Today, I am reading and commenting on  Job 38-42.

In today’s passage God responds to Job’s demands for a hearing before Him in two parts.  It will help us to understand the lesson here if we realize that Job’s complaints can be boiled down to, “If I were God, I would do things differently.”  In His first response God asks Job about his knowledge of things which God has done in the past and over which God exercises control.  This first portion teaches us that we do not, can not, know enough to second guess God in a useful way: we do not know enough to know that things would be, could be, better if they were done differently.  In His second response to Job God asks Job about his power to do things.  This second portion teaches us that we are not powerful enough to understand what would happen if God used His power in the way we think we would if we had that power.  Ultimately, we, with our finite minds and abilities will be unable to comprehend the reasons why God has done some of the things He has done in His infinite knowledge and wisdom.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Job 34-37.

I am somewhat confused with what to make of today’s passage.  On the one hand, we have Elihu speaking, who is not mentioned at the end of the book among Job’s friends when God condemns them.  On the other hand, he makes a strawman argument against Job: he says that Job made arguments which he did not make.  Nevertheless, Elihu says some insightful things.  Elihu tells us that our sins do not harm God, and He gains nothing from our acts of righteousness.  The standards which God establishes are for the benefit of mankind, not Himself.  This is one of the most important insights which we can have.  When we sin, we harm ourselves and others.  When we do good, we benefit ourselves and others.  God’s Laws are not arbitrary.  Let us follow them so that we can experience the joy God intends for us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Job 29-33.

Elihu responds to Job in today’s passage, he is the only one of Job’s friends whom God does not condemn when He finally speaks.  Also, Elihu is not mentioned at the beginning of the book when Job’s other friends are introduced.  This, and some stylistic differences, have led some scholars to conclude that Elihu’s portion is a later addition to the Book of Job.  We should certainly be aware of the possibility that what Elihu said was added by a later scribe.  Nevertheless, there are a couple of things in what Elihu says to which we should pay attention.  Elihu starts out by telling Job that he, Elihu, was no better than Job, that Job should not fear him.  Elihu made clear that he did not think he was better than Job, and that none of what either of them said would change that. Elihu also challenges Job’s contention that God does not speak.  We, as human beings, often miss what God has to say, but that does not mean the He does not speak to us.  Elihu is right, God is not silent.  If we will buy open our ears, we will hear what He has to say.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Job 22-28.

Throughout the entire Book of Job, Job’s friends insist that he is guilty of some great sin and Job denies that to be true.  In fact, despite having no evidence of Job’s sin other than the fact that he is suffering, the more he denies having committed some great sin the more insistent his friends become that he confess it.  Finally Job tells them that he will not commit the sin of lying by confessing to a sin he has not committed.  In many ways this reminds me of stories I have heard about things going on at various institutions around the country today, where they hold seminars and insist that people confess to having oppressed others.  Job reminds us that it is just as much a lie to confess a sin which we have not committed as it is to deny a sine which we have committed.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Job 16-21.

In chapter 16 Job says that his witness, his advocate, his intercessor is in heaven pleading with God on his behalf.  Then in chapter 19, he further says that he knows his redeemer lives and on the earth will stand (the basis for a great hymn of faith and hope).  Further, Job says that he knows that he will see God with his own eyes after his death (a statement which tells us that we will be resurrected with physical bodies).  These are great prophetic statements about the coming of Christ and things which should offer Believers in Him comfort when they experience suffering.

Job starts out his response in today’s passage by telling his friends that what they are saying offers him no comfort.  He makes the point that when people are suffering we should strive to comfort them and offer them relief from their suffering, not condemn them for their past sins.  And his friends reacted to what he said by assuming that it was established that he was a great sinner and going on from there.  The statements made by Job’s friends do not address anything which Job said.  Instead they argue as if Job denied that God punishes sinners. And Job, in his anger at their failure to listen to him, begins to call into question God’s justice. Yet, even so, he still makes his great statements of faith which I talked about in the first paragraph.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Job 11-15.

The first thing I noticed today is that Job’s friends were guilty of the straw man fallacy.  They condemn Job for things he did not actually say.  I realized that Job became angrier as he attempted to restate his argument in order to address the ways in which they had misrepresented what he had said previously.  We can actually learn an important lesson from this: do not continue a debate with someone whose counterarguments focus on, and misrepresent, our examples or side notes rather than addressing our main point.  Actually there is another lesson as well: Job’s friends were so convinced that Job’s suffering was the result of some unknown wrongdoing that they did not really listen to what he said.

