"And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh." (Ecclesiastes 12:12 KJV)
"For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but he has now revealed him to you in these last days. Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory. You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart. For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God." (1 Peter 1:18-23 NLT)
When I first looked at this verse, I placed it in a negative setting, as if there was something here that was talking about the body being broken down from writing many books; or in my case, from continually doing this blog, day after day, without missing a single day. (What was I thinking!) We must not make light of what we do not know or understand, because this is really about those ripples that get washed up on the shores.
Let me try to put it into something easy to understand: Continuing on from the previous verse, this is like a "therefore," where we most pause for a brief moment, thinking, 'What is it there for?' In this case, as in the example of the ripples caused by waves, these "goads," as Solomon calls them, do not go away; they are continually used again and again, because they are administered to and through everyone that speaks of them, through one Shepherd.
"And further, by these, my son, be admonished," is like passing the torch or shinning your light, the Light that is discovered in sharing and putting forth the word of God! That is what this word, "admonished," is talking about: to warn, teach, shine, send out light, be light, be shining; and to be taught! Every time I sit down each morning to share, I am also being taught. Whenever I deliver a massage in a church, the one who gains the most from my message is usually me.
"Of making many books there is no end," is the byproduct of what happens when things get written, they are written without end, as if there always a chance that they might get looked upon, one way or another. If you really want to look at it a little different way, you can imagine God's perspective, which is that of eternity and beyond: When He reads it, it will surely never end!
"And much study is a weariness of the flesh," can be looked at in several ways, primarily that of breaking down or fatigue, as you would do to your body if you worked too much and slept too little. Which I can really relate to, as it real and happens over and over again. However, this specific word occurs only one time in the Scripture, and we are looking at it right now.
Basically, it also means labour, which is feminine noun, which is the way it works towards the flesh, which is that thing we must always be trying to crucify and not try to satisfy with the things of this world...
"Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him." (Romans 6:5-8 NLT)