DevotionsDevotions
Genesis 40; Mark 10; Job 6; Romans 10
Tuesday, 07 February 2012 03:00
Genesis 40 ; Mark 10 ; Job 6 ; Romans 10 
JOB’S RESPONSE TO ELIPHAZ TAKES UP two chapters. In Job 6 he argues as follows:
(1) In the opening verses (Job 6:1-7 ) Job insists he has every reason for bemoaning his situation: his anguish and misery are beyond calculation (Job 6:2-3 ). Nor does Job flinch from the obvious: in God’s universe, God himself must somehow be behind these calamities—”The arrows of the Almighty are in me … God’s terrors are marshaled against me” (Job 6:4 ). Not even a donkey brays without a reason (Job 6:5 ), so why should Job’s friends treat him as if he is complaining without a reason?
(2) Job utters his deepest request: that God would simply crush him, “let loose his hand and cut me off” (Job 6:9 ). This is more than a death wish: “Then I would still have this consolation—my joy in unrelenting pain—that I had not denied the words of the Holy One” (Job 6:10 ). From this, three things are clear. (a) Despite his agony, Job is still thinking from within the framework of a committed believer. His suffering is not driving him to agnosticism or naturalism. (b) More importantly, his primary desire is to remain faithful to God. He sees death not only as a release from his suffering but as a way of dying before the intensity of his suffering should drive him to say or do something that would dishonor God. (c) Implicitly, this is also a response to Eliphaz. A man with such a passionate commitment to remain faithful to “the words of the Holy One” (Job 6:10 ) should not be dismissed as a light and frivolous prevaricator.
(3) Eliphaz’s position depends on the assumption that if Job acts as Eliphaz advises, all his wealth and power will be restored to him. Job insists he is well beyond that point: he has no hope, no prospects. He cannot conduct himself in such a way as to finagle blessings from God (Job 6:11-13 ).
(4) Meanwhile, Job reproaches Eliphaz and his colleagues (Job 6:14-23 ). “A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends, even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty” (Job 6:14 ); that is what real friendship is like. Job analyzes the real reason why his friends have proved “as undependable as intermittent streams” (Job 6:15 ): they have seen something dreadful and they are afraid (Job 6:21 ). Their neat theological categories have been blown away by Job’s suffering, since they had believed he was a righteous man. They must now prove him to be unrighteous, deserving of his sufferings, or they too are under threat.
(5) Job ends with a wrenching plea (Job 6:24-30 ). As far as he is concerned, his own integrity is at stake; he will not fake repentance when he knows he does not deserve this suffering. “Relent, do not be unjust” (Job 6:29 ), he tells his friends.
Genesis 40 ; Mark 10 ; Job 6 ; Romans 10
Genesis 39; Mark 9; Job 5; Romans 9
Sunday, 05 February 2012 23:00
Genesis 39 ; Mark 9 ; Job 5 ; Romans 9
IN THE SECOND PART OF HIS SPEECH (Job 5 ), Eliphaz presupposes the stance he adopts in the first part (see yesterday’s meditation), yet adds several new wrinkles to his impassioned presentation.
First, he says that Job’s approach to God in this crisis is fundamentally flawed. By all means call on God (Job 5:1 )—but why imagine that someone as exalted as God will answer? Meanwhile, Job’s attitude is what is killing him: “Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple” (Job 5:2 ). Eliphaz speaks out of his own observation: he has seen such fools prospering in the past, but suddenly they are uprooted. The implication is that Job’s former prosperity was the prosperity of a “fool,” and his current loss is nothing but his due. Somewhat inconsistently, Eliphaz adds that human suffering is a function of the human condition: “Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7 ).
Second, rather self-righteously Eliphaz tells Job what he would do if he were in a similar situation (Job 5:8-16 ). He would appeal to God and lay his case before him—not with Job’s attitude, which Eliphaz finds insufferable, but with humility and contrition. After all, God reigns providentially and is committed to humbling the arrogant and the crafty and exalting the poor and the needy. So Eliphaz would approach God as a suppliant.
Third, Eliphaz insists that at least one of God’s aims in bringing about loss and disaster is discipline: “Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal” (Job 5:17-18 ). Those who recognize this point discover that God quickly restores their life and prosperity. They find themselves secure in every trial. Job cannot miss the implication: if he feels he has suffered unjustly, not only is he insufficiently humble, but he fails to recognize the gracious, chastening hand of God Almighty, and therefore he remains under God’s rod instead of finding mercy. “We have examined this,” Eliphaz concludes rather pompously, “and it is true. So hear it and apply it to yourself” (Job 5:27 ).
What Eliphaz says carries some measure of truth. God does indeed chasten his children (Prov. 3:11-12 ; Heb. 12:5-6 ). But this presupposes that they need it; God certainly does not chasten his children when they do not need it. Eliphaz thus presupposes that Job deserves God’s chastening; readers of chapter 1 know he is mistaken. True, God saves the humble and abases those whose eyes are haughty (Ps. 18:27); but Eliphaz mistakenly assumes that Job must be haughty, or he would not be suffering. So here is a lesson: false or improper application of genuine truth may be heartless and cruel—and, as here, it may say false things about God.
Genesis 39 ; Mark 9 ; Job 5 ; Romans 9
Genesis 37; Mark 7; Job 3; Romans 7
Friday, 03 February 2012 23:00
Genesis 37 ; Mark 7 ; Job 3 ; Romans 7
FROM JOB 3 UNTIL THE FIRST PART of the last chapter of the book, with a small exception at the beginning of chapter 32, the text is written in Hebrew poetry. The book is a giant drama, like a Shakespearean play. Speech follows speech, the movement of the drama carried forward on the sustained argument between Job and his three “friends.” Eventually another character is introduced, and finally God himself responds.
The opening speech belongs to Job. The burden of his utterance is unmistakable: he wishes he had never been born. He is not ready to curse God, but he is certainly prepared to curse the day that brought him to birth (Job 3:1 , 3, 8). Everything about that day he wishes he could blot out. If he could not have been stillborn (Job 3:11 , 16), then why couldn’t he have just starved to death (Job 3:12 )?
Implicitly, of course, this is criticism of God, however indirect. “Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?” (Job 3:23 ). What Job is experiencing is what he feared throughout his years of plenty (Job 3:25 ). He has no peace, no quietness, no rest, but only turmoil (Job 3:26 ).
Four reflections will put this first address in perspective:
(1) This is the rhetoric of a man in deep anguish. So many of the things about which we complain are trivial. Even our most serious grounds for complaint are usually only some fraction of what Job faced.
(2) Before we condemn Job, therefore, we must listen attentively, even fearfully. When we come across those who for good reason are in terrible despair, we must cut them some slack. It would have been wonderful if one of the “friends” had put an arm around Job’s shoulder and wept with him, saying, “We love you, Job. We do not pretend to understand. But we love you, and we’ll do whatever we can for you.”
(3) Job is transparently honest. He does not don a front of feigned piety so that no one will think he is letting down the side. The man hurts so much he wishes he were dead, and says so.
(4) Both here and throughout the book, for all that Job is prepared to argue with God, he is not prepared to write God off. Job is not the modern agnostic or atheist who treats the problem of evil as if it provided intellectual evidence that God does not exist. Job knows that God exists and believes that he is powerful and good. That is one reason why (as we shall see) he is in such confusion. Job’s agonizings are the agonizings of a believer, not a skeptic.
Genesis 37 ; Mark 7 ; Job 3 ; Romans 7
Genesis 34; Mark 5; Job 1; Romans 5
Thursday, 02 February 2012 03:00
Genesis 34 ; Mark 5 ; Job 1 ; Romans 5
REVENGE MOVIES AND REVENGE BOOKS are so endemic to popular culture that we rarely think about the ambiguous, corrosive nature of sin. There are only good guys and bad guys. But in the real world, it is far from uncommon for sin to corrupt not only those who do evil but also those who respond to it with self-righteous indignation. The only persons not blamed in this horrible account of rape and pillage (Gen. 34) are the victims – Dinah herself, of course, and the Shechemites who, though unconnected with the guilt of Hamor’s son or the corruption of Hamor, are either slaughtered or enslaved.
