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.

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 29-33.

We can take a lesson about what is important in life from Job’s list of things of which he is not guilty.  The first of those things, and one to which he returns after touching on another, is lust.  He emphasizes that he has not looked on a woman with lust and calls lust a shameful sin.  The presentation here suggests to me that when a society starts to find lust acceptable all of the other sins become more prevalent.  This does not mean that the other sins to which Job refers are any less bad, just that lust is the one which we are most likely to pass over and justify in others (and perhaps in ourselves).  However, lying and deception, mistreating those over whom we have power, abusing the powerless, and greed are all deep sins of which Job finds it worth proclaiming innocence.  Most of these sins are sins of commission, but Job also gives prominence to sins of omission.  We should all be challenged by Job’s reference to the sins of failing to help the poor or allowing someone to go hungry.  Do we help the poor in all of the ways that we can?  Have we allowed someone to go hungry when it was within our power to feed them?  If we are not sure that the answer to the first is “yes” and to the second is “no”, let us look for ways to change that.

Now we hear from Elihu for the first time.  It has always struck me that Elihu is the only one of the characters in this account whom God does not chastise for what they said when He speaks.  Elihu starts by stating that he waited until his elders were done speaking before speaking his piece.  He only spoke up because he thought none of the others had made the argument which he thought most telling.  Elihu makes clear that, while he thinks he is not inferior to Job or the others, he also does not think that he is better than them.  We need to seek to emulate Elihu when we attempt to correct others, or enter into a disagreement with them.  Consider yourself neither inferior not superior to those with whom you are disputing.  Each and everyone of us has been made in the image of God.

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 22-28.

Once again today I struggle to understand parts of Job’s monologues.  At one point he seems to say that God does not punish the wicked.  Yet, as he expands on his point, he goes on to say that the wicked are cursed and live in fear, that God will drag them away because of their wickedness.  Then Job sarcastically commends his friends for the ways in which they have helped the weak and powerless.  It seems to me that Job is making the case that if we do not seek to help the oppressed we are as guilty as those who oppress them.  I will say that helping the oppressed is not some abstract thing where we protest about the hardship visited upon some group.  Helping the oppressed means identifying specific individuals being oppressed and working with them to help them overcome their troubles.

Even though he believes that his troubles came from God Job refuses to speak or do evil.  He vows to strive to do what is right in God’s eyes.  Despite his suffering, Job declares that he still believes that God will bring judgement upon the wicked.  He acknowledges that for all of his own ability, or even the ability of other people, God is the only source of wisdom.  Mankind may be masters at finding resources for their own enjoyment, but no one can find wisdom apart from God.  Job tells us that wisdom is fear of the Lord and understanding leads one to forsake evil in all its forms.

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 16-21.

I struggle to fully understand what Job says in his monologues.  On the one hand, he accuses God of unjustly punishing him.  On the other hand, he calls on God to make the case for his innocence, and appears to believe that God will do so.  He throws himself on the mercy of God, after proclaiming that God has failed to show him mercy.  This apparent contradiction in Job’s statements is consistent with a person suffering greatly.

In both Bildad’s and Zophar’s arguments in today’s passage we can learn an important lesson.  Neither of their arguments actually address what Job had said.  They have gotten caught up in the argument and have forgotten their purpose in arguing with Job.  They had begun with good, although misplaced, intent.  They started out trying to convince Job of taking actions which they believed would relieve his suffering.  Which brings us a lesson we should take to heart: when we get into an argument we must be careful not to get so caught up in winning the argument that we forget why we were arguing our position in the first place.

Finally, I had always thought that Job believed that death was the end, that once one died everything was over for that person.  I thought that what he says in chapter 17 verses 13-16 represented his belief that there was no reason for hope.  However, today I read it more as a warning that those who take the position that there is no afterlife have no hope.  I see in this statement by Job a parallel to what Paul writes when he says that if Christ did not rise from the dead than His followers are the most miserable of people.   I see Job as saying here that if there is no resurrection from the dead, there is no hope for anyone.  In fact in chapter 19 verses 25-27 he expresses just such a hope, a hope which is fulfilled in Christ.  He says that he knows that his Redeemer lives and that, after his death, he will see God in his own body.  This is the hope which those of us who believe in Christ have.  No matter what suffering we may endure on this earth, death is not the end and we will stand before God once more.