Bible Reading Challenge Blog

Now it starts to get interesting with Job. We find him at the beginning of this reading eulogizing wisdom and how precious wisdom is. Only God knows where to find wisdom and knows its path and its purpose. Nothing in this world is more precious than wisdom. Like that commercial says you can put a pricetag on certain things, but wisdom: priceless. Job does have a longish defense of himself in regards to the Matthew 25 Scripture which we saw earlier. He was accused of not reaching out to those in need and concern and one of his friends said very specifically that this was why God had turned His back on him.

These chapters contained a defense of Job by Job in that he says he always looked for ways to reach out to the poor and the helpless and the defenseless. In fact, he said that if he did not do that then God should remove his arms and take away anything that he had at all, physically. It is a very strong appeal made by Job that he did, in fact, reach out in concern to the needy when he was in his whole state. He gave specific examples and they would have been hard to argue against.

We end with a fourth person, who isn’t described as a friend but rather as someone who was younger and held his mouth because he was convinced that the three older friends would have been able to have convince Job that he was not righteous as he though he was. So he lays into him and tells him that no one is righteous and that his arguments against his friends were really arguements against God. Kinda hard to go against that. Let’s see what happens when we finish this out. God has to speak at some point.

In Job 22 his friend is very specific in what he states Job has failed to do. It all kinda follows what the king says in Matthew 25. You failed to reach out in concern to the widow. You abandoned the orphan. You didn’t provide food to the hungry or material relief to the poor. This listing of non-actions should be a concern to the reader. It seems as if his friend is accusing him very specifically for things that he did not do. His friend would know him and would stand in a position to be able to accuse him. But again, the concept is that because he did not do any of these things he falls within the company of the wicked and God naturally will punish the wicked. As a result you are being punished right now in your current state of affairs because you did not do all those things.

We do not know if Job did these things or not. He certainly says that he will die before he confesses to things that he feels like he did not commit, and probably these types of actions fall into that category. He refuses to admit to the guilt that he does not have. Now, there is a part of me that makes me think that Job thinks more highly of himself than he ought to. We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. His friends make him out to be inherently sinful, as if God created him that way. No, not one of us is inherently sinful, God has made us in His image. But we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Maybe that is enough to admit. It may not make a difference in the current state of affairs for Job, but a little humility might help.

The crux of Job is not so much that his friends think that he simply did something wrong, but rather that he is inherently wicked and it is only the wicked who are punished. He should be considered, according to his friends, as coming from evil and God punishes the wicked and the evil one and so God is punishing him. Job’s answer, especially in 21 is, have you travelled? Have you seen the world in which we live? God seems to reward the wicked with prosperity and their children go around with dancing and without thinking about the future. There is no justice in this world. The justice we think that God uses is not what God uses at all. I am a victim of the capriciousness, my words not Job’s, of God and we cannot understand it. But in the midst of Job’s explanation we do find this one verse which we should all love: 19:25 – I know, that my redeemer lives. Yes, this was Job who said this in the midst of his suffering. Pretty impressive.

Paul ends out his letter to the Romans and reminds them to be considerate for those who are newer to the faith or who seem to have a little less faith. Basically we could read this as be considerate to those who are little more legalistic than we are. So if it offends some Christians that you eat the meat sacrificed to idols, don’t eat it in their presence. If it offends some Christians that you drink alchohol, don’t drink alchohol in their presence. If it offens some Christians that you watch some movies or follow some TV series, don’t suggest that you watch it together as a group. There are some actions and some ways of life that are offensive to some Christians, especially some Christians who are more legalistic than others, avoid those actions while they are around.

Now, let’s be clear, there are some ways of life that are destructive, just avoid those ways of life because they take you away from the Lord. It isn’t a matter of faith that you can somehow sustain a destructive way of life because your freedom allows you to do it. There is a way to live that takes you away from the Lord, and another way to live that brings you closer. We need to have the wisdom to differentiate between the two.

As we make our way with Job we see another friend accuse him and Job takes a couple of chapters to intervene and speak against the reasoning and the rationale that his friends speak. God better intervene sometime soon, don’t worry, he’ll be along soon. But I really want to focus in on Romans 12.

If you look at Romans 12:9-21 you find what is called the marks of a true Christian. Now, we do not sit on the judgment and seat and we are not tasked with the job of deciding who is a Christian by name and who is a true Christian. But these verses serve as a great measuring stick for our own lives. Don’t try to measure up the lives of others, we would do well just to measure our own lives. Look at the guidelines that we are given to measure our lives, I’m just going to throw some phrases out and read them and let them sink in.

Hate what is evil and hold fast to what is good. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering and persevere in prayer. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. That should sound familiar. That is my benediction, at least that last phrase. I think this is good enough to end on. Wait, there is more. Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. Yeah, that’s a good place to end it. Can you imagine if people tried to over come evil with good. Wow, just wow.

It is in these chapters where Job famously declares that he is willing to defend himself before. Not as if he were perfect or as if there is no guilt or sin in him, but rather as someone as he says that is not suffering as a result of his own work, but rather as this being the work of God irrespective of his life of righteousness or sin. Clearly speaking, this is God at work here and not his work that has put him in this untenous, impossible position. One of his friends, again, blames him and calls him a fool for not recognizing that God was punishing him for his deeds. This is what causes him to say: I will argue my case with God. In seminary we had a mock trial of Job vs. God where Job goes to court and pleads his case against God. Needless to say, Job loses.

