Post-Christmas (5 of 5)
Series: All Is Bright
Craig Smith
Ecclesiastes7:8
Welcome and, if I can say it one last time before it's not appropriate any more: Merry Christmas. I really hope you and your family had a great celebration of the birth of Jesus and I hope that our All Is Bright series really challenged you to think very intentionally about what it means to be on mission with Jesus by obeying his command to let your light shine before others .
The new year that's coming up in just a couple of days is going to provide a ton of opportunities for you to do exactly that.
But it hasn't started yet...and as we wrap up 2019 and get ready for 2020, I want to share something that God has really challenged me with lately. It comes from the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 7, verse 8:
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. (Eccl. 7:8 NIV)
Now, I'm reading the New International Version and most English translations say something pretty similar. But I want to give you a very literal translation. See, here's the thing: this is a line of Hebrew poetry is probably the hardest kind of thing to translate, because it depends so much on metaphors and symbols. And I think that's true here. This is a hard line to translate. A really literal translation of the Hebrew here would be something like: the end of a matter is better than its beginning, and a long wind is better than a high wind.
Interesting, right? What's this long-wind/high-wind stuff? Most English translations interpret the phrase ''long wind'' as a metaphor for patience, and that makes sense. I mean, a long wind is one that keeps on blowing, slow and steady for a long haul...so that makes sense as a metaphor for patience.
But I'm not convinced that ''high wind'' is a metaphor for pride. It certainly might. I mean, in English, when we say someone has a ''high view of themselves'' we mean they're prideful. But is a high wind a proud one? In both Hebr ...
Series: All Is Bright
Craig Smith
Ecclesiastes7:8
Welcome and, if I can say it one last time before it's not appropriate any more: Merry Christmas. I really hope you and your family had a great celebration of the birth of Jesus and I hope that our All Is Bright series really challenged you to think very intentionally about what it means to be on mission with Jesus by obeying his command to let your light shine before others .
The new year that's coming up in just a couple of days is going to provide a ton of opportunities for you to do exactly that.
But it hasn't started yet...and as we wrap up 2019 and get ready for 2020, I want to share something that God has really challenged me with lately. It comes from the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 7, verse 8:
The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. (Eccl. 7:8 NIV)
Now, I'm reading the New International Version and most English translations say something pretty similar. But I want to give you a very literal translation. See, here's the thing: this is a line of Hebrew poetry is probably the hardest kind of thing to translate, because it depends so much on metaphors and symbols. And I think that's true here. This is a hard line to translate. A really literal translation of the Hebrew here would be something like: the end of a matter is better than its beginning, and a long wind is better than a high wind.
Interesting, right? What's this long-wind/high-wind stuff? Most English translations interpret the phrase ''long wind'' as a metaphor for patience, and that makes sense. I mean, a long wind is one that keeps on blowing, slow and steady for a long haul...so that makes sense as a metaphor for patience.
But I'm not convinced that ''high wind'' is a metaphor for pride. It certainly might. I mean, in English, when we say someone has a ''high view of themselves'' we mean they're prideful. But is a high wind a proud one? In both Hebr ...
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