The Bible Recap - Day 015 (Job 40-42) - Year 3

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Today, we wrapped up the story of Job. For several chapters we've been reading about how Job wants to have a conversation with God, and yesterday, God gave Job a lengthy response. Today, we got to see Job's very brief reply, where he basically just said, I think I'm going to keep my mouth shut. So Job was humbled and didn't want to speak, but God had asked Job to answer him, and he didn't. So God pushes a little more.

In 48, God said, will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? How often do we get so frustrated by our circumstances that we carry a subtle undercurrent of belief that God is cruel for letting that thing happen to us? If we really boil it down, that's the same thing as calling God a bad unjust God.

It's basically the belief that I would make a better God. Because if I were God, I would never have done that and he's wrong and unjust for choosing to do things that way. God points out Job's heart attitude that only became evident through his suffering. In 41-11, God also points out Job's entitlement. Job glorified God, he made sacrifices, he honored God with his life and his actions,

but it seems like maybe he valued his own righteous acts a little too highly, perhaps believing they put God in his debt. The sins of pride and entitlement are disgusting, even when they're attached to our so-called good deeds, and God is kind to purge those things from his children. In chapter 42, