G’day! Welcome to Partakers Podcasts. Today, we once again are praying a prayer together concerning the Corona Virus Pandemic. I am sure each of us knows somebody who has contracted this virus, if indeed they succumbed to it, and has died because of it. Come! Let’s pray together!

G'day! Welcome to Partakers Podcasts! Today we have Alphy the WOWChurch Cat exploring the significance of the Cross of Jesus Christ! Come on in!

G'day! Welcome to Partakers Podcasts. Today, we once again are praying a prayer together concerning the Corona Virus Pandemic. I am sure each of us knows somebody who has contracted this virus, if indeed they succumbed to it, and has died because of it. Come! Let's pray together!

Study 10: Study 10: Job 40:15 - end

Two surprising chapters

The book of Job ends with two very surprising chapters. The first because of its content, emphasising what has gone before and the second because it appears to stand the whole book on its head! Here is the first part of the first of these chapters (which is actually in the chapter before). It is about Behemoth whose name means something like the ‘beast of beasts’. He is a terrifying creature, very like a hippopotamus with some supernatural additions. As if that is not enough we now go on to read about the Leviathan. He is just as dangerous sounding as Behemoth, very like a crocodile, again with some supernatural additions.  We may well ask “what was that all about?” There is no other Biblical reference to Behemoth and not many to Leviathan, though it is possible to see that this latter is a sea or water monster. Both are possibly linked in the culture and literature of that area in that time with gods, the god of death and the god of evil or the Satan himself. Their dual role is strikingly similar to that of the dragon and the beast from the sea of the book of Revelation, the twin figures of evil. Both have power, strength and savagery far beyond human ability to match. Therefore, since they are the creation of the Lord, part of his world and under his control, they set a marker for power, which the Lord stands far beyond. Also, particularly with Leviathan who rules over the sea, which was the well-known symbol of the chaotic, they stand as markers of the chaotic nature of the Lord’s world. Thus they reinforce the statement made in our last study that this is an essentially chaotic world and it is no good pretending otherwise, however difficult it may be to fit that into a scheme of theology and our understanding of the ways of the Lord. Now we come to the final words of Job in the first 6 verses of the last chapter. Job has finally come to a realisation of what he has been doing wrong and how he can remedy that. He now realises how high above him the Lord is, that all his attempted arguments against what has happened to him were a waste of breath. The Lord has a plan and a purpose for him, although he is unable to see what that is and how it will work out so that he could only see it as part of a chaotic world and accept that it is in the hand of the Lord. He is deeply sorry and upset by what he has done and said so he repents – not of sins in the ordinary sense but of his failure to acknowledge the place and power of the Lord in his life. The author of the book of Job has brought it to a point, a single climactic statement in a way strikingly similar to the way John would do with his gospel many centuries later. John brings his book to the climax statement “My Lord and My God” by quoting the words of Thomas, obviously intending and hoping that his readers will make that same statement for themselves. Our author brings us to the statement of Job, “My ears have heard of you but now my eyes have seen you!” also obviously intending that we should echo that statement for ourselves. John continued by quoting the words of Jesus, “because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” and if our author had had access to those words I think he too would have used them. We are not going to see the Lord, not likely to do so any way in this life; we are not going to be able to understand all his ways any more than Job did; we are going to get confused by all we hear about him as Job did; but with the eyes of faith we can see him; with the knowledge we do have we can believe – and then we are blessed – his promise, not my assertion. Question: when did you start hearing about Jesus? When did you begin to see him – to see him properly in the sense Job means? What was the trigger that changed you from hearing to seeing? Could you make that, which was the trigger event for you, into the trigger event for someone els

Study 9: Job Ch 38:1–40:14

The voice from the whirlwind

 

Finally, at last, after all the human argument, the LORD speaks out of the storm - or the whirlwind as most of the translations translate the word here. Even now if we expect conclusive answers to all the questions Job and his friends have thrown up we are going to be disappointed. There are some answers but also some fundamentally unanswered questions; questions that will never find an answer in this world. it is a huge passage but it all needs to be read together. It will lose its force if I break it up into short bits. So here it is.

 

Perhaps the first thing to notice in the very first verse is that it is the LORD, Yahweh, who is speaking. This is the personal name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob given to Moses at the burning bush. I have been referring to God as the Lord throughout these studies because I reckon that is the way that we commonly think of him. By doing so we tend to confuse God the Father with Jesus, but that is no bad thing. But in fact ever since the beginning of the arguments at the start of chapter 3 he has been spoken of as God or God Almighty. Suddenly the relationship is much closer.

