Year 5, Day 110: Job 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: In

• In: This is the word we use to express our relationships with our spiritual family.  These are often the people who hold us spiritually accountable.  They are the ones to whom we typically go for discussion and discernment.  These are the ones with whom we learn to share leadership.  They are the ones with whom we become family on mission.

As I read through Job 16, I can feel Job’s pain.  Christian community does need to be about admonition.  When we do something wrong, the Christian community should take on the role of disapproving and helping us find repentance.

But we hear Job legitimately complaining about something serious as this chapter begins.  Where is the compassion?  Where is the relationship?  Where is the willingness of Job’s friends to walk beside him and listen to him?

Job’s friends have done nothing but come before him and tell him what he needs to do.  They cannot even tell him what he’s done wrong; all they can do is assure him that he’s done something wrong in the first place.  That’s not friendship.  That’s not In.  This is religious piety at its worst.  This is a story about religious people who are all too familiar with looking down their nose upon those who are in worse circumstances than they are.

Yes, In should be able to bring about correction.  However, within In there needs to be relationship.  There needs to be a willingness to listen.  There needs to be a willingness to partner up with one another and walk through life together.  It is in that context that admonition is received.  It is in that context that true repentance and forgiveness can happen.

Job feels the lack of true community as this chapter opens.  He is surrounded by people with all the answers and no desire for relationship.  Job’s so-called friends want to fix him and add another tally of success upon their life.  That’s not In.  But unfortunately, often that’s what we like to substitute for true community.

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