Notes on Job

Questions at the End of Job
  03-04-2021

At the end of the book of Job we are left with many unanswered questions. In his commentary on the book of Job, David Jackson asks many of the questions we may be asking: “Where did all of these brothers and sisters come from? Where were they when Job needed them? What’s the idea of giving him silver and gold rings now that he is recovered? Or is this the family putting their hands in their pockets to give Job a new start?” I would add to these questions: How long did it take for him to double his prosperity? Was it gradual? Did it happen all at once? What about Job’s wife? After she tells Job to “curse God and die” in Job 2:9 we never hear from her again. Did she leave him then? If so, does she come back to him? Are these new children with her, or with a new wife? And finally, at least for me, why weren’t the number of Job’s children doubled like his possessions were?

We don’t know the precise answers to these questions that would satisfy our curious minds. On some of these questions we can make inferences based on the text, but others remain quite difficult to answer. Regarding Job’s brothers and sisters, who came to show comfort and sympathy to him after he had prayed for his three friends, it's possible that Job could just not have been comforted until he had been vindicated. David Jackson writes, “Wishful thinking and lovely sentimental words about a bright future are like salt on a raw wound when Job is on his ash heap calling on God to vindicate him… Wishful thinking and lovely sentimental expressions can be annoying at such times.” From this line of thinking, once Job has been vindicated by God, himself, it becomes much easier for him to receive comfort from others. Once vindicated, he is happy to have others around him rejoicing with him over God’s revelation to him. I think this idea has merit, but the reality is that we really don’t know. Maybe his siblings regarded Job as sinful, under God’s judgment, and did not want to associate with him. The reality for us is that clarity on this matter is not possible, so we can’t conclude much from them. We can know that it is good to celebrate God’s work in one’s life with others. It is important to note, as well, that Job’s restoration involves restoration to community, and points to the beautiful community Christians will experience with one another in glory.

Regarding the length of time it took to double Job’s prosperity, we can say that the text does not require an instant doubling of his prosperity. Some think that it was the gifts of his family, and those who had known him before, that allowed Job to purchase new livestock and get back on his feet. This would have been a slow process. Others think these gifts came after he had regained his prosperity and think the gifts are part of joining in on the celebration that has begun. Regardless, we know that the Lord’s gift to him of seven sons and three daughters would have taken quite a bit of time. We simply don’t know if these children share the same mother as the children who died in chapter one and we are not given enough details to speculate. However, to the question of why he received the same number as before and not a doubling, many note that this was a doubling of his children. His children who died previously did not cease to exist, but as within the view of the Old Testament while those children will not return to him on this earth, he will go to them when he dies (see 2 Samuel 12:23). This means, with the addition of these ten children in Job 42, God has doubled the number of Job’s children.

While entertaining these questions can be interesting for us, we must be careful not to let them obscure the message of the book’s ending. It is God the Father’s purpose to show mercy and compassion to those who are his children by faith in his son, Jesus, when the Lord returns - as James 5:7-11 so helpfully shows. Job’s prosperity here in the end is meant to show us how he intends to bless his children in glory. Any blessings we experience in this life now are but a foretaste of the blessings we will one day receive. I have looked to Christopher Ash’s commentary on the book of Job often as I have preached through the book and on this point, I want to leave you with his words.

“…the blessings God will pour out on the believer at the end will be every bit as real as the blessings of Job. Job knew real prosperity, real joy and celebration, real fruitfulness and real beauty...The blessings of the new heavens and new earth will be rock-solid real. We look forward to beauty that makes the most beautiful woman in the world seem dull. We look forward to fruitfulness that will make the most abundant family in the world seem barren. We look forward to prosperity that will make the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires seem poor. And we look forward to celebration that will make the best party in the world seem like a quiet glass of apple juice.”

As we look forward to what God has for us, because of his compassion and mercy, we can endure the many trials and sufferings of this life. Jesus himself endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. Let us then look to Jesus and run with endurance the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1-3) knowing the glorious future Jesus has won for all who trust in him.

Brothers Karamazov
  03-03-2021

Since something was caught in my throat and I may have been difficult to understand towards the end of the sermon this past Sunday (2/28/21), I thought I would include the quote from Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov here. I found the quote in Mike Mason’s devotional on the book of Job and I thought I would include the full quote with my introduction from the sermon to help provide context. For me this quote encapsulates so much of the importance of the ending of Job with respect to the book as a whole. I hope it encourages you as much it has encouraged me.

You will see my introduction to the quote from the sermon below first and then the quote from the book will be in quotation marks.

In the book, The Brothers Karamazov, Father Zossima is an old monk who is central to the spirituality of Dostoyevsky’s last novel. On his deathbed, Father Zossima recounts how the story of Job impacted him in his childhood. He comments on how scoffers read Job, and then when he reads Job, how it comforts him as he nears the end of his life…

I want to read to you what he says. It’s a bit long for a quote, but try to stick with it as I read because I think you will be glad you did….

“Since then – even yesterday I took it up (the book of Job)– I have never been able to read this sacred tale without tears. And how much that is great, mysterious, and unfathomable there is in it! Scoffers say: how could God give up the most loved of his saints to Satan to play with, take his children from him, smite him with sore boils so that he scraped the corruption from his sores with a potsherd – and for what? Just to be able to boast to Satan, ‘See how much My saint can suffer for My sake!’ But the greatness of it all lies just in the fact that it is a mystery – that the passing earthly show and the eternal justice are brought together here, (slow down a little) and in the face of the earthly truth the eternal truth is accomplished. Here the Creator, just as in the first days of creation He ended each day with praise – ‘What I have created is good’ – now looks upon Job and again boasts of His creation.

