Job 15-21:34

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the delay in posting again. Anyway, here are the thoughts for today

1) Round two of the speeches begins. Eliphaz runs out of patience and tells Job he is full of hot air, and what he is saying is irreverent and deceitful. Eliphaz accuses Job of being prideful and arrogant, ignorant of the sinfulness of human beings. Yet God has consoled him and spoken kindly to him. He also refuses to believe, as Job claims, that the wicked prosper; for in the end, they always get their just desserts. But Epiphaz's understanding of God is one who could not possibly be loving or kind - instead God seems to be a mechanistic God who simply blesses those who do good, while punishing those who do bad. He goes on to even mention everything that happened to Job. He makes it clear - Job is a sinner who got what he deserved. Wow.

2) Job fires back. And again he continues he argument against God. He pleads for a mediator who would plead with God as a man pleads with his neighbor. This is interesting, as the Jesus Christ will later come and now functions as such a mediator between God and man.

3) Sheol - by the way, Sheol refers to the realm of the dead, almost like the Greek Hades. It's the destination of both the wicked and the righteous in Hebrew understanding.

4) Bildad then accuses Job of being too self-absorbed, thinking that he could whine in vain to make the creator change the divine ordering. He also accuses Job of misunderstanding God's divine retribution. In then end, Bildad rests assured that the wicked will receive their just rewards.

5) Job lets the men know that he has been insulted, and that whatever they may say, God appears to be against him. He again complains that everyone, including God, is against him. And he insists that his friends should at least be a source of comfort and not of torment. They have "devoured his flesh" (an idiom for slandering).

6) Job 19:23-27 is a passage I often read at funerals. Job has hit an all time low point, especially in light of Bildad's comment that Job will simply die and be forgotten (18:17). So Job, calling for the words to be permanently inscribed, and staring into the face of his impending death, Job looks to a future Redeemer who will finally some day vindicate him. It seems that this vindicator would be the same God who is "tormenting" him, and that one day, Job believes he will be raised to stand before him and God will declare him to be in a right standing.

7) Then Zophar again speaks a poem about the demise of the wicked. What he says here has some truth in it, the problem lies in the fact that Zophar puts too much stress on material possessions as a sign of God's favor, when Job is only concerned about his relationship to God and could care less about what happened to his body of his possessions.

8) Job's final rebuttal of the night: He basically tells them that this is not the way things are. The wicked still prosper while the righteous suffer. Why is this? How is this fair? What is wrong with God if he allows this? Job declares that their answers are false and nonsensical.

That's happy reading, isn't it? Well, I think that our readings are drawing us more deeply into the problem of theodicy (God's justice in the face of suffering), and forcing us to think more deeply as we traverse through this book.

Well, I think that's all for tonight. Have a great evening!

In Christ,
Pastor Nathan