I want to revisit what I said above while looking more closely at what the characters in this passage say.  Zophar misrepresents what Job said in his first monologue, then he essentially tells Job that his suffering resulted from his sinfulness; that if Job had just been righteous he would not be suffering. Jesus addresses this idea in John 9 when his disciples asked Him whether the man born blind or his parents had sinned and Jesus replies “Neither.”  Job answered Zophar’s misrepresentation of what he had said with anger and restated his original point (and also says a few things worth thinking about, but I am not going to cover those today).  Then Eliphaz condemns Job for getting angry, misrepresents what Job had said, and also implies that Job’s suffering resulted from his wickedness.  Neither Zophar nor Eliphaz specified what wickedness Job had committed; they merely postulated that his suffering was evidence of him having committed it.  The important lesson here: suffering is not evidence of wrongdoing.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Job 6-10.

There is really a lot in what Job says in today’s passage.  I do not think I will cover all of it.  I will start with Job’s expression of his feelings.  He told his friends that he was in so much misery that he wanted to die.  He felt like he had no more strength to endure the pain.  He just wanted the pain to end.  Instead of giving him words of encouragement, Bildad accused him of sin, told him that all of his suffering was because he had sinned.  Job replies by expressing how great God is, that a mere human cannot hope to confront God, cannot even understand God’s perspective well enough to make a case for being innocent before Him.  Job then says one of the most important things in this book.  He asks for a mediator between himself and God, for someone who he, a mere mortal, could comprehend whom a mortal could trust to understand the concerns of a mortal and convey them to God.  I have worded that poorly, but Job was asking for Jesus.  Jesus is the mediator for whom Job yearned.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Job 1-5.

When Job learned that all of his wealth was gone he said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.; may the name of the Lord be praised.”  The passage comments on Job’s reaction by telling us that he did not charge God with wrongdoing.  Then when Job begins to suffer physically the passage seems to say that he still did not accuse God of wrongdoing.  It is important to remember this as we read through Job’s dialogue with his friends in the rest of the book: Job did not accuse God of wrongdoing. However, for today I want to focus on the fact that Job willingly accepted the good and trouble from God.  When God gave him wealth, Job used it to praise God and bring glory to His name.  When God took all of his material possessions away from him, Job continued to praise God.  When God took his health from him, Job refused to blame God or condemn Him.  Like Job, we should be prepared to praise God in the good times and the bad.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Job 38-42.

Job had asked to speak with God so that he could make his case before Him.  Now God replies with some questions for Job, questions which each and everyone of us should attempt to answer before we question God’s justice.  Many of these questions mankind has found answers to in the centuries since the Book of Job was written, but in doing so we have found more such questions to which we do not know the answers.  God asks Job if he has explored the depths of the sea, or knows the extent of the earth.  Since that time, mankind has explored some of the depths of the sea and discovered the extent of the earth, but we have only succeeded in exploring a small portion of those depths and have discovered that the Universe extends farther beyond this earth than our minds can comprehend.  Job’s responds to God by recognizing that he cannot begin to comprehend all that God is and does.  Despite the fact that God confronts Job over his challenge, it is Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar He demands a sacrifice from.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Job 34-37.

I wrote yesterday, but it is important to repeat it, Elihu is the only person who speaks in the Book of Job whom God does not reprimand for what he says.  In today’s passage he points out that Job is wrong to say that he has not sinned because everyone has sinned.  However, unlike Job’s other friends, Elihu does not attempt to identify Job’s sins as the cause of his suffering.  He does, however, point out where Job had said things which were wrong.  He challenges Job for saying that God has taken away his rights, has denied him justice.

Elihu’s statements in defense of God carry more weight and are more important than his challenge to Job’s claim of innocence.  First, he tells us that God does not sin and can do no wrong.  God pays no more attention to the rich than to the poor.  He sees everything that everyone does and judges them accordingly.  However, for what is going on in the world today the most important thing he says is in verse 17 of chapter 34.  The New Living Translation translates it as “Could God govern if he hated justice?”  But the New International Version translates that sentence in a more general fashion, “Can someone who hates justice govern?”  Elihu’s main argument is that since God does govern the world, we know that he must embrace justice.  However, we also see that anyone who wishes to govern even a small portion of this world must embrace justice.

I could stop there, but there is one more thing which Elihu says which is relevant to this.  Elihu asks why people do not say one of two things to God.

• “I have sinned, but I will sin no more.”
• “I do not know what evil I have done.  Tell me and I will stop at once.”

In order to stop injustice we must first stop sinning ourselves and if we do not know what sins we have committed, ask God to show us.