Certainly Shechem son of Hamor is guilty. In the light of his rape of Dinah, his efforts to pay the bridal price and to secure the agreement of the other males to be circumcised appear less like noble atonement than determined, willful selfishness, a kind of ongoing rape by other means. The reasoning of Hamor and his son, both in approaching Jacob’s family and in approaching their own people, is motivated by self-interest and characterized by half-truths. They neither acknowledge wrongdoing nor speak candidly, and they try to sway their own people by stirring up greed.
The “grief and fury” of Dinah’s brothers (34:7) may be understandable, but their subsequent actions are indefensible. With extraordinary duplicity, they use the central religious rite of their faith as a means to incapacitate the men of the village (the word city refers to a community of any size), then slaughter them and take their wives, children, and wealth as plunder. Does any of this honor Dinah? Does any of it please God?
Even Jacob’s role is at best ambiguous. His initial silence (34:5) may have been nothing more than political expedience, but it sounds neither noble nor principled. His final conclusion (34:30) is doubtless an accurate assessment of the political dangers, but offers neither justice nor an alternative.
What does this chapter contribute to the book of Genesis, or, for that matter, to the canon?
Many things. For a start, the chapter reminds us of a recurrent pattern. Just because God has once again graciously intervened and helped his people in a crisis (as he does in Gen. 32-33) does not mean there is no longer any moral danger of drift toward corruption. Further, once again it is clear that the promised line is not chosen because of its intrinsic superiority; implicitly, this chapter argues for the primacy of grace. Apparently the crisis at Shechem is what brings the family back to Bethel (Gen 35:1 , 5), which brings closure to Jacob’s movements and, more importantly, reminds the reader that “the house of God” is more important than all merely human habitation.
Genesis 34 ; Mark 5 ; Job 1 ; Romans 5
Genesis 33; Mark 4; Esther 9-10; Romans 4
Wednesday, 01 February 2012 03:00
Genesis 33 ; Mark 4 ; Esther 9-10 ; Romans 4
THE SO-CALLED PARABLE OF THE SOWER (Mark 4:1-20 ) might better be called the parable of the soils, for the variable that gives the parable life and depth is the variation in the land onto which the seed is thrown.
Because Jesus provides the interpretation of his own story, its primary emphases should not be in doubt. The seed is the “word,” i.e., the word of God, which here is equivalent to the Gospel, the good news of the kingdom. Like a farmer scattering seed by hand in the ancient world, this word is scattered widely. Inevitably, some of the seed falls on ground that for one reason or another is inhospitable: perhaps it is the hard-packed dirt of the path, or perhaps birds come and eat the seed before it settles into the plowed ground and germinates, or perhaps it grows in the shadow of thornbushes that squeeze the life out of it, or perhaps it germinates in shallow soil with limestone bedrock just beneath the surface, such that the roots cannot go down very far to absorb the necessary moisture. The parallels with the way people hear the word are obvious. Some are hard and repel any entry of the word; others are soon distracted by the playthings Satan quickly casts up; others find that worries and wealth – the terrible Ws – squeeze out all concern for spiritual matters; still others hear the word with joy and seem to be the most promising of the crop, but never sink the deep roots necessary to sustain life. But thank God for the soil that produces fruit, sometimes even abundant fruit.
So much is clear enough. But two other features of this parable deserve reflection.
The first is that this parable, like many others, adjusts the commonly held perspective that when the Messiah came there would be a climactic and decisive break: the guilty and the dirty would all be condemned, and the righteous and the clean would enjoy a transforming rule. That is what the final kingdom would be like. But Jesus pictures the dawning of the kingdom a little differently. In the parable of the mustard seed (4:30-32), for example, the kingdom is like a tree that starts from small beginnings and grows into something substantial; here is growth, not apocalyptic climax. So also the parable of the sower: for the time being, the word is going to be scattered widely, and people will respond to it in different ways, with widely divergent yields.
The second is that not all of those who show initial signs of kingdom life actually take root and bear fruit. That truth deserves meditation and calls for self-examination.
Genesis 33 ; Mark 4 ; Esther 9-10 ; Romans 4
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