And Job, praising the Lord, serves not only Him but all His creation for generations and generations and for ever and ever, since for that he was ordained. Lord, what a book it is and what lessons it contains! What a book the Holy Bible is! What a miracle and what strength is given with it to man! It is just like a sculpture of the whole world and all its human characters, with everything named there and everything shown for ever and ever. And what mysteries are solved and revealed: God raises Job again, gives him wealth again, and many years pass by and he has other children and he loves them. Good Lord, but how could he love those new ones when his old children are no more, when he has lost them? Remembering them, how could he be completely happy with the new ones, however dear they might be? But he could, he could! The old sorrow, through the great mystery of human life, passes gradually into quiet, tender joy; the fiery blood of youth gives way to the gentle serenity of old age.
I bless the rising sun each day, and my heart sings to it as of old, but now I love its setting even more, its long slanting rays and the quiet, gentle, tender memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long and blessed life – and over it all Divine Truth, tender, reconciling, and all-forgiving! My life is drawing to a close. I know that, I feel it. But I also feel every day that is left to me how my earthly life is already in touch with a new, infinite, unknown but fast-approaching future life, the anticipation of which sets my soul trembling with rapture, my mind glowing, and my heart weeping with joy...”

Who Tames the Beasts?
  02-26-2021

Since we skipped over the Leviathan and the Behemoth found in chapters 40 and 41 of Job pretty quickly this past Sunday (2/21) I mentioned I would write something about them here in “Notes on Job.” Historically many have seen the Behemoth as a hippo and the Leviathan as a crocodile. Now there are some good reasons for this since the one is a creature of the land and water and the other a creature of the water, but ultimately they don’t fit the portrait given very well. In fact, I don’t think they fit the portrait given of any actual living creature alive today that we know well at all. If we couple this with the fact that Job’s inability to tame a really intense hippo or a fire breathing crocodile doesn’t really seem to address the issue of him not being able to administer cosmic justice (which is what these portraits seem to be pointing to), I just don’t think a hippo and a crocodile are in view here.

Leviathan is mentioned in Job 3:8, but we also see him as a many headed monster in Psalm 73:14:
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
Psalm 104:26 refers to Leviathan as a sea creature that God made to play in the sea. We don’t have as much Scripture to go on with respect to the Behemoth, but the description in Job 40:15-24 depicts a beast with immense sheer strength who is always hungry and like the Leviathan, untamable by humans.

Old Testament scholar Matt Newkirk says that Leviathan is well-known from Ugaritic texts as a mythological beast who is allied with Yam, the Canaanite god of the sea. Leviathan and Behemoth are described as creatures of the sea and of the desert, respectively, in other ancient texts. Both the sea and the desert were places of danger and death and from that we can deduce that these two creatures represent the supreme forces of evil operative in our world. Thus, these were known story book type creatures that would have been known to Job and his friends. Pastor Christopher Ash writes, “Here is what the authors of Scripture are doing, they are taking storybook imagery, of a kind that would immediately convey chaotic and supernatural terror and bringing it firmly into a monotheistic worldview. They are saying that Leviathan in all his supernatural wild hostility has no existence independent from the Creator and exercises no agency in autonomy from the Creator; he is stronger than us, but he is a creature of God. Behemoth and Leviathan are story book creatures, but they are also utterly real and true; it is just that their truth is conveyed to us in storybook descriptions that arouse in us a response of visceral fear.” Ash thinks the Behemoth represents death while the Leviathan represents the fiery serpent, Satan, himself. Regardless of those two specific designations that these two animals may depict, these mythical animals, untamable by humans, represent real cosmic spiritual forces of evil that we are powerless to withstand as humans on our own.

When my son Drew was almost two years old the circus was advertising its shows by inviting the city of Lexington, KY out to see their elephants as they offloaded from their trains and walked right down main street before entering Rupp Arena where the circus would be held. At the time I had an office downtown and Rachel met me there with Drew so we could go see the elephants. I remember how impressively massive these elephants were as they ate watermelons like I eat a small handful of popcorn. There was not a fence or any other kind of barrier between us and the elephants like there is at the zoo. However, there were trainers with whips leading the elephants along Main Street. As they came closer and closer to the place we were standing I noticed Drew climbing up on me higher and higher and suddenly I realized he was getting nervous. Even though he loved and trusted his mommy and daddy, he was not so sure we could do anything if those elephants decided to come after us. Of course, he was right about this, but we trusted that the circus would not put on this act if they were not confident these trainers had tamed these elephants. Rachel and I thought at the time, he was quite right to be nervous at his age and maybe we should have been more concerned ourselves. Drew’s two-year-old response to the elephants helped us realize more acutely our own vulnerability and how much trust we had in those elephant trainers. It also helped us question whether we should be putting so much faith in these trainers…. “What if some loud car horn or siren spooked the elephants?”

The point of these beasts in Job 40 and 41 is that they represent real spiritual forces that Job and all of humanity were powerless to defeat on their own. God says that humans would never dare stir up these beasts, so if we can’t stand before such beasts that God made then how can Job think he could stand before God, much less stand in judgment over God. These were God’s pets. God is inviting Job to think about the Behemoth and Leviathan and while he trembles at the thought of standing before them, he can think about how foolish it is for him to think he is going to stand before God like a prince and question him.

Reading about these beasts in Job today we should recognize that supernatural evil by itself should scare us more than any ferocious beast we can imagine. Satan and cosmic evil are much stronger than you and I are, but we need not live in terrorized fear. All cosmic forces of evil are God’s pets and can only go as far as God allows. The trainers who tamed the elephants were not as powerful as those elephants yet controlled them, but God made Satan and everything else. God is vastly more powerful than anything he has created and nothing escapes his sovereign, powerful, ruling hand. Thus, we are to fear the Lord and fear nothing else as we live lives of worshipping submission to the Lord who cares so deeply for us.

