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.
God asks Job to answer His questions. Job replies that he is unworthy. He has spoken, but he has no answer to God’s questions. God then asks some more questions. First, He asks Job if he wishes to discredit God’s justice and condemn God in order to prove that he is right?
God then asks Job if he has the power to match God? Can he humiliate the proud and punish the wicked? God then asks Job if he can tame Behemoth, which God made, the same as He made Job? Then God asks if he can catch Leviathan, also made by God? A description is given of both, Behemoth is an herbivore and Leviathan a carnivore. We are unable to determine if these are fanciful descriptions of real animals (my personal opinion), or descriptions of mythical beasts which the writer thought were real.
Job answers God once more and admits his fault in questioning God’s wisdom. He tells us that he had been talking about things about which he knew nothing. Job repented his anger with God. God then told Bildad, Eliphaz and Zophar that He was angry with them for misrepresenting Him (it is worth noting that God does not say anything against Elihu). God tells them to offer sacrifices and ask Job to pray for them. They do as instructed and Job does pray for them. The book concludes by telling us that Job prayed for his friends and God restored his fortunes to even more than he had had before.
I am not sure what to make of this, but it struck me that Job, the one who was suffering, prayed for his friends. Usually when someone we know is suffering, we go to them and pray for them, for them to receive relief from their suffering. In this case, it was the one who was suffering who prayed for those who came to see him, and was then relieved from his suffering. I know that this situation is a special case, but perhaps we should give some thought to asking those who are suffering to pray for us?
Paul told the Corinthians that since he knew what it was to fear the Lord, this knowledge inspired him to attempt to convince others. Paul goes on to say that if he is out of his mind, as some perceive him to be, it is in service to God. On the other hand, if he is in his right mind, it is in order to be of service to his fellow believers. In either case, Paul is compelled to act as he does because of Christ’s love. Because Christ died for all, therefore, in some sense, all have died. As a result, those who continue to live because of their faith in Him should no longer live for themselves, but should live for Christ.
We are no longer to regard anyone from a worldly perspective. If we belong to Christ, He will have made us into a new creation. God has reconciled us to Himself, and thereby given us the ministry of spreading the word of His reconciliation. It is our task to tell everyone we meet that God is in the act of reconciling everyone who will accept to Himself through Christ Jesus. He has made us His ambassadors from the kingdom of God to the nations of this world.
This is a word of great hope. God has made us into something new. We do not have to remain stuck in the same old rut of falling into all of our old sins. God has transformed us and will continue to do so every day. More importantly, we need to remember that we are God’s ambassador’s in this world. We may be the only sample of what God is like that some people ever see. We are called upon in every way, every day to act as representatives of God. As ambassadors, we have two jobs. One is telling people how they can emigrate to God’s kingdom because God is seeking immigrants to His kingdom. However, all too often we forget that the other part of being God’s ambassador is convincing people that they want to emigrate to God’s kingdom. We are to live a life that makes others want to be like us.
Today’s psalm is a wedding song for a king. The only part of it which touched me today was when the psalmist said that the king defended truth, humility, and justice and then a little later when he said that the king loved justice and hated evil. These are the characteristics of a ruler who will have God’s favor in all of their actions.
Today’s proverb tells us that the words of an immoral woman are a trap into which those who anger God fall. I am not completely clear on what the writer means, but I believe he means that the same behaviors which anger God make one susceptible to the traps in the words of an immoral woman.