 

Job has been dismayed by not having the felt presence of God with him. He said: “If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling! But if I go to the east, he is not there;
 if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.” Now, suddenly, the Lord is there in front of him in somewhat terrifying fashion.. Not quietly, soothingly, but in the whirlwind. In C. S. Lewis’s famous children books Aslan, the lion, stands for Christ. The children are warned, “ he is not a tame lion”. Our God, the same as Job’s, is not tame.

 

We started study one with 4 questions:

does the cause/effect principle operate in the moral and social world?

has the Lord left us with a basically chaotic world? 

how can we live wisely in this sort of world? and

can we trust in the reliability of God if he presides over this sort of world?

 

To these we must now add a fifth from Elihu’s arguments - are the problems of life caused by the Lord’s need to discipline us for our good? But this last is not considered in these chapters.

 

We have, I think, a clear answer to question 2: yes, this is a chaotic world. most of the first of these chapters is about the chaos of the weather. In many parts of the world the weather does tend to change according to a fairly steady pattern: warmer (or cooler) every day than the day before. It doesn’t work that way in the UK where a weather pattern scarcely exists! There was clearly enough variation in the weather of the land of Uz for it to be described as chaotic. The next chapter adds to that impression of uncontrollable chaos. 6 animals are described. The first 4 are all just about as wild and untameable as they could possibly be. The last 2, the horse and the hawk, though tameable are depicted as fierce and wild. Chaos rules. OK.

 

The trouble is that the systematic theologies and the Bible dictionaries, drawing on a wide range of scripture say something quite different. Things like: “God upholds his creatures in ordered existence … and governs all events, circumstances and free acts of angels and men.” They can, of course, quote a wide range of texts about counting the hairs on our heads and sparrows falling etc. and are quite right in what they say. This is one of the points where the Wisdom literature (Job, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs) challenges the more conventional outlook of the bulk of Scripture. It is a useful and important challenge. God is in control, but we are not God, so to us it all looks thoroughly chaotic as it did to Job and his friends. Some people seem to think they are only being properly spiritual if they relate everything, good or bad, immediately back to the hand of the Lord. But that is not what t

Study 8 : Study 8: Job 32-37

A young man sounds off.

 

The next 5 chapters of the book of Job are rather strange. The discussion between Job and his 3 friends has come to its end. A young man called Elihu speaks up with a 5 chapter long speech, an uninterrupted harangue in fact. Unlike the 3 friends he is an Israelite and he is young. He is not mentioned anywhere else in the book as the others are. All of which makes many people think his contribution is a late addition to the book. Perhaps. But we have it as a part of scripture so we need to look at it and may expect to get something from it.

 

Four main points arise from what he said, of which only one really contributes much to the argument of the book.

1. He is a brash and arrogant young fellow who says things that do not make him a very likeable character;

2. After announcing that he is going to tell the 3 friends what they should have said, he says a great deal that is not significantly very different;

3. His main new argument is that by what has happened God has been training Job, disciplining him to straighten him out – which we may well question given the harshness of what happened to Job;

4. In his last chapter he says things which do serve as a preparation for the following word from the Lord.

 

I am not going to Job all these 5 chapters, you will be glad to hear, but pick out verses from various places to follow the scheme above.

 

1. Arrogant Elihu. Job 32: 6 – 12, 17 – 22; 33: 1 – 3; 34: 1 – 4; 7 – 10b; 36: 1 – 4. Oh dear! Not a nice lad, I think. Fortunately not all, or not many, young folk are like that. Not much to learn there except possibly what not to do and say!

2. Ideas repeated. After claiming to know better Elihu is unable to get away from the basic cause-effect principle that dominated the comments and advice of the 3 friends. Listen to this: JOB 34: 5 – 12, 21 – 28; 36: 5 – 12; 34: 11. They all take us right back to the CEP that we have seen has to be rejected. And now to point 3, which is much, the most important new idea Elihu advances.

3. The discipline of the Lord. We might accept what he says on this subject except we have to remember the appalling multiple disasters that Job has experienced. They make it very difficult to accept the validity of Elihu’s arguments. Here is what he said: JOB 33: 14 – 30; 36: 5 – 16. He thinks that Job is simply experiencing the discipline of the Lord, designed to aid his spiritual life by developing his wisdom. So he says Job 33: 29, 30. Half-truths are always dangerous and this is a half-truth.