Job 32-37, Elihu, Angry Fool or Angry Prophet
  02-21-2021

If you were with us for worship this past Sunday (2/21/22) I skipped over chapters 32-37 where Elihu suddenly appears and speaks. Here I will seek to address the questions, “Who is Elihu and how might we view him?” We were told in Job chapter 2 that three friends came to visit Job in order to comfort him and we hear them speak, along with Job’s interactions, all the way through chapter 31. In chapters 29-31 Job is asking for God to answer him. As we are wondering if God will now speak to Job, suddenly this man named Elihu steps up to speak in chapter 32 and he continues speaking all through chapter 37. You will benefit most from this note if you read these chapters in Job before proceeding.

There is a good bit of disagreement on whether we should interpret Elihu’s speech positively or negatively. On the far end of one view point he is seen as an angry fool, and at the other far end of the spectrum he is seen as an angry prophet speaking God’s words to Job, preparing the way for God to speak, somewhat like John the Baptizer prepared the way for Jesus.

Why the disagreement?
Why the disagreement amongst those who hold the Bible to be God’s word? The main reason is that neither the narrator of the book of Job nor God himself (or anyone else in the book) responds to Elihu. The fact that the narrator tells us that God is angry with Job’s three friends and that Job has spoken of God what is right (Job 42:7) has helped us interpret the speeches of those individuals throughout the book. We can see God answering Job in a corrective way as well. However, we have no such comments about Elihu, making it more difficult to know how we ought to view his words.

The More Conventional View – Elihu is a young, angry fool
In recent years it has been more conventional to see Elihu as enthusiastic, passionate, young, angry, arrogant, foolish, and wrong. The opposite viewpoint would agree with the first four of these descriptors without blinking. This is unsurprising because the text itself is very clear regarding Elihu’s anger at both Job and his three friends.

Job 32:1 So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. 2 Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God. 3 He burned with anger also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong. 4 Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were older than he. 5 And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, he burned with anger.

These verses tell us that Elihu is angry with Job because he justifies himself rather than God, and he is angry at the three friends for being unable to answer Job well. Here we see he is young and that he has waited until Job’s friends, who were older than him, had spoken. Throughout the speech we see his passion and zeal for God - that no one questions.

Many scholars think that because there are no comments from God or the narrator about Elihu that he is being ignored because his words are so sloppy and unwise that they are not worth a response. They see Elihu’s claim to be offering something new at the beginning of chapter 32, but don’t think he actually adds anything to the conversation that has not already been said. Thus, they see his folly in giving full vent to his anger and in his folly in his inability to keep his mouth shut as he states himself in Job 32:17-20.

Prov 29:11 11 A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control. 17 I also will answer with my share; I also will declare my opinion. 18 For I am full of words; the spirit within me constrains me. 19 Behold, my belly is like wine that has no vent; like new wineskins ready to burst. 20 I must speak, that I may find relief; I must open my lips and answer.

They point to Prov. 18:2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

Elihu’s arrogance
They see Elihu not only as angry and foolish, but also arrogant. Supporting evidence for Elihu’s arrogance can be found in the following verses:

Job 36:4 For truly my words are not false; one who is perfect in knowledge is with you.

yet it seems he should know better based on what he says later

Job 37:16 Do you know the balancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge…,

In a speech where Elihu is after Job for justifying himself rather than God he goes so far as to declare his own righteousness

Job 33:3 My words declare the uprightness of my heart, and what my lips know they speak sincerely.

They cite verses like Proverbs 12:15 to support the view that Elihu is foolishly arrogant.

Prov. 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.

True but irrelevant to Job
In citing that Elihu adds nothing to the conversation this view holds that like Job’s friends he says many true things about God, but that they are just not relevant to Job’s particular suffering.
In chapter 33 Elihu shows a good grasp of the Creator/creation distinction and he speaks of God as being patient and longsuffering. In chapter 34 he delights in God’s justice in taking down the mighty who oppress the poor (true but irrelevant to Job). In chapter 36 Elihu talks much of God’s justice and how God delights in the possibility of repentance and the promise of prosperity to the faithful, such that the concept of covenant blessings being conditional on covenant faithfulness seems to be in his view… which interpreted in the best light is seen as true but irrelevant to what Job is going through.

Elihu distorts Job’s words and accuses him of wrongdoing he did not commit
This can be argued from a few places. In Job 33:9, Elihu says,

Job 33:9 You say, ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me.

We have noted throughout our study of Job that Job did not claim to be sinless, but only claimed to be righteous in God’s sight.

In Job 34:36-37 we find these words on Elihu’s lips

36 Would that Job were tried to the end, because he answers like wicked men. 37 For he adds rebellion to his sin; he claps his hands among us and multiplies his words against God.

Though this view holds Elihu to be a poor young fool in many respects, it still has room to view Elihu who as one who has in his youth turned to God, as one who fears God, and as one who doesn’t want to face the consequences of refusing God’s call for repentance. The more conventional view sees Elihu as a young man that has zeal, but lacks true knowledge of God.

At this point you may think this is an open and shut case, but I offer up Proverbs 18:17 to encourage you to keep reading:

Prov. 18:17 The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

The Older (and Newer) less conventional View, Elihu the Angry Prophet

To be fair, referring to Elihu as a prophet of God only fits the more extreme viewpoint of those who see Elihu positively, but those in this camp largely see Elihu as speaking relevant truth to Job that he needs to hear - truth which prepares him for what God will say when he finally does speak. What if God’s lack of response to Elihu is not because he said childish things that God ignores? What if God is simply picking up where Elihu left off and thus regards Elihu’s message as largely positive, preparing the way for Job to hear Gods speak? The Old Geneva Bible, first completed in 1560, has study notes on Job which take a positive view of Elihu shared by a minority of scholars today. I will try to hit the main thoughts of this perspective below.

