Ecclesiastes has been described as an ‘inspired recored of uninspired wisdom.’ It shows a preacher (traditionally held to be Solomon) looking for some meaning to life ‘under the sun’. When things are considered on this purely earthly level, the picture is bleak: whatever the preacher throws himself into is found to be meaningless, be that work, pleasure, wisdom or whatever else. The only way to find meaning is to look somewhere other than ‘under the sun’ and instead, the preacher concludes that the end of the matter is to fear God and keep his commandments.

This short series picks out a few themes from Ecclesiastes. It does not work through every single passage but rather gives a taste of the book by bringing out a few of the key ideas that come up.