John Mark Hicks

In Honor of Dr. Seth Fletcher (46 Years Old) Memorial on April 25, 2026 The opening poem is beautifully crafted and memorable. It is probably the most well-known part of Ecclesiastes. It has a lyrical quality which The Byrds used in their 1965 hit, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”   The poem articulates the extremes of human […]

Texts: Proverbs 9:9-10; Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 Days 25-26 in Around the Bible in Eighty Days. Every people group carries a shared wisdom within their history. This wisdom provides boundaries and paths for successful living. It also offers a way for people to endure the chaos that regularly invades life. Wisdom envisions the good life but recognizes […]

This sermon was delivered at the Well House Church in Nashville, TN. The sermon begins at about 44 minutes. Hebel happens. 9-11 happened. Hebel is the word the preacher in Ecclesiastes uses thirty-seven times to describe a world soaked in death. Life is brief, a vapor. It is absurd and an enigma. It is unfathomable; […]

The NRSV reads (my two translation adjustments are in brackets): All this I have tested by wisdom; I said, “I will be wise,” but [she] was far from me. 24 That which is, is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out? 25 I turned my mind to know and to search […]

On Friday, February 6, I traveled with our Vienna Study Abroad group to the Nazi concentration camp at Mauthausen, and then we visited the Benedictine monastery in Melk. Geographically, the distance is not so great (about an hour bus ride), but the emotional distance is huge if not traumatic. Mauthausen was the first concentration camp […]