What ever does it mean to kill and heal, and break down and build up? In all the years I have been a Christian, I don't remember ever hearing a message on that particular scripture. And so I went searching for an answer.
What I mostly found was confusing at best until I got to this website: gotquestions.org
It explains it in detail so I am only going to copy it in part and should you want to go there and read more on it, please do so. Just put: what does Ecclesiastes 3:3 mean? in their search engine. So here it is in part.
King Solomon points out that human existence is a progressive cycle of beginnings and endings, births and deaths, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. Through a series of fourteen contrasting times and seasons of life, he concludes that God is sovereign over them all (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8). God deliberately designs each moment to create the beautiful tapestry of our lives (Ecclesiastes 3:11). As believers, we must trust Him to mix the fibers and strands according to His good purpose (Romans 8:28).
Paired with “a time to kill, and a time to heal” is “a time to break down, and a time to build up” (Ecclesiastes 3:3, ESV). In the original Hebrew, the words translated “break down” mean “to cause to fall or collapse, tear down, pull down.” The contrasting term “build up” refers to “develop, enlarge, construct, or increase by degrees or in stages.”
Solomon’s “time to break down” and “time to build up” refer to the processes of destruction and reconstruction. As a master builder and developer of ancient architectural wonders, Solomon would have been well acquainted with the need to tear down and remove old, crumbling buildings before rebuilding new structures in their place. In the construction process, there is an appropriate time for both breaking down and building up.
In the Old Testament, Jeremiah’s prophecies forecast the breaking down and building up of peoples, nations, and kingdoms (Jeremiah 1:10). He foresaw a future time when God would rebuild and plant so that His people and their land could be restored (Jeremiah 31:27–29).
In a spiritual sense, believers experience seasons of breaking down the old way of life and building up the new. Christians are to “put to death” or destroy the flesh—the “earthly nature.” We must do away with or tear down our old way of life and “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:5–10, ESV). God has given us spiritual weapons “to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5, NLT).
The process of sanctification involves the Holy Spirit working within us to rebuild and reshape us according to the pattern and image of Christ (Romans 8:29–30). The apostle Peter describes the process: “And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God” (1 Peter 2:5,
I hope you will go there and finish it as it is quite interesting. We know God has His reasons for everything. And we get to take part in all that is good that He gives. On the part of life that sometimes are not so good, well...He has reasons for those times too.
Thanks for coming by, Friends. Have a blessed day!
No comments:
Post a Comment