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God is Setting All Things Right. So I am Blogging Through the Bible in a Year.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

January 8 - Job 17-20: Job Loses Patience with His Friends

Today’s Reading: Job 17-20

The Message

English Standard Version

Thought to Guide Your Reading

Job’s answers are getting more and more curt and angry.

Summary in 100 Words or Less

The brunt of the situation hits Job: “Everyone has deserted me. Everyone I see mocks and shames me. Is my only hope a quick death?"
Bildad mocks, “Come on! We all know evil people lose everything! God does this so everyone will understand the punishment of evil."
Job exclaims, “How long are you going to do this horrible thing to me? You ignore me and tell me I’m the problem. Leave me alone and gaze at your own life."
Zophar replies, “Evil people do evil things and God takes away everything they have! Job—can’t you see this?"

How Today’s Reading Contributes to the Gospel: God is Setting All Things Right

Job has changed his view of death.

Yesterday, Job welcomed death because it would mean God would soon take his sin far away. Today, death does not bring hope, but kills it.
How is this reconciled? It isn’t. That’s the deal with scriptures like these. It even leaves the reader in a state of disorientation. No easy answers.

Bildad inadvertently gives God’s rationale for having “elected" people.

And [evil people] leave empty-handed – not one single child – nothing to show for their life on this earth. Westerners are aghast at their fate, easterners are horrified: "Oh no! so this is what happens to perverse people. This is how the God-ignorant end up!" (18:19-21, The Message)
We will read later how God uses this same reasoning for punishing the Israelites, Judah and Israel.

Job begins to beg his friends to either show pity or leave.

His final salvo is similar to what I heard from my friends,
If you’re thinking, ‘How can we get through to him, get him to see that his trouble is all his own fault?’ Forget it. Start worrying about yourselves. Worry about your own sins and God’s coming judgment, for judgment is most certainly on the way. (19:28-29, The Message)

What else did you see reading this passage? Questions? Comments? Leave a comment in the section below or on the Sonoma Mountain Parkway Church of Christ Facebook page.

3 comments:

  1. What I keep forgetting as I read this is that Job was critically ill and in extreme pain, covered with sores from head to foot, and in addition, still grieving from the loss of all his children, and faced with severe financial setbacks.

    He and his friends are all trying to explain this. The difference is that Job is openly admitting he doesn’t have a clue why it’s happening, while his friends have decided they have all the answers, and are certain their answers are not only right, but helpful. The sad thing to me is that much of what they are saying is true, but because it’s couched in such negative messages – Aw, come on, Job – you know you must have sinned a LOT for this to happen – none of what they are saying is really helpful at all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oops - meant to say "not really helpful at all"

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    2. It's too early in the morning! The first way was the correct grammar!

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