Year 8, Day 120: Job 26

Theological Commentary: Click Here

There are a few chapters in the Bible that entirely focus upon God.  The majority of chapters in the Bible focus on God and our relationship with Him.  Very few chapters – especially outside of the book of Psalms – focus entirely on God and His character.  This is one of those chapters.

Look at what this chapter has to tell us about God.  First of all, God is omnipresent.  Life cannot hide from Him.  Even the dead in Sheol cannot hide from Him.  Nothing escapes His observation.  He is aware in a way that we cannot even comprehend.

This chapter also speaks to God’s omnipotence.  He covers up voids.  He hangs the earth on nothing!  This thought caused me to stop and think for a second.  This is quite literally true.  The earth is suspended in space, supported only by the force of gravity that constantly pulls us towards the sun and thus into our elliptical orbit.  Oh, by the way, the sun is hung on nothing, too.  If you want to explain that our planet stays put because of the gravitational attraction with the sun, what is the response to how the sun is hung?

To continue with God’s omnipotence, Job reminds us that God can cover the whole face of the moon with a cloud.  For many years, I lived in Western Pennsylvania.  Seattle residents might be surprised to find out that no place in America sees less sun per year than Western Pennsylvania.  As a sufferer of Seasonal Affective Disorder, I was keenly aware of how little sun I saw.  One winter I remember going 36 straight days without seeing the sun – all of January and a little December and February!  Imagine the size of the cloud that covered the face of Western Pennsylvania for 36 straight days!  God is bigger than even that cloud!

God stills the seas.  God splits apart the light from the darkness.  God speaks in the thunder and is present in His own silence.  This is the amazing power of God.

This is a chapter that can truly cause us to ponder God and His nature.  We cannot comprehend Him, but we can pay Him homage when we try to do so.  This is the power of this chapter.

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Year 8, Day 119: Job 25

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Bildad speaks.  If I may say so with a snarky tone to my voice, it is blessedly short, too!  I love that this chapter is only a handful of verses.  It can help us realize that pontificating isn’t always necessary, and listening is always more important!

Much of what Bildad says has worth.  God does judge us.  God does have an immeasurable force.  God’s light does shine everywhere.  How can we even come close to comparing to God?  Bildad is wise to recognize our limitations.

That being said, Bildad is shortsighted.  We cannot be righteous on our own merit.  However, because God’s power is limitless, He can make us righteous!  We can stand righteous in His presence because of who He is, not because of who we are.  That’s a very important dynamic to remember.

It is often easy to focus on our humanity.  We can spend too much time seeing the sinfulness around us.  Even in those moments where we do focus on the sinfulness around us, we should be mindful of God’s ability to change us and make us righteous.  We should never lose sight of hope, especially in those moments when we are looking into the depth of human depravity.

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Year 8, Day 118: Job 24

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In this chapter, we get to hear a fairly reasonable complaint from Job.  Ultimately, the complaint puts Job in the wrong.  It puts us in the wrong when we say it, too.  The complaint is understandable.

Job’s complaint is that evil people seem to go unpunished.  The powerful oppress the powerless.  The wealthy find ways to take even more money from the poor.  The people with food hoard it instead of sharing it with the hungry.  The widow goes without a champion.  In all of this, they aren’t held accountable.

This is a human grievance throughout time.  You can go to any culture and hear people speak about this.  You can go to any time period and see this dynamic at work.  It is true in the greatest nations and true in the worst of nations.  It is this dynamic that caused people to create both democracy, capitalism, socialism, and communism.  For the record, this human condition is still present in all of them, too!  We cannot get away from this dynamic within humanity.  Job is correct in recognizing this human dynamic and stating that it is a problem.

That being said, Job takes his argument too far.  Job argues that such a dynamic is allowed to exist by God.  This argument is wrong on two accounts.  First, why is it God’s responsibility to fix our mistakes?  Yes, God does save us and ultimately He does fix our problem with sin.  Just because he does fix it, however, doesn’t mean it was His responsibility!  That’s why we call it grace.  Job is wrong when he lays this problem at God’s feet.

Second, Job is wrong because he lacks an eternal perspective.  God does judge us when we behave according to the manner that Job describes in this chapter.  He doesn’t judge us in the present; He judges us in the future.  There will be an accounting.  There will be a judgment.  That’s why we need God’s grace.  To accuse God of not holding people accountable does nothing except prove our own short-sightedness.  He does hold us accountable; He does it on His own timeline.  Why should God have to do things according to our timeline created by our limited perspective?

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Year 8, Day 117: Job 23

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I think this is a beautiful chapter.  What is it that makes a beautiful chapter in the Bible?  It really depends, but from my perspective a beautiful chapter is one that contains truth, contains an exposition on the human condition, and contains a relatable circumstance.  All of these things happen in this chapter.

