaceful coexistence. 3. To deliver (a sermon). (also had to throw this one in there: 2. To give religious or moral instruction, especially in a tedious manner. And it's in the American Heritage Dictionary)

So perhaps Solomon wanted the readers to know that they didn't have to believe him because he was the king. They had to believe what he was saying because of his wisdom.

Vs 3-4 - This is where it starts getting depressing as Solomon begins analysing life. He basically says how incredibly irrelivant a single life is. So irrelivent that given enough time even the most well known historical figures of today will be forgotten.

Vs 5-11 - I thought these verses were kind of interesting because he basically said life is a re-run. But he mentions that nothing is ever really fulfilled so it's sort of like seeing the same rerun but it always ending with "to be continued"

In the same set of verses he throws out there the idea that nothing is ever new under the sun. It reminds me of a song by The Swift called Under the Sun where they say:

Give me something more that I've never seen before

Cause everything's all been done.

If there's something new, it can only come from You

You're the only thing new under the sun.

Thinking of that song made me realize a new incredible truth about Jesus, he taught new things, he did new things, and he was a new thing. That alone is proof that he was of God.

Vs 14 - I just thought it was interesting that Solomon said that he had "seen all the works which have been done under the sun." I wonder if he's being literal or just reiterating the redundancy and pointlessness of life.

Vs 18 - Here Solomon says "Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." I've felt this way at times where I wish I could just blindly believe something or settle a problem with "Well I guess we'll never know will we?" Sometimes I'm able to hold myself back and accept these things partially just out of pure laziness and the opinion that I had no desire to spend a lot of time reasoning things out. But eventually it always comes back to me.

Even though he lived thousands of years before me my heart really goes out to Solomon. Because he lived before Christ he had the full pressure of sin on him and didn't know about God's promise of eternal life and his Saving Grace.

About this blog, it's purpose and such

I want to precursor all of this with letting anyone who actually knows this and reads this that there won't be a whole lot of humor in it, I'm going to try to keep it fairly serious, for more of my wit you can check out: http://www.xanga.com/chachichaliko
The purpose of this blog is 4 fold:
- I felt left out because all my friends had blogs
- I thought like them it would be cool to share my thoughts with others and get feedback
- I'm hoping I'll enjoy it enough that it will be a reason to keep studying the Bible not just reading it.
- And my completely selfish reason is to get some practice writing things that aren't just funny.

In the Hand of God comes from Ecclesiastes 9:1 where it says "...righteous men, wise men, and their deeds are in the hand of God."

I'm going to start every thing off with a study of Ecclesiastes, I just got to thinking how depressing life is because it's always followed by and then I thought to myself "Hey wait Solomon did the same thing in Ecclesiastes." So I hope that by reading what he wrote maybe I can get some in site in it all.