Why doesn’t God address Elihu?
While the more conventional view holds that Elihu adds nothing new to the conversation and so God doesn’t see his words being worthy of redress, the Geneva Bible’s notes offer a different perspective: “Elihu is not mentioned in the epilogue, but the reason is that he is not guilty of the same errors as the other three.” This brings the crux of the argument for interpreting Elihu in a positive light: Elihu isn’t saying the same thing the three friends are saying. Before we discuss that line of reasoning, Pastor Christopher Ash thinks the genealogy given for Elihu in Job 32:2 (“Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram”) would typically lead us to interpret him in a positive light. Generally speaking, when someone’s genealogy is given it tends to add weight and significance to who they are, and while we know where each of Job’s friends are from we are not given their family history. Thus the genealogy of Elihu given to us in his introduction may be an indicator that we should view Elihu more positively than Job’s friends.

Aren’t Elihu’s many words foolishly arrogant?
The Geneva study bible didn’t see Elihu’s loquaciousness as problematic. It says, “Elihu’s wordiness, like that of Job and the counselors, was considered eloquent in their culture.” In other words, what we might see as self-importance in our culture is not necessarily how the culture of that day and time viewed things. We need to be careful about assigning what something might mean in our own day to that day and time. On the flipside, though, the book of Proverbs, written much earlier than our own day but later than Job’s, doesn’t prize wordiness.

Doesn’t Elihu misquote Job?
The more conventional perspective finds that Elihu misquotes and so misrepresents Job in all his wordiness. Again the Geneva Bible offers another vantage point, “Verbatim quotation was not the expected norm in ANY culture.” In other words, we can’t just say, “well, he claims to be quoting Job and we can’t find those exact same words anywhere in this book on Job’s lips, therefore he is distorting Job’s words.” We can just look to see if he accurately conveys a message that Job has spoken. The angry, young, arrogant fool version of Elihu holds that he distorts Job’s words in places like Job 33:9…

Job 33:9 You say, ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me.

If there was not an expectation of quoting someone precisely and we were interpreting Elihu positively, then we wouldn’t have to read Elihu as claiming Job never sinned. In the next few verses Elihu will imply that Job says God is treating him unjustly – which Job does in the book and which God himself alludes to as well. We also looked at Job 34:8 above, where Elihu says that Job travels with evildoers, and what he says seems to line up with words of the friends who accused Job of doing great evil. However, Elihu could merely be saying that Job is lining himself up with evil doers because he is scoffing at God’s justice - not that he has done evil himself.

Doesn’t Elihu make similar arguments to that of his friends?
When we are introduced in to Elihu we are told in Job 32:2 that “He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God.” Thus, in the words of scholar D.A. Carson, Elihu’s central issue with Job is that Job’s sin is not something he did or said before he suffered, but the “rebellion he is displaying in the suffering.” This viewpoint is different in that it claims that whereas Job’s friends go off the rails by accusing Job of doing all manner of wickedness, Elihu only (or at least mainly) speaks to what he has heard Job actually say as Job responded to his friends and cried out to God in his previous speeches. This is in line with what we know from the outset of the book and also is in line with how God addresses Job.

Is a Elihu a prophet like John the Baptizer?
British pastor and commentator Christopher Ash says this is the view that Elihu claims for himself. He cites, Job 32:8, 32:18, 33:4, 36:1-4 – which I am including here:

Job 36:1 And Elihu continued, and said:

Job 36:2 “Bare with me a little, and I will show you, for I have yet something to say on God’s behalf. 3 I will get my knowledge from afar and ascribe righteousness to my Maker. 4 For truly my words are not false; one who is perfect in knowledge is with you.

This view would change how we would interpret Elihu when he says that he must also share his opinion. If God has given him words as a prophet then he must speak. I think Ash takes this one too far. I am not sure that Elihu is claiming to be a prophet and I don’t know that Elihu has to claim to be a prophet speaking God’s very words for us to say that he does function somewhat like John the Baptizer does for Jesus in preparing people to hear Jesus’ message to repent and believe for the kingdom of God is near.

A more moderately positive Position on Elihu
I take lean towards a more sympathetic view on Elihu that reads him as arrogant and lacking in empathy like Job’s friends, but that mainly views his message as one that Job needs to hear in order to prepare him to listen better to what God has to say to him. My viewpoint is largely in line with scholar D.A. Carson who, in his chapter on Job in his book, How Long O Lord, writes with respect to Elihu, “If he is not praised, it is because his contribution is eclipsed by what God himself says; if he is not criticized, it is because he says nothing amiss.”

In making his main argument what Job says about God rather than mainly attacking Job for some great sins that led to his suffering as Job’s three friends did, Elihu speaks from the same vantage point from which God will address Job. Elihu shows that amidst suffering and evil God’s justice must always remain a given. In parts of chapters 36 and 37, Elihu holds out the wondrous works of God to Job in ways that are quite similar to how God will reveal himself to Job, albeit with far less power. He brings new things to the discussion that would seem to prepare Job to hear what God has to say once God speaks. Elihu, however, does not show much sympathy and compassion for what Job has gone through. He doesn’t seem to have entered into Job’s pain or understood Job’s perspective that leads Job to defends his integrity so vigorously, as Carson also notes. While Elihu mainly argues against what Job says about God, I am not fully convinced that he sees Job as blameless in God’s sight previous to his suffering based on some of the things he says in his speech to Job. While I think he has valuable insights for Job that we too can consider, I don’t see him as a prophet. However, Job sets the stage well for God to speak as he summarizes his message in the last two verses of his speech (Job 37:23-24). If I may paraphrase, Elihu wants Job to be convinced that God almighty is great in power and will not violate justice and abundant righteousness such that he may trust the Lord in worshipping submission rather than viewing his thoughts as better than God’s in the midst of suffering. I think this is a good word for us as well.