The relatable circumstance is Job’s life in this chapter is his inability to see God.  I know how that feels.  There are days that I would love nothing more than to sit in God’s presence and ask him the questions that I ponder.  There are days when I wish I could be in the presence of a God who chases away the presence of evil, doubt, and hatred.  There are days when I long to know – to truly know – God’s plan for my life and the rest of the world.  There are days when I long for the peace that only He can bring.

I know how Job feels.  Job just wants to explain himself to God.  He just wants to hear God’s rationale.  He just wants the comfort of knowing God’s presence.

What’s the truth in this chapter?  I think there are multiple truths.  First, human beings can’t see God whenever they want it.  We can’t shake God’s hand.  We can’t enter into His physical courts.  Second, the truth is that God is the answer.  God is immutable.  God completes what He starts.  God has a purpose to what He does.

When we tie these ideas together, we end up with a great perspective on the human condition.  If we long to see God when He truly is the answer but we can’t see Him, why does that even happen?  I think Job gives us the answer in the closing stanza of the chapter.  In verse 9 we hear Job confess that when He is at work on the left and the right it us who do not perceive Him.  The reality is that it is our issue.  We don’t see God because our hearts aren’t ready.  We don’t see Him because we may not have learned how to look.  We don’t see Him because we are focused on the wrong thing.  Whatever the reason, we don’t see Him.  That’s the condition that Job mourns in this chapter.

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Year 8, Day 116: Job 22

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Once more we get to see an example of human wisdom at work.  Don’t get me wrong.  Human wisdom can have some good points.  Human wisdom, however, doesn’t equal divine wisdom.  Human wisdom cannot have the same universal applicability as divine wisdom.

For example, look at what Eliphaz says in Job 21:22.  “Agree with God and be at peace, thereby good will come to you.”  At first, it sounds like a great quote.  Agree with God and be at peace.  When we are aligning ourselves with God, we are going to be at peace with God.  That portion is absolutely true.  That’s why the wisdom sounds great.

The problem is that it isn’t universally applicable.  Am I at peace when I agree with God?  At peace with God, absolutely.  Am I at peace with the world?  Actually, the more I agree with God, the more likely I will feel like sandpaper to the world!  Of course, peace with God is greater than peace with the world.  Eliphaz’s advice is still good in that perspective.  Agreeing with God is generally a good thing, so long as we understand that we will be at odds with the world.

There’s another problem with this piece of advice.  If it was just about peace, it would be conditionally good advice.  The problem is that it uses something that sounds good to draw an even bigger conclusion.  Peace isn’t the issue for Eliphaz.  What Eliphaz’s advice truly is about is the reward.  What Eliphaz is saying is that if we agree with God, we’ll be at peace because we’ll get what we want.  That’s the issue with this advice.  It’s prosperity gospel.  It’s about getting.  The primary goal isn’t peace with God.  That’s the bait to make us feel like the advice is good.  This advice is about equally relationship with God to living the life we want to live.

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Year 8, Day 115: Job 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here

There are deep reasons why I love and respect Job as a spiritual figure.  A number of them reside in this chapter.  This chapter speaks as to why I consider this afflicted man a personal hero.

Job sticks to his guns.  He hears time and time again about how he must be evil because of his affliction.  Yet, Job doesn’t believe them.  Job knows his heart.  He may not know the hearts of others, but he does know his own heart.  He knows his own relationship with God.  Others say what they may, but he stands his ground.  When a person knows they are right, it can pay to be stubborn and stick to one’s guns.  Especially when the stakes deal with ourselves and not others.

Another dynamic that I love about Job is that he is honest.  Job doesn’t have to be perfect.  He doesn’t have to hide his flaws.  Job knows himself and is happy to admit the human flaws within.  He tells the people to look at him.  He knows that he’s a walking billboard for calamity.  He knows people are appalled when they look at him.  He himself shudders when he considers his own flesh!  Job doesn’t see through rose-colored glasses.  Job sees the truth and paints a true picture.

Finally, Job invites truth.  He doesn’t want platitudes.  Job doesn’t want quaint sayings.  Job doesn’t want to hear things we think are true.  Job wants truth.  Job wants to think things through and know they are true.  Job knows that there are plenty of wicked in the word who have the respect of others.  Job knows there are plenty of people who are evil and yet at the end of their life they are buried with all the pomp and circumstance that one would expect from a truly wonderous person.  Job doesn’t accept that affluence and general well-being proves righteousness – even though we’d love for that to be true.

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Year 8, Day 114: Job 20

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Ever wonder about the problem of social wisdom, cultural proverbs, and truisms?  They do contain truth.  There is a little bit of truth in most things!  The problem is that while they seem like the truth, they really aren’t.  They don’t universally apply.  They are true in some circumstances, perhaps even many circumstances.  But they aren’t universally true.