The writer to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 12: 5 - 11 “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son. God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it… have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement”

Yes, but surely there are limits to what can be called discipline before it degenerates into abuse. Those who experience difficult childhoods: perhaps the early death of their mother or being sent back home at an early age for schooling and not seeing their parents who are working in another country for many years, being forced to toughen up and become self dependent at an early age, often rise to high position

Study 7 : Job 29-31

Job’s self-assessment.

 

 

 We now come to two long speeches: the first by Job, summarizing his thinking, is 3 chapters long; the second by a new guy, Elihu, is 5 chapters long.

Job cannot have been an old man when the disasters struck him. However long he lived (another 140 years according to the last chapter) he was only middle-aged for he had time to have another complete farming career and a considerable family. But much of what he describes in these chapters is remarkably similar to the common experience of an old person in western culture. Up to about 100 years ago most people in the world only lived in one or two or three places their whole lives long, often one as they grew up and just another subsequent to marriage. Consequently as they grew old they would be surrounded by people they had known for a very long time: family, friends and acquaintances. For many today things are very different. Education and job opportunities take us to live in many different places. Sometimes parents demand a weekly visit but that tends to be a disaster, as it leaves one not really belonging in either the place of residence or the parent’s home area. As a result of this mobility we will often enter old age and retirement surrounded mainly by strangers. The situation Job describes in a totally different culture and for very specific reasons is extraordinarily like that which may be your experience, as in part it is mine, or as it may be yours at some future date.

JOB 29: 1 – 6.

Assuming you are or have been married and had a family you will remember that it was great fun when you were in your prime and they were growing up. We then did all sorts of things: building sand castles, playing with toy trains etc. that we now have no excuse to do!

JOB 29: 7 – 25.

Our experience would have been, in detail, very different from Job’s yet it probably had much the same effect. We probably had a job, which gave us status. We mattered. We were somebody. Even if we had no very exalted role, not in charge of anybody else, we still had a position in some firm or organisation or in the family. We may not have realised it at the time but we drew strength from that sense of significance. But, if like me you are old, you will find it easy to relate to what Job says next.

JOB 30: 1 – 15.

What a magnificent phrase that is: “God has unstrung my bow”. Job no longer has the strength, or the will, to pull the bowstring back far enough to send an arrow far enough to matter. I used to pride myself on my ability to run upstairs two, or even three, steps at a time. No longer. Now an old man I go up sedately one step at a time. That is my equivalent to having my bow unstrung.

Question: if you are getting older – what is your equivalent to the unstrung bow: loss of strength or beauty or what?

More significantly, with retirement often comes a great loss of status. (More in Western societies than in those of the Third world where there is usually some role even the aged are expected to fulfil). No one now looks for your advice; no one looks up to you as someone that matters.

Question: that is not true in all societies. How good is the one in which you live at using the advice and gifts of old folk?

If circumstances mean that you, an older person, no longer live where you spent most of your working life then it may well feel as though you are being mocked by younger people as Job was, even when they are being polite to you.

JOB 30: 16 – 41.

Old age commonly brings aches and pains in joints and muscles! Job thinks of these as the work of God “tossing me about in the storm”. We think about such things in a very different way but the experience is just as real; my right ankle, left knee and left shoulder all ache! It is indeed like being tossed about in a storm.

Unfortunately Job’s final chapter is a bad note to end on, here it is: JOB 31: 1 – 40.

Each of us will have a different life story to tell. As we get older we tend to reminisce mo

Study 6 : Job 26-28 Glorious Wisdom.

This study

falls into 2 parts. First there are the chapters after number 23 and up to chapter

28. But I am going to skip over these. They do not add a great deal to what we have

already thought about and, indeed, appear somewhat muddled. So much so that many

scholars think they have got scrambled somewhere between Job and us. Two bits are

worth reading. The first is as much for amusement as anything else! Job has already

called his friends “miserable comforters” and he now unleashes a real blast of sarcasm

against them in 26:1–4..

 

Much more

positively Job once again states that nothing will make him give up his faith in

the Lord and his righteousness. Theses are words worth hearing in these days when

so many are prepared to give up their faith and thus their integrity for the thinnest

of reasons.  Hear that in 27: 1 – 6.

