True Vine - Disciples of Truth Devotionals

📝✔️We are not renewing the license for now on the article section of our website. You can still use it, and what is there will be archived. But for now, I am going back to groups for the devotionals. Thank you!

Read
Ecclesiastes 4

Live
Today’s passage makes me think of Micah 6:8 “He has shown you, oh man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Solomon is thinking a lot about the actions of the unjust. He thinks of the painful and tear-filled lives of the oppressed. Again, he uses his “under the sun” analogy, as if this is all there is
in this old world – a place where men and women give no account for their lives in a world to come, a place where the tears of the oppressed are especially bitter and they have no comforter. There is nothing sadder in the whole book than Solomon’s glance at the dead and the unborn who are spared the sight of so much anguish (verses 2,3).

In verses 9-12, we see that living and working together has a great advantage over living and working alone. It adds four things to life:

• Productivity (they have a good reward for their labor).
• Help in need (if they fall, one will lift up his companion).
• Comfort in life (they will keep warm).
• Safety and security (two can withstand).

What an amazing analogy the Preacher uses: “A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” We might have expected him to praise the strength of a twofold cord, but he notes that a threefold is not quickly broken. It is possible that, in the context of marriage and family, Solomon had children in mind, but it is commonly understood that the third cord is speaking of the Lord and that a relationship intertwined with Father God is a threefold cord that is not quickly broken. The strength of the three-ply cord was proverbial in the ancient world. This is commonly, and I think well-applied to the idea of recognizing and embracing God in the marriage relationship.

Pray
Father, thank you for the great example of co-laboring alongside other people, reminding us that you designed life for companionship, not isolation, for intimacy, not loneliness. May I be an example in word and deed to those around me. In Jesus’ name. Amen