This is the case with Zophar’s speech today.  When Christians hear these words, we want to jump on them and talk about how true they are.  He talks about evil within people being vomited back up.  He talks about the wicked perishing like their own dung.  He talks about the memory of the evil ones fading away.  Zophar talks about evil sowing and then reaping its own evil.

We hear things like that and we want to believe them.  We desperately want to believe that evil will be punished and judged.  It will be.  One day, God will have His say and all will be exposed.  In fact, all of us will know our evil exposed under the judgment of God.

The reality, though, is that Zophar’s words simply don’t play out in reality.  The wicked often prosper.  The wicked often seek and find the fruit of their toil.  They often find, at least in this life, thee prosperity that their heart desires.

This shows us again what has been a significant theme throughout the book.  We cannot judge a book by its cover.  We cannot assume that because Job is having a hard time that he is evil.  We likewise cannot assume that because a person is having an easy life that they are righteous.  Who are we to judge in any way?  The only way to truly know a person is to know their heart and motivation deep within them.

It’s harder to live this way.  It’s hard to refrain from judging until we know a person’s character.  But it is the better way.  It is the godly way.  When we buy into cultural wisdom, we often err in our decisions because we allow ourselves to apply what seems like truth to a situation to which it may not apply.  The problem is that we never realize that it doesn’t apply.  That’s the danger of Zophar’s words.

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Year 8, Day 113: Job 19

Theological Commentary: Click Here

This is considered one of the most powerful chapters in the book of Job.  Naturally, the chapters at the end of Job, where we hear from God, are also powerful chapters.  Aside from the chapters where God speaks, this is a great voice from a hurting man.

What makes this chapter great can be summed up in one line.  It is a line that most Bibles use as a header for this chapter.  Job 19:25 says, “I know that my redeemer lives and at the last He will stand upon the earth.”  I love that line because of the pattern of theology that it represents.

This verse is focused upon God.  It is focused upon His majesty, His omnipresence, and His omnipotence.  So many people quote verses because they want to apply God’s promise to them; they want to pick a verse that is good for them.  This verse is about lifting up God as the central figure in our life and in the universe.

It is in this thought that we find true religion.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am happy to think about verses that promise eternal life with God.  I love thinking about a time when God will make me perfect and wash away my sins permanently.  But true religion realizes that such things are secondary effects to the greater truth of putting God central in one’s life.  It is God who is the focus.  It is God who is righteous.

That’s what I love about this quote.  Job acknowledges that the only way he can know salvation is by casting aside all the awful things that have happened to him and focus on the fact that in the end, it is God who will stand upon the earth.  It is God’s character that surpasses everything. All that I look forward to happening to me is a secondary effect coming out of God’s character.

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Year 8, Day 112: Job 18

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Bildad makes me mad.  Look at where Job had brought himself in the last chapter.  Job has managed to remember the path to hope.  He has managed to remember to focus back upon God.  He has remembered how to turn his eyes back upon God.

Enter Bildad.  Rather than rejoice with Job and his ability to turn to God, Bildad begins to tell Job how evil he is because he is suffering.  Rather than celebrate Job’s ability to maintain his relationship with God in spite of his troubles, Bildad accuses him of being wrong.  With friends like Bildad, Job certainly doesn’t need enemies!

There is a great lesson here.  Bildad isn’t about leading people to God, Bildad is about being right.  That’s an incredible distinction to learn to make when evaluating spiritual people.  What is the motivation for their teaching?  Are they open to God and allowing God to reach people in His way or do they force people to always see things their own way?  Spiritual people should be about being God’s hands and feet and letting God be the master.

This is also a good lesson to learn when mentoring.  When someone draws closer to God, we should celebrate it!  It isn’t about whether or not I had a hand in the person growing closer to God, it is all about the person growing closer to God in the first place.  That’s the key.

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Year 8, Day 111: Job 17

Theological Commentary: Click Here

We see Job begin to turn a corner.  Up until now, he’s been wallowing in his sorrow.  He’s been focused on the negative things that have happened.  While it may not be correct, it is absolutely understandable.  It is the human condition.  It is far easier for most of us to remember the last negative experience than to consider the future with hope.

What Job shows us in this chapter is how to turn the corner.  While it can be natural to focus on the negative, life is not best lived when we are doing so.  We need to push through the negative memory and look ahead in hope.  This is how we experience grace.

Look at how Job ends this passage.  What hope is found in Sheol, the place of the dead?  What hope is found in the earth that swallows the dead or the worms, flies, and animals that dispose of the body?  There is no hope to be found there.  If death is the final outcome, what’s the greater point of life?

