Looking for the Good Life: The Search for Fulfillment in the Light of Ecclesiastes

The good life. Ask ten people to describe it, and you may get ten different answers. But on this much most of us agree: we long for something more-more success, greater fulfillment, less drudgery, a sense of purpose, greater vitality, less burnout, a longer life. We are looking for the good life. But where can the good life be found? How can we overcome the feeling that all is vanity, a chasing after the wind? Is there hope for meaningful living in a death-wish society? No one addresses such questions more pointedly than the writer of Ecclesiastes. And yet, amazingly, his is not a message of despair. Gordon J. Keddie explains: "Interwoven throughout his exposition of meaninglessness is an emergent tapestry of rising hope that points to God's alternatives to man's prevailing predicament" Having revealed the deadness of secular, this-world-only existence "under the sun" Ecclesiastes affirms that there is a good life-and shows us how to find it. Arranged in 13 chapters, each with questions for discussion, Looking for the Good Life is well suited to adult study groups and evangelist Bible studies, as well as private devotional reading.

Gordon J. Keddie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was educated at George Heriot's School, the Universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and at the Westminster (Philadelphia) and Reformed Presbyterian (Pittsburgh) Theological Seminaries in the USA. Until his retirement in 2014 after forty years of ministry, he served pastorates in Pittsburgh, Wishaw (Scotland), State College (PA), and Indianapolis, where he presently resides. He is the author of many popular commentaries on Bible books and themes and a writer of numerous articles, both popular and academic. He is married to Jane, and they have three grown sons and three grandchildren.