 

But then the

steady progression of argument between Job and his friends is suddenly interrupted

by a beautiful poem in chapter 28. At first sight it seems to cut across the main

argument of the book and not to be about the same sort of things at all, but in

fact it takes us back to and reminds us what the whole book is really about. This

is indicated by the last verse of this chapter repeating the main points of the

very first chapter of the book. The argument in this chapter 28 is so subtle we

reach v 12 before we are told what the subject of the poem, and therefore of the

book really is. Though even before we learn that we can still understand the writing

as an extended metaphor of all the to-ing and fro-ing that has occurred so far.

Here are those first 11 verses of chapter 28.

Isn’t that

magnificent? Just like miners, Job and his friends have been hacking away in the

dark hoping to find some precious idea that will light up the gloom that surrounds

Job. Neither the lion nor the eagle can get anywhere near what the miners are after.

It is only mankind that has any interest in things like this.

 

We finally

learn what it is all about in v12. And this is expanded on in the rest of the chapter:

first with a great statement of praise of how important it is and then the statement

that it is ultimately a spiritual attribute and can therefore only be obtained from

the Lord. Here is the rest of this chapter.

 

 

Wisdom is

a very important Biblical concept that is much neglected so we will explore it in

some detail. The word ‘wisdom’ is used in several different ways in the Bible of

which we are interested in three:

living well in the practical life

of every day, equating to the Way of the NT,God’s knowledge and creative power,the personification of this second

meaning of Wisdom, with the NT revealing Jesus is that personification.

There are

associated concepts of: the Sage, the Wise Man (or Woman), and the books of Wisdom

(Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs and some Psalms; also Sirach and the

Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocrypha).

 

We, like Job,

are most interested in the first of these: how can we live well in this difficult

world. There is plenty of wisdom, knowledge and understanding all around us. We

use it everyday when we watch the TV or go out in a car, but none of that sort of

wisdom says anything about the meaning of life and how we can best navigate all

the difficult situations, which are an inevitable part of living. In short, that

sort of wisdom is not about what I have called living well. To reach that goal,

i) in my list, will mean that we have to understand ii) God’s knowledge in Creation

and iii) the role of Jesus in imparting wisdom to us. None of this is being wise

in any sense of becoming a graduate, or getting a Master’s, let alone gaining a

Doctorate, in either a secular field of study or even a Biblical one. No, it is

something well within the reach of each and everyone of us. It may be a little old

lady, like my lovely, long dead, grandmother, who is the wise person in this Biblical

definition of Wisdom

Study 5 : Job 20-23

Job begins to see his way forward.

In chapter 20 Zophar is clearly convinced that Job is a sinner and is suffering as a direct consequence. He doesn’t say so directly but it is the obvious implication of what he says. In the Bible sin is almost always a result of how somebody has failed to live well in relationship to other people. It is seldom about a failure to live well directly towards God by failing to worship correctly or failing to follow the correct prescribed religious observances. So Zophar criticizes Job in his actions towards other people. Zophar raises another and more difficult question. He seems to suggest that there is a major difference between good and evil in how long they last. He says that evil is inherently short lived, unlike good that lasts. Well, he doesn’t actually say that good lasts longer but that, again, would seem to be strongly implied by what he says. Listen out for those two implications as I read the chapter.

 

Question:       what do you think? Is it true that those who delight in evil things know that they do not last? Are they always looking over their shoulders wondering whether they will be found out? Are good things always more enjoyable than those that are not good?

Answer:        that is a really difficult one, but it is worth thinking about. Think of the things that you do. Is it true that the enjoyment of the good lasts longer than the enjoyment of the not so good? I think it is because I am happy to remember the good things I have done but always try to forget the bad things. But that is a personal opinion with which not everone would agree. Have you got a friend you could argue it out with?

 

In the next chapter, 21, Job vigorously repudiates the implied accusation against him. He points out that some people behave very badly but God does not punish them. He reckons that we all, good and bad alike, have to live in the middle of the NCL, the Normal Chaos of Life. Here is chapter 21.

 

I introduced the idea of the NCL early in these studies, which may have surprised or even shocked you! My justification for doing so is here in this chapter and will be confirmed in chapter 23. Very often preachers and teachers will take a very simplistic line: good things happen to good people, bad things to bad people. This may be very subtly done. When we were teaching in a school in Pakistan many of the staff would tell the kids: your parents are doing good things so no harm will come to them. They had a difficult time explaining what had happened when one of the parents was killed by a falling rock on a straightforward local walk. The NCL exists, as Job says.

