Ecclesiastes Study Guide
The question of Ecclesiastes is not whether God exists; we’ll see
that Solomon plainly understands that God does exist. The question
in the king’s mind is this: does God matter?
He examines the emptiness of a life that is lived without an eternal mindset. In other words, if
eternity is not valid, then what can a person find meaningful in his life?
So Solomon takes an interesting approach: he will look at a life lived without the idea of
eternity. This is key to understanding Ecclesiastes. Solomon employs the strategy of a hypothesis.
A hypothesis is an educated guess, containing an if/then statement. The experiment, based on the
declarative statement, must then be tested until a trend or conclusion is reached. The conclusion
credits or discredits the original hypothesis.
Solomon’s hypothesis: If life is lived without God, then it is meaningless.