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

I struggle with what to write about today’s passage.  Sometimes it feels like the Book of Job uses more words to make its point than necessary.  However, in part that is because we oversimplify the point this book is making.  The writer actually makes a very nuanced and complex point.  In today’s passage, Job’s friends essentially say that those who devote their hearts and lives to God, and only those who do so, will be wealthy and happy.  They say that the wicked are constantly tormented, and subject to sudden disasters, while the righteous never suffer such things.  Therefore, they say, we can conclude that anyone who is tormented, or subject to sudden disasters, is wicked., and those who are financially secure with stable lives must be righteous.  Job, on the other hand, expresses his desire to stand before God to be judged.  It is important to remember that at the end of the book when God speaks, while He admonishes Job for challenging His justice,  He calls upon Job’s friends to ask Job to pray for them.

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.

In many ways the Book of Job illustrates that sometimes the best thing you can do to comfort a friend who is suffering is to merely sit there and listen to them.  In his first two monologues Job expresses his desire for an end to his suffering, he asks for death rather than to continue suffering (it just occurred to me that the Book of Job may be a case study against assisted suicide).  In the second monologue which starts today’s passage, Job seeks death because if he were to die at this point he could be sure that he had not denied God, which would give him consolation and even joy.  But Job’s friends, in their effort to help him, accuse him of wickedness.  In a way, they are taking from him his one remaining comfort.  In their effort to find a way to help him, Job’s friends actually lead him into the sin of questioning God’s justice (perhaps sin is too strong of a word here, but God does call Job out for questioning Him at the end of the Book).  So, let us seek to remain faithful to God, even when we face suffering, and let us seek to not make the mistake which Job’s friends made of accusing our friends of sin when they suffer.

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.

I am not sure if I have ever thought about the first point I want to write about today.  When God held up Job as blameless and upright, Satan belittled Job’s dedication to doing right by claiming it was purely self-serving.  Satan claimed that Job only shunned evil because God had blessed him with material wealth, that if God withdrew that blessing Job would curse God.  When God pointed out to Satan that Job was still blameless and upright after God had allowed Satan to take everything from him, Satan moved the goalposts by claiming that Job would curse God if he lost his health.  This illustrates something Satan, and those who serve him, will often do, claim that the righteous only do good out of selfish interest, and when evidence has been provided that their original accusation was unfounded make a new accusation requiring further proof.

Having commented on that I want to look at Job’s response to the troubles which came upon him.  When he lost everything, including his children, instead of bemoaning his fate Job praised God and acknowledged that everything he had lost had been a gift from God in the first place.  And then when he had lost his health, Job stated that we should accept God’s plan, whether it led to good things for us or bad.  So, let us follow Job’s good example and praise God, even when things go against us, and recognize His greatness even when our health is failing 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 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.