There are numerous inventions that were seemingly obvious, and yet no one thought of them for years even after they were needed.

When we read the Scriptures, it can be like that. We easily miss significant things right before our eyes. It can be because of cultural biases, our frame of mind, failure to understand key frases, cultural context, context with other passages, and so on.

Likewise, have you ever been with an older couple who are very close having lived together in marriage for many years, and yet as you talk with them something comes up, and one of them looks at the other and says, "You never told me about that before."

It is a great irony of life that even our vision to comprehend the Great Book given by God to us in part to help us understand our own condition is clouded.

Paradoxically,even as we peer into the Scriptures through blurry eyes, we learn through our weakness of God's greatness and our need for Him.

Just today, I read the book of Ecclesiastes. I have long understood the phrase "under the sun" as having key importance in the book and have even preached sermons emphasizing that point.

As I read it today, I was struck with the obvious fact that the phrase "under the sun" was intended to represent life from man's viewpoint as I understood, but more than that, it was not written from man's point of view generically as I understood, but rather from the viewpoint of Solomon, The Preacher.

That simple observation changes the reading and understanding of the book in simple and subtle, yet profound ways.

What do you see in Ecclesiates? What else am I missing?

—Luke