Look at the great verse that allows Job to turn the corner.  Job 17:9 is a powerful verse.  “Yet the righteous hold to His way.”  This is how we turn the corner and get past the negative experiences in our life.  We turn to God and remind ourselves of how He wants us to live.  His way is a way of hope.  His way is a way of grace and peace.  Hs way is a way of forgiveness and love.  The righteous get past the evil around them and bring their focus back upon God.  It is God’s ways that allow us to move beyond the dark world that surrounds us each and every day.

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Year 8, Day 110: Job 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In this chapter we find Job once more running low on vision.  I’m going to try to not be too hard on him because he has endured great suffering.  However, there is something we can learn from him so long as we look at him as a case study and not make it personal.

Today as I was going about my day I was allowed the privilege of listening to another teacher do a devotion with a couple of students.  I am blessed with this opportunity quite regularly.  Today, I heard the teacher quote a phrase from a book: “Grace is found at the intersection of clarity of sight and hope for the future.”  This quote stuck with me, especially since I have a love of mathematics.  When I hear the word intersection, I think of a graph or chart.

I am pretty sure that this quote speaks to Job’s state of mind today.  Job is lacking hope for the future.  He’s suffering and doesn’t know how to make it better.  He’s pleaded with God.  He’s prayed.  He tried to make a defense.  His condition remains unchanged.  He has no hope for a great life in the future.

While this lack of hope is devastating enough, I think Job also has a lack of clarity.  His circumstances are preventing him from seeing what God is really doing.  He doesn’t see the restoration God is planning. He doesn’t see the truth that God is trying to teach.  He doesn’t see much at all.

What is the summary of this state?  Because of Job’s hopeless state, he doesn’t see much reason to go forward.  That is why Job longs for death from God.  Because of Job’s lack of clarity in vision, he isn’t very receptive to anything but his current frame of refence.  He’s not in a place to learn.  He’s not in a place to receive.  He’s in a place to focus on his current circumstances and dwell in the misery of his being.

That being said, I can’t really blame Job.  Clinically, I can point to where he is going wrong.  Rationally, I can know what he needs to do to get out of his funk.  Pastorally, I can understand where he is coming from and why he is feeling as he is.  I can empathize with the man.

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Year 8, Day 109: Job 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I think that Eliphaz deceptively gets a fair bit wrong here in this chapter.  One such place is his accusation of Job.  While Job has his faults, I don’t think fear of the Lord is one of them.  I think Job has a healthy understand of who the Lord is and what the Lord can do in His righteousness.  Job may be guilty of not seeing what God has planned.  He may be guilty of having a little less patience than necessary.  He may be guilty of jumping to hopelessness a little too quickly.  I think he has a healthy fear of the Lord, though.

Another place where I quibble is where Eliphaz says that God places no trust in the holy ones or even in humanity.  That’s just not true.  How many times in the Bible does God give a message to one of His holy angels?  Doesn’t God invite us to participate in His work?  Doesn’t Jesus Himself train human beings to be His disciples and to make disciples?  The reality is that God does trust us.  He knows our faults.  He knows our sin.  But He trusts us and invites us into relationship in spite of them!

Another place of bad advice is where Eliphaz talks about wicked writhing in their pain.  Again, this just isn’t true.  Yes, eternally, the wicked will live in separation from God.  Occasionally in life, the wicked are caught in their sin and punished.  However, God Himself says that in this life His blessings fall upon the wicked and the righteous.  There is example after example of wicked people who live and prosper in this life.  The level of one’s writhing in pain is not a fair indicator of one’s righteousness or wickedness.

This is a dangerous chapter.  It is very easy to read through much of what Eliphaz says and want it to be true.  He is doing a great job of painting a picture that we want to hear.  But Eliphaz is painting a theology of his own desiring, not a genuine theology.  That’s the danger in Eliphaz’s words.

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Year 8, Day 108: Job 14

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Here we have a passage where I think Job goes a touch too far.  Before I get there, though, I’m going to start out in truth.  Like all theology that goes a little bad, it actually starts in truth.  Job makes a couple of reasonable comments.  First, man is full of trouble when we are born.  Our days are short in number and we are full of sin inherently.  There’s no arguing that.

Then, Job asks a really important question.  Who can bring anything clean out of the unclean?  Naturally, no human being for sure.  This question is the turning point for Job.  The reason that it is so important is because its answer is what allows us to avoid Job’s mistake.  We know who can make something clean out of the unclean.  God can.  We know how He does it, too.  He does it through the cross of Christ.  Through Jesus we are made clean.  Job doesn’t have access to this knowledge.