No Space for Satan
  02-11-2021

Last week, I cut out the first main point in the sermon for the sake of time. I was using three themes I found from Christopher Ash’s commentary on Job that noted major things wrong with the Job’s friends’ system of thought that made them miserable comforters. Naming their religious system of thought, “Strict Retributive Justice,” among other things, Ash noted that they had no room for Satan, waiting, or the cross. This meant they had no space for grace in relating to Job. Here, I am including the first main point from the sermon last week that I cut out for the sake of time.

No Space for Satan

This is a missing piece in the theology of Job’s friends, but it is also a missing piece in Job’s theology as well. In Job 19:21-22, Job says, 21 "Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! 22 Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?"

Job sees this as something God is directly responsible for without seeing the reality that God works through secondary causes. Job’s friends see God in a less personal way, such that Job’s calamities are directly Job’s fault and see these events as being God’s judgment for Job’s sin in more of an impersonal sense; you sinned - you get judgment. Neither Job, nor his friends know what we readers have been told from the outset by the narrator in chapters 1 and 2, that God permitted Satan to put his hands on Job’s possessions, family, and then on Job himself. Job 2:6 "And the LORD said to Satan, 'Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.'"

The friends just have a vending machine God. Put in a coin of goodness and out pops a can of blessing. Put in a coin of badness and out pops a bottle laced with poison. God rules in a sort of impersonal way. The terrible things in Job’s life are Satan’s handiwork -not God’s. I wrote a devotional on the topic in 2020, and Pastor Larry added a note to “Notes on Job” earlier this week to provide more thoughts on this topic. Suffice to say there is room for real spiritual forces of evil - much less personally vindictive forces with real influence in the human physical realm. In Job 9:24, noting his destruction, he asks who else could have brought this on him other than God. It baffles him that God could bring this upon him. For the friends it makes perfect sense, they think, “Job, you must have done wrong and therefore you suffer.” Because Job is holding on to the reality that he has lived faithfully before the Lord, even if he has not lived sinlessly, he briefly wonders out loud if someone other than God could be involved. However, without the help we have from the narrator, he ultimately decides that since God is sovereign over all things, so it must be his hand who has inflicted the harm. The Bible tells us that Satan likes to disguise himself, so that people don’t recognize his influence, and he disguised himself well to both Job and his friends.

Whether or not Job and his friends are responsible for this gap in their theology, we do not know. We, on the other hand, are given the reality of Satan in the book of Job and so we need to make space in our theology for the reality of the spiritual forces of evil that we cannot see with the naked eye. As the apostle Paul has written, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” So, we take up God’s armor and pray, trusting the Lord to protect us.

Job, God, and Satan
  02-10-2021

In recent weeks as Brad Rogers has been preaching in Job, we’ve seen the interaction between God and Satan, as Satan challenges God’s work of salvation in Job. He basically says that Job follows God because God has protected him, blessed him, and given him good things. He challenges God by saying that if God withdraws His protection, Job will prove who he really is (someone who does not belong to the Lord) and curse God. This ultimately is an attack on God - who in fact had saved Job to be His and caused Job to fear Him for Himself - not because of the material things Job enjoyed in God’s providence.

God then allows Satan to bring different afflictions on Job, with the limitation that he is not allowed to take Job’s life itself. Brad noted last Sunday that the theological framework of Job’s three friends did not make allowance or space for Satan. As we read the book of Job, we see “behind the curtain” so to speak, at the interactions between God and Satan. Job didn’t see this - he only experienced the afflictions Satan was allowed to bring upon him - and his friends seem to ignore the possibility that this misery Job is experiencing involves spiritual forces beyond Job himself.

One set of questions raised by these dialogues between God and Satan, and by Job’s afflictions, is how Satan’s actions are related to God Himself. Are they independent of the Lord? When the afflictions come that would almost certainly tempt Job to give up the faith, is it God who is bringing that temptation?

Here, we have to be careful to affirm what Scripture affirms, and what it doesn’t affirm - better, what it says God does, and what it says God doesn’t do. Clearly, Satan was under God’s sovereign hand. He challenges God’s program of salvation, specifically His work in Job’s heart, and gets permission to afflict Job. Yet the Lord sets limits as to what Satan can do. Job is afflicted greatly, but Satan is not allowed to take Job’s life itself. So, God is sovereign amid the afflictions.

If God is sovereign in this situation, and if the situation was tempting to Job (in terms of him possibly cursing God), was God the one doing and chargeable for the tempting? Clearly God in His sovereignty allowed Satan to tempt Job. It came within His sovereign decree (see Ephesians 1:11). Yet, in working out His decrees, God uses what our Confession of Faith refers to as “second causes” (Westminster Confession of Faith 3-1). God uses particular means in accomplishing His will. His will in this case was proving the reality of Job’s faith in and relationship with Him, and allowing him to be tested/tempted.

For example, God uses proclaimers of the gospel as He brings people to faith in Him. He uses surgeons to operate on us for physical healing (though He also can bring healing without them). Satan was a second cause God used in proving the reality of Job’s faith, which God had given him as a gift in saving him.