 

In the next chapter Eliphaz  accuses Job of wrongdoing, particularly to the defenceless – widows and orphans. I will read that now. READ.  I find that accusation interesting because we have been watching a TV drama series, Downton Abbey. It tells the story of a large household belonging to a senior nobleman, the Earl of Grantham. He is portrayed as having to take the decisions for a great many people, family, friends and servants. It is apparent that in many things, because he is the controlling boss man, he takes views that are strikingly different from those of just about everybody else around him. Perhaps this is what Eliphaz is highlighting here. Job had a huge household, before the disasters hit him, and had to make many decisions, being the controlling boss to an even greater extent than the Earl of Grantham. So, for instance, we read in v6 that he took clothes from the poor to guarantee payment of a debt. Faced with conflicting demands on his resources Job has opted for the rich man’s solution. He has been taking a rich man’s view of what is right and what is wrong and needs to revise his thinking. So we read in v13 – 14, “Do you think the deep darkness hides you from God? / Do thick clouds cover his eyes , as he walks around heaven’s dome high above the earth.” And in 23 – 26 “If you return to

Study 4 : Job 16 - 19 Job continues to struggle.

In these chapters Job says some

truly astonishing things that we may otherwise overlook.  To give you an idea of what is to come these

are: in chapters 16 and 17 he reckons that he has been attacked by God, which

leads to him saying that he has been abused by God; and then after a further

statement from Bildad in chapter 18, which implies that he, Job, must be a

wicked man, Job says in chapter 19 that although God is against him he has a

strong hope that he will be able to state his case before the heavenly court

and he hopes to be supported by an effective advocate. Who exactly that advocate

will be is not clear to him – though perhaps it is to us!

First, the relatively easy

passage, Job 16:1–5, where Job is asking himself how he would do if he was trying

to comfort a friend who was suffering as he is suffering. Here it is.

If someone else is suffering it is

so easy to stack up a heap of conventional phrases such as ‘you will soon feel

better’ even when we know that our friend is dying, or, when we visit someone

in hospital ‘cheer up, I’ve brought you some grapes’ which we then proceed to

eat while our friend cannot face food of any sort, and so on.

Question: how do you do as a

comforter? How would you rate yourself?

Answer: up to you, of course. Paul

never actually lists comforting as a gift. He does tell the Christians in

Corinth that we should all be good at comforting because we claim as our Father

God the ‘Father of compassion and God of all comfort’, but I do think some

people are given a very real gift to say the right and helpful thing more than

others do when faced with suffering. Some people are more adept at saying the

wrong thing, than the right and helpful thing when someone is having a very

hard time. If you are a gifted comforter make sure you use your gift as much as

possible.

Now we come to the difficult

passage 16:6 – 17. Job says his God is his enemy, his attacker and that there

is such a thing as divine violence and abuse. Here it is.

Is it really so, or is Job just

lashing out with words in his frustration and bitterness at what has happened

to him, and his, for no reason he can begin to understand. I have been

fortunate enough to live a peaceful life without any major traumas but many of

you listening or reading this may well be shut in, unable to get out much

because of some major trauma in your life or struggling in other ways, so I

must be careful what I say from a position of inexperience. There are other

statements like this in scripture. The Psalmist says ‘Your arrows have pierced me, 
 and your hand has come down on me’, but then goes on

to say ‘because of my sin’. Lamentations chapter 3 talks at length of the

violence of God but the writer cannot believe that will go on for ever because

‘of his unfailing love’ and traces the problem back to sin. Job never does

that. There will eventually be comfort for Job when we get to the last chapter

of the book. But there was no comfort for The Jewish members of God’s ancient

people who died in the holocaust less than 100 years ago.

There are, I think, 3 lessons here.

In extremes of anguish we may, and even

perhaps should, shout at God without losing our faith and our standing before

him;God is with us, as he was with Job, and

will be in the succeeding chapters, whatever may happen;Usually, but not always, there is light at

the end of the tunnel. We are always subject to the NCL, the normal chaos of

living. That is the way God created the world. We are in that world and

therefore have to accept that world the way he designed it – even when we do

not understand the design principles.Jesus taught us to think of God as our loving

heavenly Father, contrasting sharply with the most obvious OT picture of a

creator/ruler/judge, even though there God is also a covenant God of steadfast

love and faithfulness. Job evidently thought mainly of the creator/ruler/judge

God and could not resolve th