Bible in 90 Days - Day 37 (Job 8-24)

Eternal God,

in the reading of the Scripture, may your Word be heard;

in the meditations of our hearts, may your Word be known;

and in the faithfulness of our lives, may your Word be shown. Amen.

Job is a challenging book in so many ways. There is a lot of action at the beginning, and it gets exciting at the very end. In the middle there is a lot of back and forth between Job and his friends. Oftentimes his friends speak the “wisdom” that we still hear in the church, but in the end it will disappear like smoke. God isn’t a God of deal-making; he is a God of covenant-keeping. We can trust God’s promises without having to keep making deals with him.

There are a lot of things going on in this reading, but I was particularly struck by instances of wisdom that these men spoke without even knowing how true they were. Here are a few examples:

In 15:8 Eliphaz asks, “Do you listen in on God’s council?” Between the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and the church, I’d say for what is important, “Yes we do!” We are not left in the dark on issues that are central. A few verses later in v14 he asks, “What are mortals, that they could be pure, or those born of woman, that they could be righteous?” With Christ this becomes our reality!

Chapter 19:23-27 are very powerful. First of all, Job wishes that this could all be recorded. Thanks be to God that it was! As we reflect on the work of Christ, we speak the same words as Job, but with new assurance: “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. After my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.” Amen to that!

There is an interesting comment by Job that his friends are unfairly arguing in God’s favor. In 22:4-5 Eliphaz charges, “Is it for your piety that he rebukes you and brings charges against you? Is not your wickedness great? Are not your sins endless?” On the one hand we would say, “yes, of course they are,” but in this case that argument totally misses what is going on. Jumping to the blame conclusion is not a fair way to go in defending God’s actions – not then and not now.