But, we must also affirm what the Scriptures affirm in relation to temptation - that God is entirely separate from evil and that He doesn’t tempt us to sin. Though we might want to blame God when we are tempted or sin (see Adam in the garden of Eden - “the woman You gave me…”), or blame Satan when we yield to temptation (and indeed, he does tempt us); yet, James 1:13-15 says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James calls us to “own” our guilt and not implicate God. Our evil proceeds from ourselves. James affirms that God is not the author of evil, nor the chargeable cause of sin. God does try us, but He does not induce us to evil. He is absolutely separate from evil, so much so that He cannot even be affected by ¬temptation - it simply does not pertain to His nature. Outward things may initially tempt us, and God may allow Satan to tempt us but we (not God) sin when we acquiesce and begin to desire things that God forbids and also when we act contrary to His moral law in any way.

So, God allowed Satan to afflict - even to tempt Job. Yet, God Himself didn’t tempt him. And, the Lord so protected and preserved Job that his faith - and God Himself - were vindicated even amid Job’s severe and devastating misery. Job didn’t fear God for no reason - rather he feared Him (and trusted Him), because the Lord was his salvation and His grace was sufficient for him in the midst of great weakness, trial, and temptation.

The Silence of Job's Friends
  02-04-2021

Job 2:11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

This past Sunday in our sermon series on Job we noted that upon hearing the self-proclaimed wisdom of his friends which came in the form of terrible and false accusations, Job wishes they would be silent and keep their wisdom to themselves (Job 13:5). It is true that their seven days of silence were better than the words they spoke, but was their silence good? I have often heard that their seven days of silence with Job on the ash heap was indeed good, but there are many commentators who do not agree. I thought I would share some of that discussion with you here to provide my thoughts on how one might resolve such a dilemma.

Let’s start with those who think the silence of Job’s friends in Job 2:11-13 was something they got right. The fact of the friends’ motive to show him sympathy and to comfort could support this view. So could the fact that they identify with his pain by raising their voices, weeping, tearing their robes, and sprinkling dust on their heads as Job had done. Many view the seven days of silence as showing further empathy. David Atkinson sees their silence as the fruit of genuine friendship and says this is “the compassion of silent presence.” Some commentators say their profound silence honors Job’s vast grief and still another says, “when grief is so crushing, what form but silence can sympathy take?” Seven days of silence in that culture signifies a complete time of mourning according to the ESV study bible. Ezekiel mourns seven days in Ezekiel 3:15 before the Lord gives him words to speak.

While this may seem like a strong case, Christopher Ash argues that while silence may have initially been appropriate, seven days is a long time. Commentator David Clines agrees that this silence is “hugely extended.” Ash thinks that refusing to speak to someone suffering so greatly for so long is “eerie and not comforting.” The text says that no one spoke a word to Job, but that does not rule out the possibility of the three friends speaking to one another while they did not speak to Job. Ash also argues that seven days of silence is how someone mourns someone that is already dead – not someone who is still alive. He says their silence is a silence of bankruptcy. That is, they say nothing because they have no words of comfort to give him because they see him as beyond comfort.

Mike Mason says it is far too idealistic to picture Job’s friends as gracious, sitting with Job “in simple and quiet dignity…..wordlessly expressing their heartfelt compassion and solidarity.” He reasons that the words that come out of the mouths of the three friends once they start speaking in subsequent chapters of the book shows they were silently condemning Job in their hearts for sinning so badly and bringing all of this trouble upon himself. Mason thinks this makes better sense of the evidence as the three friends will speak no words of mercy to Job whatsoever and no words of comfort, and Job will not feel comforted by them in the subsequent chapters.

Narrative passages of scripture like this one that report facts without telling us whether something is pleasing or displeasing to God can be difficult. So, what do we do in situations when we read commentators who are known to be faithful to God’s word and know the particular text best, but disagree about its meaning? Certainly, we pray and ask for God’s help as we consider the text and what others have said about it. We can also look at other scriptures to see if there are scriptural principles that would shed light on the passage we are considering. In this case we can find scriptures about being a good listener, we can find scriptures about the value of few words, and we can find scriptures that indicate the power of well-chosen words to bring comfort to those that are hurting. We can certainly find scriptures and stories that reveal being present to those that are suffering matters. In other words, we can find scriptural principles supporting both points of view.

It is good to work through the rationale of the commentators piece by piece seeking to discern the merits of their reasoning. In this case, it makes sense to me culturally that they could have been expected to remain silent to observe a time of mourning, but we cannot be sure of this. Job does not rebuke his friends in chapter three for their silence and he is not afraid to rebuke their harsh words later. I do think that Mike Mason is likely correct to think that Job’s friends were likely thinking Job had brought this upon himself. While this would be wrong if they did, it does not necessarily follow that it was wrong for them not to speak. I think it is largely Job’s lament in chapter three that brings out the worst in these friends even though it should not have done so. Thus, I lean towards thinking that their silence was the right thing while suspecting their attitudes were not flawless.

But it’s just a leaning and since I am not convinced either way, I don’t want to derive principles regarding silence as it relates to comforting those who are suffering from this particular text. If I find myself seeking to comfort someone in extreme pain, I can use scriptural principles elsewhere and pray for wisdom. Of course, it can be a cop out not to try to push oneself to come to a position on something in scripture that is not immediately clear to us. God is seeking to speak to us through his word, so it is important for us to be willing to work hard to understand what he is saying. This brings me to an extremely important interpretive principle – discerning why God has placed these words in scripture. Everything in verses twelve and thirteen of chapter two are meant to reinforce Job’s extreme suffering for the reader. Their silence is one of several things that does this, “No one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was great.” Knowing whether their silence was culpable is not the point of the text. Thus, we do not need to feel pressure to resolve the disagreement amongst these commentators in our hearts.

