Ecclesiastes is, above all else, unflinchingly honest. Whether wrestling with the tedium of work, the injustices of life, the ravages of age or the inevitability of death, this enigmatic Old Testament book takes a hard look at the way the world really is. And yet, as Phil Ryken shows, the Preacher's conclusion is not despair but the fear of God and the enjoyment of ordinary gifts received from his hand.

Ryken preaches the book as a unity rather than a collection of contradictions, and that discipline is what makes the volume useful: the bleak passages are allowed to stand before the resolution is reached. Part of the Preaching the Word series. Particularly well suited to readers who find Ecclesiastes more honest than most of what they hear in church, and to preachers who have never attempted it.