I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
Job declares that he would like to go before God’s court and make his case, but he does not know where to find it. Job expresses the common human desire for God to explain why things are the way they are. Nevertheless, Job is confident that God knows where to find him and that when God tests him he will come out pure. He tells us that God will do whatever He has planned and controls our destiny. Job then asks why the wicked are not brought to judgement. Job in this speech asks why the good suffer and the wicked prosper, a question that people ask time and again.
Bildad again responds to Job and tells him that he must be guilty of some great sin, because no one is innocent before God. Job replies very sarcastically, thanking Bildad for his great wisdom, essentially telling him that what he said was useless even if true. Job then discusses how powerful God is. He explains that what we can see of God’s power is just a small part of it, that God’s power is so great and wonderful that we cannot even begin to comprehend it. Job proclaims once more that he will not tell lies. After having in previous speeches said that the wicked prosper and are not punished, here Job says that God will indeed punish the wicked, that their prosperity is fleeting and disaster will come upon them.
Paul starts off this section with two things that call for our attention. The first thing is something that we should try to imitate. Paul tells them that he has conducted himself with holiness and sincerity that are from God. That his actions do not derive from human wisdom, but from God’s grace. This reminds me of a discussion I had about my congregation’s worship team the other week. I expressed my dissatisfaction with an aspect of it and the person I was talking to responded with, “I feel the same way, but studies show…” and in their mind that was the end of the discussion. I think this points up a flaw in much of the thinking we use to conduct Church today, an over reliance on human wisdom. The first question about a program in the Church should not be, “What is the most effective way to do this?” The first question should be, “What is God’s way to do this?” I am not claiming that the way I would like to my congregation to conduct worship services is God’s way to do it. I do not know, but I think we should pray about it and try to design our worship services around God’s will, not just around “what works” according to man’s definition of working. When we plan our programs in the Church we should seek God’s plan for those programs and the words “studies show…” should not be the end of the discussion (although they do have a place in the discussion).
The second thing that calls for our attention is that Paul tells us that he does not write anything that we cannot understand. Paul expresses the feeling that the Corinthians only partially understood his earlier writings. But he also expresses the hope and expectation that they will come to fully understand what he wrote. I think this is an important message for us and I think it applies not just to Paul’s writing but to all of Scripture. There is nothing in Scripture that we cannot understand. There may be passages that we do not understand, but if we turn to God and ask for His Spirit’s guidance we can come to understand them. This is why I am doing this Bible Study blog to read through the Bible in a year. There are passages I do not understand. I fully believe that part of understanding them is seeing how they fit in with other Scripture. Which means that I must become more familiar with all of Scripture and that means reading through the Bible on a regular basis.
Ordinarily, after what I have already written about this passage I would move on to the psalm, but there is another segment of this passage that I think needs to be highlighted. In 1 Corinthians Paul wrote about a man who needed to be disciplined by the Church. Here Paul tells them that the man has expressed his remorse and changed his ways. Now it is time for the Church to welcome him back and forgive him. This passage is the other side of Church discipline that too often those Christians who do practice Church discipline do not follow through on. Once the Church has disciplined a believer and the believer acknowledges their sin and turns from it, the Church must welcome them back and offer them forgiveness. They must be brought back in and shown the love of the brotherhood once again. Church discipline is not about punishment. It is about restoring people to a right relationship with God.
The psalmist says that those who are kind to the poor will be blessed. Other translations say that those who have regard for the weak will be blessed. In both cases it carries a sense of providing aid for those who cannot for one reason or another fully care for themselves and do not have the ability to repay us for what we do for them. But then the psalmist says something interesting, “Heal me, for I have sinned against You.” That phrasing seems awkward, asking God for healing because we have sinned. What is the psalmist getting at here? Some other translations read, “Heal my soul,…”. Certainly it is easier to understand if we take it as a request for soul healing because our souls need healing as a result of our sins. I think that gives me the insight to see what the psalmist is saying (or at least what the Spirit is saying to me today through this passage). When we sin it results in us needing healing. Sometimes that healing is of no more than our soul, but often times our sin leads to our physical bodies being damaged as well. When we have sinned we need God’s healing of our souls, our minds and our bodies.
The first of today’s proverbs tells us that the path followed by the wicked has many dangers and those who value life will avoid such a path. The second proverb tells us that if parents direct their children on to the right path the children will not depart from it. Does this mean that every time people turn out badly it is a result of the failure of the parents? I don’t know. I do know that all of the circumstances where I witnessed the parenting as an adult where the child turned out badly the parents were guilty of bad parenting. On the other hand, I know several people who turned out badly, yet all of their siblings have followed their parents in following the Lord. So, I just don’t know. I do know that those people who I have witnessed raise their children well, the children have turned out well and those people I have witnessed modeling bad behavior for their children have had children who follow that model. I do however know parents whose children turned out badly that I cannot imagine not modeling good behavior for their children, but I did not know them while they were raising their children.