Because Job doesn’t have access to this information, he begins to accuse God.  He sees the hopelessness of life.  Who among us can hope to be righteous?  Who among us can hope to be clean?  If we don’t have a shot at it, why try?

This is the futility out of which Job ends this chapter.  Job acknowledges that we have no chance.  We are born and die and don’t get a chance to see the fruit of our generation!  God watches while the mountains ebb away, we don’t get that perspective.  God watches while we destroy each other and even while He brings destruction upon us.  But we don’t get to see the overarching effects.

Without the cross of Christ, life is ultimately futile.  What is man that God is mindful of us?  However, with the cross of Christ we can know cleanliness.  We can know that God can take our efforts and prosper them.  He can allow us to know the eternal, even though we might die!  With the cross of Christ, we don’t need to know the futility that Job sinks into at the close of this chapter.

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Year 8, Day 107: Job 13

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Job takes on two main arguments in this chapter.  First, Job continues to take on Zophar.  Then, Job decides to speak towards God again.

When Job takes on Zophr, he has one main point. Job tells Zophar that if he is going to sit in the place of God and speak for God, then he had better be right and know what he is talking about.  Job warns Zophar that if he speaks for God, then he needs to watch out for God when God comes calling to correct the wrongs that Zophar says!

I think that this is phenomenal advice.  Who among us can truly speak for God?  We can speak God’s Word.  We can know God’s truth.  But one thing I’ve learned throughout the years that there is more wisdom in speaking God’s Word and allowing people to come to their own conclusions than there is in fist-pounding and demanding that I am right!  It is better to present God’s truth and give room for the Spirit to work than to take the place of the Spirit!

The second thing that Job does is to speak to God.  While Job does step on some precarious ground and get awful close to error, I think he’s still okay in what he says.  His main case is legitimate.  Job desires simply to make his case before God.  He simply wants to know what he’s done.

In the end, I think this is okay.  Yes, we are all human.  Yes, we all have sin.  Yes, none of us can claim to be perfect in the presence of God.  Certainly, God has a case against all of us.  However, it’s not wrong to know our crime, either.  It’s definitely not wrong to be in communication and relationship about our error.  I think that’s the feeling that Job is tapping in during the second half of this chapter.

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Year 8, Day 106: Job 12

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Job responds to Zophar about the only way that you can respond to a person who uncompromisingly sees the world in black-and-white instead of shades of gray.  There is no discussion with such people, you are either right or wrong. There is no give and take, it is either correct or incorrect.  In this light, Job goes on the offensive.  He sticks up for himself and fights.  He comes after Zophar.

Job calls Zophar on his attitude.  Job tells him that he is considered a laughingstock.  He tells Zophar, rightly so, that he is a righteous man in God’s eyes.  Again, he repeats that he is a laughingstock.  In other words, Job is telling Zophar that he’s right, Zophar is ignorant, and Job will be proven in the end.

Furthermore, Job accuses Zophar of cherry picking.  Job is an easy target.  He’s clearly own and experiencing hardship.  Job asks Zophar how difficult it is for a person to judge the victim when they sit in the ease of their own life.  Job is telling Zophar that his black-and-white perspective is just a synonym for lazy theology.  Rather than take the time to listen, discover the true details, and discern Zophar takes the easy route and simply judges.

I truly have to respect Job here.  He stands up for himself.  He fights for his position.  He is willing to experience the conflict for the sake of truth.  Job doesn’t roll over; he doesn’t walk away.

There is a time and place for this.  I tend to not behave like Job in this instance and find myself wishing I occasionally did.  Sometimes the easier route is to walk away from a challenge instead of fight.  But as we see in the last few chapters, sometimes the easy way has more in common with Zophar than with Job.  There is a time and place for walking away.  There is a time and place for standing up and fighting.  Knowing the difference is where true wisdom resides.

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Year 8, Day 105: Job 11

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Zohar is an idiot.  I don’t mean that he isn’t intelligent.  Certainly, he was a smart person as he displays his ability to think and process in this chapter.  He’s an idiot because of his decision-making process.  He’s an idiot because of how he implements his thoughts.

Look at how Zohar puts his world together.  He says that Job must be guilty because he is suffering.  First of all, we know that to be incorrect.  We’ve talked about this in prior chapters of Job.  I also remember a story where the people around Jesus ask whether a man with a withered hand is experiencing the consequences of his own sin or his parent’s sin.  Jesus reminds us that sometimes we experience consequences so God is glorified.  Jesus then heals the man’s hand and gives glory to God.

Zohar doesn’t get this point.  Zohar only understands that bad things happen to people who deserve it.  In fact, Zohar decides that not only is Job guilty, but God is going easy on him!  This is arrogance at its worst.  Zohar is a thinking man whose conclusions blind him.  This is the danger of being a person who sees the world in a black-and-white perspective.  When the world is black-and-white, we become judgmental, uncompassionate, and blind.  We become Zohar.

