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Week 34 Job

The whole big middle section of the book is a debate between Job and Eliphaz Bildad & Zophar – Eliphaz…Job…Bildad…Job…Zophar…Job. Like that. And as the debate goes on it goes from okay-to-bad-to-worse. If at first EB&Z came to console Job they ended up disagreeing mocking ridiculing and degrading. In the end everyone piled on Job. So chapter 30 is Job thinking-out-loud about where he’s at now:
I am mocked by those who are younger than I
They despise me and won’t come near me
They oppose me to my face
They send me sprawling
They lay traps in my path
They hold me in contempt.
When you think about it Job’s complaints about his friends are probably justified. But then he starts praying and says six things to the Lord that are a bit harder to excuse:
I cry to you…but you don’t answer me
I stand before you, and you don’t bother to look
You have become cruel toward me
You persecute me with your great power
You throw me into the whirlwind and destroy me in the storm
You are sending me to my death.
I figure Job might get a pass on his first couple of comments.
But numbers 3-4-5-6 really move him into the Red Zone.
I guess we all feel sorry for Job. And I guess we can agree that his friends are duds. But calling the Lord a cruel destructive persecutor sounds like one step too far.

Note: quotes from Job 30:1, 10, 12, 15, 20-23 (NLT)

Week 33 Job

A lot of the time a bible reader is reading so he can collect bible data; be bible-informed. But the bible’s a religious book so you can’t figure on getting just raw information all the time.
Job 28 is one of those places where there’s more-than-just data. Not that 28 begins that way. The first eleven verses discuss the topic of mining – silver gold iron copper precious-stones. The idea is that a thing of value takes work and skill and effort to get…but then you’ve got it!
Wisdom is the opposite.
Job asks: do people know where to find wisdom? And he replies: no one knows where to find it, for it is not found among the living.
Job asks again: do people know where to find wisdom? He says: it is hidden from the eyes of all humanity.
A diamond is rock-solid material and if I look hard enough I’ll find it.
But wisdom isn’t a thing I can find. It’s as immaterial as the temperature of the air.
Job says that the Lord: saw (wisdom) and measured it. So it was visible to the Lord; measurable to him. But not to me. So it sounds like a futile search. But Job doesn’t give up. He finishes by saying: the fear of the Lord is true wisdom.
A direct search for wisdom is a wild goose chase.
I have to find wisdom indirectly – by fearing the Lord.

Note: quotes from Job 28:12-13, 27, 28 (NLT)

Week 33 Job

One of the basic differences of opinion between Job and Eliphaz Bildad & Zophar was this:
Job thought he wasn’t guilty of offending the Lord.
EB&Z thought he was.
Job and EB&Z all agreed that Job was suffering.
What they couldn’t agree about was why.
The big question: Why Is Job Suffering?
It’s possible that before chapter one ever happened Job and EB&Z might have agreed with the idea that if you did bad things then you’d suffer. It might have been a pretty common idea.
If EB&Z had started with that idea – that when a person was suffering he was suffering because he was an evil person – then even though they couldn’t discover in any evidential way whether Job actually was an evil person made no difference. Since Job was suffering and since evil people suffered therefore Job was evil.
Eliphaz was so sure that Job was an offender that he said things like this:
You must have lent money to your friend and then kept the clothing he gave you as a pledge
You must have refused water for the thirsty
You must have sent widows away without helping them
Eliphaz floated these scenarios about Job as being most likely true because he knew that only evil people suffered.
Meanwhile Job was wracking his brain trying to make sense of this common assumption that – at least in his case – couldn’t possibly be true.

