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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > The raging debate continues here... > He has made everything beautiful in its time. | Forum Quick Jump
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 9/14/2003 4:44 PM (GMT -6) |   | I posted this on another thread. A hymn says" "Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father; There is no shaddow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compasions they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be."
Ecclesiastes 3:11 is a significant verse, for everyone at every part of life.
quote:
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in the hearts of men;
yet they cannot fathom
what God has done
from beginning to end.
Everything, says Ecclesiates, comes from the hand of God.
And everything, whether it endures as long as we might wish, or is as big or small as we might hope, is good and from the hand of God. And the length of days is also as good. (Read the book and see.)
I wonder whether the hopes that went along with the Month-based fertility cults (like the Philistine Baal) and the hopes that were wrapped up in the Sun-god religion (like the Egyptian Ra) are redressed in the opening chapter--seems so to me. Yet even when things don't last, and when effort does not ensure survival, it is trust in the CREATOR that matters!
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
Dispite whatever doesn't fit our own standards, even that is from the hand of God. Pretty or ugly, it is "beautiful in its time" for those with spiritual vision to "see" (as Christ said). Yet, men "cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end" and fail to see that which is "timeless" (Catholic Bible) in their own midst.
Now, THAT definition of "timeless" is the less technical one; different from most of this thread. It is what one might say of fine jewelry, dinnerware, or a classic automobile! Timeless. Enduring. It is a far more Eastern than Western definition: a state of being. It is a matter of "eternity. . .set. . .in the hearts of men".
For the gatherer of wisdom for Ecclesiastes, that which the hand finds to do is GOOD just because it is the made "beautiful in its time" by God, and made for the sole benefit of men who can see with the organ of the "eternity in the hearts" put there by God according to the Wisdom (incidently by His Word/Son) that is "from beginning to end."
Our modern failure is that we insist on focusing on the first part at to the neglect of the second and third parts of that verse. The OV is an attemped corrective to an imbalanced treatment, the so-called "classical view" in the first portion. But the first part is insufficient in itself.
So, no, God's ordination is not for a standard that meets human standards. Christians can be rained on, or not, just like the rest of humanity. But Ecclesiates says that surface perfection is not the point at all. (Through out all modern attempts to explain/excuse evil.) "Classical" and "OV" make the same mistake--just in different ways to different extreems. Ecclesistes says that we can not stop with the "everything beautiful." By saying "everything beautiful in its time" we are asked to look beyond the mere static state. (God's world is one of ultimate ends, not of still-photography and photo-retouch.) "In its time" includes a lot more. It combines the present particulars given us "by God's hand" with "what God has done from beginning to end."
Notably, it includes what can only be seen by the "eternity (set) in the hearts of men" by the Spirit.
Hmmm.........
Attempts at devising perfect systems just amount to "chasing after the wind."
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