This is another case where we have a foundation related to truth, but not universal truth.  Zohar says some things that are true in his words.  If we humble ourselves and come to God, we will find Him.  If we focus on God, we will be able to carry our head high.  We cannot discern God fully, nor can we limit His power.  All of these things are true.  However, they are not universally applicable, either!

Just because we are in poor circumstances doesn’t mean we are guilty and in need of turning to God.  Sometimes we are in a place off poor circumstances so that we can receive God’s blessing!  Just because we mourn our present circumstances doesn’t mean that we aren’t focused on God.  Platitudes are great when applied into the correct circumstance.  Platitudes are dangerous when we apply them to circumstances where they don’t belong because they help us draw the wrong conclusion yet think we are right in doing so!

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Year 8, Day 104: Job 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I can truly identify with chapters like this one.  Job has his foot in the righteous camp; he also has his foot in the short-sighted human camp.  He is a typical representative of humanity.

When I say that he has his foot in the righteous camp, I am speaking about the verses where he asks God why God is contending with him.  We know that Job is righteous.  We know that this calamity is not upon Job because of some great sinfulness within Job.  It’s natural for Job to question why he seems to have come under divine scrutiny.

It’s also righteous for Job to remember that it is God who created him.  God is the one who made bone and wrapped it in sinew.  He is the source of life and love.  It is good for Job to remember these things in the midst of his turmoil.

That being said, we can learn from Job’s humanity as well.  Job seems to be impatient and short-sighted.  After all, Job is not being accused by God.  Job is being accused by Satan.  God is capable of delivering Job and He will deliver him.  We need to learn to be patient in our suffering.  Suffering is never fun, but when we have faith and remember the salvation of God, we can endure it.

This is one of the big recurring themes in the book of Job, and it is a theme that I think gives the book of Job its unique place in God’s Word.  Suffering is not meant to be enjoyed, but it is meant to be endured through faith.  Suffering is a time when our faith is tested.  Suffering is a time when our character shines through the brightest.  It’s hard to get it completely right as a human being, as we see here in Job.  When we do get it right, though, suffering gives us one of the greatest testimonies of character that we can ever expect to bear.

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Year 8, Day 103: Job 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

It is chapters like this that really draw my respect for Job.  Job speaks truth from a human perspective and does it with such grace and spirit.  He speaks his condition without speaking against God.

Job’s main complaint is that nobody can be compared to God and deemed righteous.  It is impossible.  Next to God, we’re not even capable of registering on a scale of righteousness!  Therefore, in a response to Bildad’s argument, what good is it to compare us to God’s righteousness?  Who can compare there?  Job isn’t stating a complaint against God; Job is merely stating a reality.  Next to God, we don’t compare.

In fact, Job goes one step further.  Not only don’t we compare, but we have no arbiter.  We have no way to stand before God and make a defense.  We have nobody to make such a case for us.  The best any of us can do is read God’s Word and try our best to live obedient to His will.

What Job is doing is telling us about the human condition millenia prior to God’s plan to do something about it.  Job is making sure we understand our greatest human need.  We cannot go before God and there is in fact nobody who can go for us!  That’s our greatest need as a human being.

Our greatest need, then, is Christ.  Jesus is our go-between.  Jesus is our arbiter.  Jesus is the one who can go before God and mediate for us.  Millenia prior to Jesus coming, Job knows of His need!  Here is the wisdom of the Old Testament reaching forward in anticipation for Jesus.  We need an arbiter.  We need Jesus.

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Year 8, Day 102: Job 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Reading this chapter gets me angry!  I’m not angry at God’s Word, I’m angry at Bildad.  Here is the portrait of a wise and extraordinarily arrogant man.  Here is a passage of good platitudes painted in an extraordinarily destructive way.

The gist of Bildad’s advice is summed up to this: If you were righteous, evil wouldn’t have come your way.  The logical equivalent to this statement is this: Since evil came your way, you aren’t righteous.

This kind of advice is loaded with arrogant religion, not true spirituality.  First of all, we do know that evil does come upon people who walk closely with God.  Was not Jesus crucified?  Were not all of Jesus’ discipled killed for their faith or condemned to exile? Did not Paul experience pain and rejection nearly every place he went?

The reality is that we cannot equate a perfect life with closeness to God.  In fact, Jesus teaches us that when we are close to Him, we will experience the rejection of the world.  What Bildad is preaching here is a prosperity gospel, not true faith in God.  Righteousness does not equate to a problem free life.