Note: quotes from Job 22:6, 7, 9 (NLT)

Week 33 Job

It’s Job’s voice talking in chapters 9-10 and it’s a pretty hard section to absorb. Job seems to be heading for trouble.
He knows very well there’s a huge power differential between the Lord and him. He knows that in a Q&A contest: he could not answer (the Lord) once in a thousand times. There is no contest.
But Job still makes some pretty unflattering and questionable comments about the Lord.
Things like…
The Lord would never listen to me
The Lord attacks me without reason
Innocent or wicked, it is all the same to (the Lord)…He destroys both the blameless and the wicked
He laughs when a plague suddenly kills the innocent
The whole earth is in the hands of the wicked, and God blinds the eyes of the judges and lets them be unfair
Even if I were to wash myself with soap and cleanse my hands with lye to make them absolutely clean, (the Lord) would plunge me into a muddy ditch
And there’s more content like that in chapter ten.
If Job hated the Lord he’d likely say things like that. But whatever all else Job might hate he doesn’t hate the Lord. When his wife maniacally advised him to curse-God-and-die Job said: should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?
Still…even though Job’s belief & faith & heart are all in the right place his tongue is saying some crazily-dangerous things.

Note: quotes from Job 9:3 (NASB), 9:16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 30-31, 3:9-10 (NLT)

Week 32 Job

Yesterday I was wondering about the story in Job where the Lord conferred with his angels (and with Satan) about in-world events.
It seemed kind of ominous to realize that there might be a whole other dimension of life and activity going on that was a) invisible to me and b) could have an effect on me. It would be totally different to have an invisible dimension that was irrelevant. That would almost be like having no extra-dimension at all. But if extra-dimensional conferencing potentially had a real-life impact then that would be worthwhile info to have (I might or might not like it – but there’s no doubt that – if it was true – it would be useful intelligence).
Anyway I remembered another story I read back in mid-May that was pretty similar to Job 1. It was the story of the prophet Micaiah and a vision-type experience he had. He said: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the armies of heaven on his right and on his left. So…the Job story doesn’t have a throne and the armies-of-heaven. But just like Job there’s a discussion going on – in this case about what action to take in Ahab’s upcoming battle against Ramothgilead. So there’s a conference. Ideas are suggested. Recommendations are made. Outcomes are decided.
With both Job and Michaiah events inside-the-material world aren’t just randomly happening – they’re being affected by decisions outside-the-material world.

Note: quote from 2 Chronicles 18:18 (NLT)

Week 32 Job

The intro to Job’s story says: one day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan the Accuser came with them.
Which really made me wonder.
It looks like what happened was that the Lord was somewhere (exact location unknown) and his angels came to meet with him. And Satan showed up too.
I don’t know much about Satan but I know he’s considered to be The Big Enemy. So I wonder why he was there in a gathering of angels. I wonder how he got in.
Anyway the Lord asked him: where have you come from?
And Satan replied: I have been going back and forth across the earth, watching everything that’s going on.
I wonder what to make of the Lord talking with Satan. Wonder why Satan was surveilling the world. Wonder if that was something he does.
There’s a lucky cross-reference in my bible from Job 1 to a verse in the NT: watch out for attacks from the Devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour.
Peter implies that Satan’s checking-out-the-earth function isn’t like a vacationer admiring the Grand Canyon. He says that Satan is: a) an enemy; b) just like a wild lion; c) in hunting mode; and d) looking for victims to kill.
What Peter says helps. But the story in Job still leaves me wondering.

Note: quote from Job 1:6, 7 and 1 Peter 5:8 (NLT)

Week 32 Malachi

I think it’s kind of normal for a bible reader to have – after he’s read 378-pages of prophetic warnings – a hopeful expectation that the small group of Jews who have come home from Babylon to start over again have…you know…learned-their-lesson.
But Malachi doesn’t give you that feeling. Right away he starts recording observations about current religious practices. The pattern is pretty simple: the Lord makes a comment and the people reply by disagreeing with the Lord’s comment.
A good example is where the Lord says he loved the people and they say: how have you loved us?
In another example the Lord says they despised his name: how have we ever despised your name?
The Lord says they offered defiled sacrifices: how have we defiled the sacrifices?
The Lord says X and they say Y…
Why has the Lord abandoned us?
How have we wearied him?
How can we return when we have never gone astray?
When did we ever cheat you?
How have we spoken against you?
It’s probably safe to say that the returned exiles had learned some lessons. For example they didn’t seem to be worshipping Molech any more. Or going up to the high-places. Still…Malachi – one of the last of the prophets – closes the OT leaving you with a strong sense that Israel still had a number of lessons to learn.