Why would I spill so much ink on a topic where I do not have conclusive thoughts? I am passionate for people to hear God speak through his word, so I am eager to help people learn to interpret the scriptures well whenever I can. In sorting through this issue in the commentaries on Job I saw an opportunity to help inform and strengthen good interpretive procedure and I could not resist. ~ Brad

God's Satan
  01-27-2021

Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.

After the book of Job introduces us to the man Job in the first five verses, we meet Satan in the sixth verse of the book and we don’t get nearly the background information on Satan as we do on Job. This is because Job is a more important character in the book than Satan. Yet, Satan is a still of no small consequence in the book as he is the one who desires to undo Job’s love for God. It leaves us with many questions and the text is not ripe with answers, but this scene does tell us some important things about Satan. In Revelation 12:9 we find out that Satan was the serpent in the garden of Eden. His other most common name in the scriptures is the devil.

Many people struggle with the idea that Satan has such access to the throne of God in heaven. Thinking of verses like Habakkuk 1:13 we might wonder how God the Father can have fellowship with this evil being named Satan.

13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?

However, as commentator Christopher Ash (whose thoughts I will follow closely in this note on Job) asserts, we don’t need to confuse fellowship with government. It certainly seems Satan and the Lord know each other. This prologue seems to take us back to a time when Satan had the ear of God and could make requests of him. This text shows us some important things about how God does rule over this world.

Christopher Ash says that generally speaking there are 3 main models of the spiritual government of our world.

1) Polytheism (or animism) – The universe is governed by a multiplicity of gods, goddesses and spirits; none are perfect and some are evil. There is no supreme god or goddess and some are more powerful than others. The result is a universe filled with anxiety, for we don’t know which power will win and if that power will be good to us. The simplest form of this view is dualism, in which the world is governed by an ongoing contest between good and evil, between God and the devil - who are equal and opposite powers. The devil has autonomy and agency independent of God, kind of like the Empire and the Federation in Star Wars.

2) Absolute monism which asserts that the world is governed absolutely and simply by one God. What God says goes, end of story. Above the visible and material universe there is one, and only one, supernatural power, the absolute power, the creator of heaven and earth. In this case there are no other spiritual beings with the power to act in ways we would deem supernatural. While I don’t know that I understand Islam that well, I think Islam would be classified as absolute monism. I think many Christians think of this as a biblical model of God, but it fails to do justice to a text like we have at the beginning of the book of Job.

3) I think the Bible gives us something more complex, but I don’t have a name for it here, as Ash’s commentary did not give me one (Biblical theism might work). God is absolutely supreme, the Sovereign over all creation. He created the world out of nothing, he is unique, without rival, and there is no god like him. However, he governs the world by the means of and through the agency of a multiplicity of supernatural powers, some of which are evil. Thus, it seems here in this heavenly court that there are some that have powers greater than humans even though, in other places of the bible, they are said to be lower than humans in God’s eyes. So Satan is called the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2) and Jesus refers to him in John 12:31, as “the ruler of this world” who will soon be thrown out. This is not dualism - it does not compromise God’s sovereignty at all. God rules and reigns through these agents. This is the picture we see in Job 1:6-2:7 – Satan needs God’s permission to carry out his evil plot against Job. As I mentioned in our first sermon on Job, in the words of the reformer Martin Luther, “Satan is God’s Satan.”

Being from across the pond, Christopher Ash offers an analogy that may be helpful. He says that there is this expression in the British governance: “Her majesty’s loyal opposition” - those that oppose the government but do so in ultimate subservience to the crown. They in themselves are devoted to trying to bring the government down, but in spite of themselves their opposition serves the purpose of making the government better by their opposition. Their opposition is a necessary and good part of British government.

Satan opposes Job, but in the end his opposition results in greater honor and glory for our great God. Satan unwittingly serves the Lord’s purpose even though he constantly schemes and acts against the Lord and his purposes.

Satan still schemes against us today. We know this from the warnings we find in chapters like Ephesians 6 and 1 Peter 5. However, whatever place he had in heaven at the time Job was living, Satan no longer enjoys the same access now. Jesus says in Luke “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” The context in Luke seems to indicate that he cannot hinder the ministry of Jesus disciples in the same manner he could in former times (see also Revelation 12:10). All of this tells us that we can trust that God will accomplish his purposes in this world to call a people to himself through us as we proclaim the gospel message despite the opposition of the evil one himself.

*Significant help in the writing of this note was provided by the separate commentaries on the book of Job written by Christopher Ash and David R. Jackson.

The Man Whose Name Was Job
  01-22-2021

Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.

In one sense this book of the bible really is all about a man named Job, don’t lose that here in the introduction. The scenes that follow in the rest of the book focus on Job, what happens to him and how he responds. His friends will come and they will address him. Job will respond to them. When God speaks later in the book he addresses Job. Since this is the case we need to pay close attention to how Job is introduced to us in these first few verses.

Job’s Richness
Job 1:2 There were born to him seven sons and three daughters.

Especially in that day and time, ten children was a blessing. Seven sons - that is a good complete number and provides many strong hands. In Ruth 4:15, the friends of Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi, say Ruth is worth more than seven sons. Thus, we can see that seven sons was considered highly valuable. Three daughters - three is also a good number and like ten it speaks to wholeness and completeness. The picture here of Job’s family shows that he has been blessed greatly by his children.

Job 1: 3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.

