Wisdom Of The Teacher For College Students, Ch. 7Sample

Chapter 7 contains several proverbs that touch on a variety of subjects. It doesn’t necessarily break down into neat chunks of material for us to look at each day. You may have combined some of the verses in different groups if you were doing the outline and that’s OK.

Imagine the Teacher using a series of hyperbolic statements to really get you and I to consider his theme for the opening part of this chapter. Have you taken the time to consider the end of your life? Truth is most of us don’t contemplate our deaths very often, especially when we are young.

It might sound morbid to do so, but the Teacher points out that the way to properly understand how to live our life is to realize the brevity of it. It’s hard to realize how short our lives are when we are constantly in the presence of folly and partying. I think that’s why a death among college peers is so difficult to fathom. The constant distractions of college life tend to keep us preoccupied with the next event and leave us little time to really think about the deeper meaning of life.

Mourning forces us to slow down and acknowledge that we are not going to live forever. It also forces us to ask what happens to us when we die (Is there really a hope for a life beyond death?), and brings all our world view into question. These are worthy questions to consider. The Teacher reminds us that they are the more important ones to ask but often neglected due to our leaning towards fun and constant activity.