Note: quotes from Malachi 1:2, 6, 7 2:14, 17 3:7, 8, 13 (NLT)

Week 32 Zechariah

In chapter seven men come and ask Zechariah: should we continue to mourn and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction, as we have done for so many years?
It seems like a straightforward enough question. You’d figure Zechariah’s answer-options would be either YES or NO.
Should we keep fasting? YES.
Should we keep fasting? NO.
But Zechariah doesn’t say YES or NO. Instead he’s off-on-a-tangent telling them there’s a problem with the quality of their fast: in your holy festivals, you don’t think about (the Lord) but only of pleasing yourselves.
It can’t be a simple YES or NO. It’s an answer conditioned by a circumstance.
Should we keep fasting? YES…if you can figure out how to do it right.
Should we keep fasting? NO…not if you’re going to keep doing it this way.
Let’s say a guy is doing dead-lifts and he’s using bad technique by bending his back. He comes to me and asks: should I keep training? Well I can’t really answer either YES or NO because there’s a glaring problem that directly affects the answer.
NO you should quit training (if you’re going to keep using that unhealthy technique).
YES keep training (but only if you correct your technique).
You can’t answer a non-straightforward question straightforwardly. You have to straighten up the question first.
Before what’s-the-answer comes what’s-the-real-question?

Note: quotes from Zechariah 7:3, 6 (NLT)

Week 32 Zechariah

There are eight visions in a row at the start of Zechariah’s book. Eight visions seemed like quite a few to me and I wondered where Zechariah would rank on the Total Number of Prophetic Visions Scale. Pretty high I’d guess.
As I read-through I was also wondering exactly what-all benefit Zechariah got from his visions. You’d tend to think that when a prophet had a vision-experience he’d gain some insight & understanding. But as I was reading I realized that these visions were pretty heavy on the perplexity side of things. And not just for me but for Zechariah because he asked a bunch of questions about what the visions meant. Even after re-reading them and – I think – figuring out a couple of things I still ended up mostly in the dark.
For now I’m just jotting down a couple of ideas about visions that I think are fairly accurate:
Visions are meant to be helpful & illuminating
But…some elements of visions aren’t too illuminating
The not-totally-illuminating visions – even when they do give me a bit of illumination –leave me with knowledge gaps
I’m guessing that some of these knowledge gaps might be permanent mental dead-spaces that I’ll have to live with
Some knowledge gaps might shrink as I gain more information or skill or smarts
Others gaps might only shrink over – maybe – long stretches of time as more events unfold & history moves along.
Which means I’ll have to be cautious not to speculate on visions.

Week 32 Haggai & Zechariah

When I read Haggai and Zechariah one-after-the-other I realized that both men dated some of their prophesies to the second year of the Persian king Darius (they even specified the month and the day). Haggai said that he prophesied on (Y:M:D) 2:6:1, on 2:7:21 and then again on 2:9:24.
By itself that’s not too interesting and didn’t catch my attention but when I got to Zechariah I noticed that he prophesied on 2:8:?, and 2:11:24.
That means both of the prophets were speaking to the people in Jerusalem during the exact same time period. They even kind of tag-teamed their messages in this order: Haggai-Haggai-Zechariah-Haggai-Zechariah – over a period of about six months.
Not only that – I fortunately noticed a cross-reference to Ezra that reminded me of something I read way back in May: at that time the prophets Haggai and Zechariah…prophesied in the name of the God of Israel to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem. Zerubbabel…and Jeshua…responded by beginning the task of rebuilding the Temple of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them and helped them.
So I got two good reminders today:
1) a bible-reader can sometimes unexpectedly discover bible characters who knew each other (for all I know Ezra’s Zerubbabel & Jeshua might have had lunch with Haggai & Zechariah)
2) hundreds of pages separating bible books don’t necessarily mean hundreds of years of time-separation.

Note: the dating notes are in Haggai 1:1, 2:1, 2:10 & Zechariah 1:1, 1:7. Quote from Ezra 5:1-2 (NLT)