In fact, I’ve found Jesus’ advice to be far truer than Bildad the Shuhite’s advice.  Making righteous choices in this life is hard!  Making righteous choices causes us to be looked at as though we are weird, strange, or at least unusual.  Making righteous choices sometimes cause other people to look down upon us because righteous causes others to look suspect.  This can bring persecution into our life.

Of course, the reality is that we know that Job is righteous in God’s eyes.  We know that Job’s experiences are not brought upon him as punishment.  This situation has been brought upon him to make a spiritual point: that God is more gracious than human suffering and human beings can be faithful even in the midst of turmoil.

The reality is that Bildad is just wrong.  He makes points we want to believe in.  He teaches that we can equate the ease of one’s life with their sinfulness.  He teaches that God doesn’t allow bad things to happen to good people.  He teaches that problems in one’s life are evidence of sinfulness.  These things are sometimes true, but like Eliphaz they aren’t universal truths.  When we make them universal truths we become arrogant and judgmental preachers of a prosperity gospel.

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Year 8, Day 101: Job 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

As we moved along into Job 7, we start out with more of same.  I don’t really have an issue with what Job says here.  He’s experienced a good deal of heartache.  He’s going to complain with his friends.  He may not exactly see with the perspective of God, but he is human and he is going to complain when his life seems to warrant it.

This is Job in the moment.  He doesn’t see the future; he only knows the reality of the past.  He is a man in suffering.  Emotionally his wife is telling him to die while he knows only the death of his sons and daughters.  His wealth has been stolen away.  His health has been attacked.  The poor guy can’t get sleep at night because of his sores, their oozing, and the pain.

This should teach us a good bit about ministry in the moment.  Job’s friends have come to him.  Eliphaz has already given him advice without listening to Job.  All that it has done is riled up Job and caused him to speak again about his unfortunate circumstances.  Usually we cannot reach people until we know where they are.  We cannot reach people until we’ve walked a mile in their shoes – or at least alongside them.  When we come in and merely speak platitudes into their life, we sound hollow and do no good.  When we prove to them we aren’t listening, we only give them reason to cycle back through their complaints again.  To do ministry, the first and most important thing that we must accomplish is to stop and listen.

I really like how Job ends his complaint.  He returns to talking with God.  While he may push it a bit too far, he is at least open and honest.  He asks God why this is happening to him.  He doesn’t accuse God, but he also clearly doesn’t understand.  He is caught in the middle of an unfortunate circumstance and simply is struggling to put his understanding together.  He will get it, but it will take some patience.  Life often does.

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Year 8, Day 100: Job 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here

When I read through Job 6, I hear Job’s humanity ringing true.  That is both a compliment and a cautionary tale.  It’s great to study humanity; it’s dangerous to study humanity.  We learn about ourselves best when we study ourselves.  We also can get the wrong idea or even learn bad habits when we study our own kind.

For example, take Job’s words.  He has a pretty grievous error in this chapter.  He thinks the Lord has cursed him.  In one respect, He has.  God has removed His hedge of protection and allowed Satan to direct His wrath upon Job.  God is even the one that has lifted up Job into Satan’s attention!

However, Job doesn’t see the whole picture.  That’s a point that hits home quite frequently for me.  How many times do I make mistakes in judgment or action because I fail to recognize the whole picture?  God hasn’t cursed Job because of dislike, vengeance, punishment, or any other reason.  This has happened to Job so that Job could learn a bit, so that Job could be a witness to others, so that Job could be restored into an even greater stature than he had before Satan found him!  Job cannot understand this, though, because he cannot see the endgame as God can.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying that it would be pleasant to go through what Job went through.  I’m not even saying that I wouldn’t complain.  The truth is that I am just as likely to be doing what Job is doing here as Job is!  I’m just as short-sighted as he is; I’m just as human.  I think what has happened to Job is pretty awful.  We must remember that in the end, we who are with God win because God is all powerful.  In the end, we have life eternal with the Lord.  Our perspective should never lose sight of the fact that in the end, we will live in life eternal with our Lord because He has saved us.  That’s the end of Job’s current misery: life eternal with God.

This brings me to the hopeful side of humanity that I see in this chapter.  As short-sighted as Job may be in his accusations, there is proof that he is living with the hope of the eternal.  There is such hope in Job 6:5-8!  Job is in such a low place that he would rather die than live.  While that isn’t particularly hopeful, Job response to this condition is.  While Job would prefer to die, he understands that such a decision is God’s.  Job doesn’t act upon his desire to cease life, Job is willing to put up with his condition.

In other words, Job won’t kill himself.  Job is willing to give God the time and space that He needs.  Job may not know the salvation and restoration that is coming, but Job is willing to allow the space in his life for God to provide for it.  Job believes in the sanctity of life and that life is best left in God’s hands.  This is faith in its purest form.  Even in the midst of Job’s darkest pain we see the bright ray of hope and faith at work!

