Before he arrives at his ultimate conclusion, the Teacher of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon, decides to explore every experience this life has to offer to see if any of them hold any value or enjoyment for man in the midst of this upside-down, fallen world. Basically, any pleasure or experience the human life has to offer, Solomon checked it out. And in the end he concluded that nearly all of them are Abel. They are a chasing after the wind, impermanent, and futile. Yet in the midst of his examination of life, there are seven passages, almost like islands of light in a great sea of darkness, islands the Teacher returns to as he hops from one investigation to the next. On these islands he reveals just a handful of things that have at least passing value for man in that they make the experience of the upside down nature of life’s journey a little more tolerable for a short while along the way.