Looking at his possessions we know that Job was a farmer. We know that his children had houses so we also know that he could not be a nomad, but rather a farmer in a particular place who had great possessions. We can take the 500 pair of oxen as an example - that means he had 1,000 of them and he could plow with 500 plows at once. The amount of sheep and camels is immense. He had 500 female donkeys for carrying the produce in from the fields. We also see that he had a very large staff, and he would have needed such a staff to manage all that he had. He was the greatest of the East, the greatest in his area. We might say he was the greatest in his region and this implies that he was a rich and powerful ruler. Sometimes people misread the bible and think that it is a sin to be rich. Some think the bible teaches that money is the root of all evil, but Paul writes to Timothy (1 Tim 6:10) that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” There is nothing inherently wrong with having great wealth. Author Mike Mason writes, “Asceticism is a simplistic answer to a complex problem... There is no spiritual value in poverty, per se, but there is great worth indeed in the godly management of a large number of worldly goods and affairs.” Job begins by showing us that Job is a shining example of such godly management.

Job’s Righteousness
Not only was Job rich, Job was also a godly man, a man who pleased God.

Job 1:1 tells us that Job "was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil." This refrain is repeated by God himself to Satan in Job 1:8 and again by the narrator and God repeats it to Satan again in Job 2:3 after Job worships God once Job has lost all his children and all his belongings.

The word blameless doesn’t indicate sinlessness. Job himself speaks of the sins of his youth in Job 13:26 and “my sin” in Job 14:16. The description of being blameless speaks of his genuineness and sincerity before God. A good antonym for the word blameless would be the word, hypocrite. Later in the book Job’s friends will question his blamelessness so it is good to remember God’s assessment of Job here.

The word upright focuses more on Job’s integrity with respect to his human relationships – with how he treats people. He is one who is forthright in business and never double crosses people.

We are told that Job fears God. In recent sermons I have often mentioned that the fear of the Lord is a worshipping submission to the Lord with an intent to obey whatever he commands. Fear of God is often described as reverence and one who fears God honors God with the way he or she lives. A person who fears God lives their life in such a way as to please the God who created them and redeemed them.

We are also told that Job is a man who turns away from evil. He called evil evil and turned away from it to walk a straight path instead of living the crooked ways of sin. To turn away from sin is to repent, such that Job’s daily life was marked by repentance as we can see he even seeks the Lord’s forgiveness for the sins of his children in Job 1:5. Ezekiel 14:14 lists Noah, Daniel, and Job as men whose lives were marked by their righteousness. In Job 6:10 Job tells us that he has “not denied the words of the Holy One.” Job was a man who trusted the words he received from God and lived in right relationship with him. The picture of Job as a believing man and even as an exemplary man is critical to how we read the rest of the book as others question what God doesn’t question about Job, even though God will critique Job’s thinking about his own suffering later in the book.

Thus, the picture at the beginning of the book of Job is idyllic. It is a picture of world well run. Is this not a world that we would want to live in, even if we were not Job? Would we not want to live in a world where the people in charge were genuine and upright in all their dealings with people. Wouldn’t we want a world where those who ran it loved God and repented of their sins whenever they did sin? Isn’t it a terrible thing when ungodly have great power over us? Isn’t it terribly ugly when the wicked and corrupt rule? In Job we have the picture of the rich and powerful living righteously. Even as we see Job make sacrifices for sins his children may have committed, we see that Job knows that what matters is not outward appearance, but what matters is the heart.

*These notes are highly dependent on the separate commentaries on the book of Job written by Christopher Ash, David R. Jackson, and Mike Mason.

Background Information on Job
  01-20-2021

Since I am preaching quickly through the book of Job on Sunday mornings rather than teaching on the book of Job in a Sunday School class type setting I thought I would provide you with some background information on Job that I was not able to cover in our first sermon here.

Setting of Job
We are told that Job lived in the land of Uz, which is some area outside of the land of Old Testament Israel but we don't exactly where. There are some who suggest that it was located in the region of Aram in northern Mesopotamia. Some think it might be near Edom and while there are some good reasons for this we are still not certain where Uz was. It is important for us to know that it was not in Israel, though it was near Israel.

There have been many suggestions about the the time Job lived as well. Some have suggested he lived during the time of Babylonian exile, but it is more likely that he lived much earlier around the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) or a little earlier. The fact that Job's sacrifices for his children in Job 1:5 is viewed positively in the book suggests a time when there was no central place for worship and a time when there was no priesthood established by God. Making sacrifices outside of Jerusalem seems to suggest a pre-Mosaic time frame since sacrificial worship was restricted to Jerusalem after the conquest of Canaan. We know from Job 42:16 that Job lived around 200 years which reflects the long lives of early biblical figures. Abraham lived 175 years, Isaac lived180 years, Jacob lived 147 years, Moses lived 120 years, and David lived 70 years. This all points toward a time period close to the time of Israel's patriarchs.

In order to you give an overall orientation to the book you can find a basic outline of the book below. I assume I received this outline from someone else, but I can't tell who, so it's possible I modified some outlines from biblical commentaries on Job to make my own.

General Outline of Job

I. 1-2 – Prologue

II. 3-27 – Dialogue (Job dialogues with his 3 friends)
A. 3-14 – First cycle of speeches
B. 15-21 – Second cycle of speeches
C. 22-26 – Third cycle of speeches

III. 27-37 – Monologues
A. 27-28 – Job’s Summary Speeches
B. 29-31 – Job’s Closing Monologue
C. 32-37 – Elihu’s Monologue

IV. 38-42:6 – Divine Monologues (God Speaks)
A. 38:1-40:5 – Speech 1
B. 40:6-42:6 – Speech 2

V. 42:7-17 – Epilogue

Tomorrow I intend to elaborate more on what we learn about Job as a man from chapter 1 than I was able to cover in the first sermon from Job.