Truthfully, I think this is a major part of the book of Job.  This is what life looks like when we live in faith.  We can stare into the darkest day, recognize our pain, understand our own shortsightedness, but still give God the room in our life to show us His hand.  The greatest act of faith is to be in a place where we have no hope and turn to God and continue to choose Him.

After all, isn’t that what Jesus did on the cross?  Jesus stared into the darkness of death, allowed Himself to be crucified, and gave room for the Father to show His hand at work?

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Year 8, Day 99: Job 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Job 5 is one of those chapters where I always get sucked into the wrong thinking.  This is a great chapter to lift up the need for genuinely good Bible knowledge.  After all, when we read Job 5 we read a bunch of things that sound like great advice!  Job 5:8 says, “As for me, I would seek God.”  That’s great advice, right?  Job 5:15 says, “He saves the needy from the sword of their mouth and from the hand of the mighty.”  That’s true, right?  Job 5:17-22 gives us a long string of woes that we are promised to overcome: trouble, famine, war, tongue-lashing, destruction, and beasts of the earth.  Those are all things God can overcome, right?  What’s so bad about Eliphaz’s advice?

The problem with Eliphaz’s advice is that it is contextual.  At times, the words that Eliphaz says are absolutely true!  God is the one to whom we should turn.  God can save us in our time of need.  God can overcome famine, beasts of the earth, and even powerful human beings.

However, God does not always overcome these things.  Did He not send His own son to die on the cross?  Did not the vast majority of Jesus’ disciples die in persecution?  Did God not allow His people to go into captivity not once but thrice?  (Egypt, Babylon/Assyria/Persia, Greece/Rome)  God can save us, but He does not always do so.  Sometimes He lets us receive our own consequences.  Sometimes we experience hardship so that we are in a position to minister to others.

This leads us to the real problem with Eliphaz’s advice.  Eliphaz’s advice makes a lot of sense should it be spoken to someone who does not know God or someone whose faith in God is wavering.  But that isn’t the case here.  Job is righteous by God’s own account!  When Eliphaz says, “I would turn to God,” he is make an assumption that Job is in need of turning to God!  That’s just not true here.  Job hasn’t left God; Job has been with God all along.  Job’s suffering isn’t because he is far from God.  In fact, Job’s suffering is because he was so close to God that God recommended him to Satan!

There is a time and a place for Eliphaz’s advice. This just isn’t it.  Eliphaz isn’t in danger of giving bad advice here, he’s giving ill-timed advice.  Eliphaz’s error is not taking the time to understand his audience and making assumptions about what needs to be said.

For me, this is the big teaching here.  A good Word from God isn’t a platitude that we’ve heard said again and again.  Godly messages are just as much about timing as they are about the message.  God speaks to people in their context, so should we.

When we simply speak platitudes and expressions we’ve heard other people say without first listening and understanding the context of the person to whom we are speaking, we do them an incredible disservice and likely bring damage and not hope to the relationship.

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Year 8, Day 98: Job 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

As with most of the things that we will hear from the friends of Job, we’ll need to search for the truth hidden among the dangerous wisdom of the world.  This is great training, however, and it is one of the reasons that I love the book of Job.  Many people in the world have advice to give.  The trick is sorting out the godly advice from the worldly advice.

Eliphaz begins his talk of righteousness.  He is correct in a few things that he says.  Who can stand righteous before God?  Who among us deserve the trust of God?  We are all sinners. We all make mistakes.  We all have bad judgment from time to time.  No one among us is perfect and pure in everything they do.  On this point, Eliphaz is sound.

It isn’t Eliphaz’s beginning that is troublesome, it is how Eliphaz applies this to thinking to Job.  Eliphaz concludes that since Job is suffering greatly he must have sinned greatly.  Eliphaz believes that trouble and turmoil are a sure sign of sin and deceit in a person’s life.  This is the old line of karma coming out.  This is the thinking that gives us platitudes such as “What goes around comes around.”

This conclusion is sometimes true.  Sometimes people who do incredibly heinous things have incredibly heinous things done to them in return because of what they’ve done.  The error isn’t in saying that it happens.  The error is thinking that it always happens.  One cannot assume that a victim of a heinous act is guilty and being justly punished.  Sometimes really bad things happen.  As we see in Job, really bad things happen to person that God Himself lifted up as an icon of righteousness.

We must be careful.  It is good to teach people that we often reap what we sow.  That advice helps keep us on the path of the straight and narrow because our desire to reap good things helps us learn to sow good things.  But when we teach such logic we must equally teach to be careful and not judge from this proverb.  Not everything we reap is because we have sown it.  There is truth in the proverb, just not universal truth.  This is the mistake of Eliphaz in this chapter.

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