Romans strikes a similar vein where we find in 9:20 where Paul asks us a simple but pointed question: Who are you to argue with God. That is question we can ask of Job. Who are we to wonder what God was really up to? I guess once you lose all of your livelihood and your children and everything of value you somehow get a sense that you might have a right to question just a little bit. Yeah, even then we are clay and God is the potter. No matter how much God has shaped us and molded us and brought us back down to nothing, we are still the clay. That never changes.

We go in streaks here in this blog with material that is a bit pedantic, and then other material that every chapter there is something of import that needs to be discussed, but given the limitations of this space we aren’t able to cover all of it. We find ourselves once again this latter situation. After Job is told to repent by another one of his friends, he ends up saying that his loathes, read hates, his life. The reality of his current life was such that there didn’t seem to be any value because God has seemed to basically have abandoned him.

We then move on to chapter 6-8 of Romans which arguably has some of the best known memory verses and theological concepts in all of Scripture. Chapter 8 we call at times: “pieces of eight”, because it has so many precious verses that we should know. Let me give you just a couple of examples in 8. Look at vs.1, just to begin the chapter, we have the assurance that we have no condemnation in Jesus. vs.18 where we see that the present suffering doesn’t even compare to the future glory that we will experience. vs.26 that speaks to prayer and how it intercedes and takes over for us when we are not capable or able to pray as we should pray. vs.30 refers to predestination, the favorite of the Presbyterian theologies. vs.38 tells us that we are more than conquerors in Jesus.

Paul gives us the assurances that we need to recognize that Jesus is our Savior and that Savior provides all the assurances that we need to understand that our salvation is assured and cannot be taken away from us.

The basic theme of these verses in Job is that the friends of Job accuse him of being unfaithful to God and so as a result God is punishing him. God has not spoken yet or taken a side yet, but Job responds to his friend’s accusations that it is impossible that Job has been righteous simply because these things that have happened to him never happen to a righteous person. Job responds and says simply no, no, I have not been unfaithful, this is not a result of my sin. I don’t know why I am going through this, but I am. It is not a direct result of my sin, it is unexplainable. God will respond later on because Job also makes assumptions that don’t hold up. We will address them later.

Romans always gives us some of our favorite memory verses. I think if there are any words from Paul you have heard me utter, they are the ones from 5:8. “God proves (don’t you love that word and that concept that God proves) his love for us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” As if God had to in some way prove that he loves us. Just in case we weren’t fully convinced, we have full proof. God loves us! That’s all we need to know.

Two of my favorite books of the Bible, but each for a very different reason. Job I love because his defense of who he is and what he will continue to believe takes place even in the most severe of circumstances. As soon as he is overcome with trials his tells him the route he should take which ultimately his three friends subscribe to: Why don’t you just curse God and die? Things would be so much easier if you just come to terms that you are a sinner and that you did something wrong to deserve this. The answer is one that we should all be able to say: Yes, I know that I am a sinner, and yet this current state of mine is not the direct result of any one action, but rather it is a season in which I find myself that will pass. God is faithful and just, abounding in steadfast love and slow to anger. While these aren’t Job’s words, they could be in his current state. He remains faithful in the most horrific of situations.

Romans gives us the meat of our theology. If you wanted to know anything about anything that we believe all you have to do is look at Romans. The problem with Romans in this context, however, is that there are so many verses to lift up that we could be here all day, but let’s at least do a few. Look at 1:16, this is a strong reminder of who we should be: never ashamed of the Gospel. In that statement we find the confidence to preach Christ crucified even while all around us we have a Christ who is serving the wishes and the desires of powerful people who use his words, or at least his name and sometimes his name alone, to justify horrific policies and actions of which Jesus would be ashamed. “The one who is righteous (who acts according to the will of God) will live by faith”

Romans 1 gives us a laundry list of perversions that we should not support, but they seemed to have been forgotten in our culture. There are other lists, but this is one that is fairly significant. If you look at vs.20 and that section you see that God reveals himself to those who would not self-identify as Christian just by the creation of God around them. There is no one on earth who has an excuse that God never revealed himself to me. That simply is not true. And while nature is a strong convincer of the presence of God, the life and resurrection of Jesus is the full revelation that changes peoples’ hearts. I could go on, I didn’t even get to chapter 2. There is so much here.

We find ourselves once again with an embarrassment of choice. There is so much that we could highlight in Philippians. Whether it be salvation by grace through faith that Paul emphasizes here (2:12). But I like to highlight the most practical how to that we find in Philippians which should be the rule of life for each and every disciple of Jesus Christ. What if you made your motto Philippians 2:11b – “I have learned to be content with whatever I have” To what degree is our life a pursuit of one desire after another to help mitigate our uncontentment? Don’t we find ourselves pursuing that which we feel we need because we are currently not content with what we have?

Oh, how life would be different if we truly could believe the memory verse of all times: I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me (4:13). This can only happen if we are truly content with our lives which is based upon the life of Christ within us. When we are not content it is a result of not knowing that Christ is actually present in our lives in a way that he comes to our rescue at all times. The key is being content. I love this.

Psalm 42 is a classic, but most get stuck at the deer at the stream, when all along it is a psalm of lament that the author is feeling like God is far removed from him in the midst of his suffering. Proverbs 20:30 is incredibly disturbing unless we take it metaphorically, but even then it moves the meter a bit in regards to being a bit masochistic

Once again we find ourselves immersed in Proverbs and Psalms and again the dichotomoy between the wise and the foolish and the righteous and the evil. I love the verse in Proverbs 18:10 which states that the name of the Lord is a strong tower. It reminds me of this song which I will leave you with.