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.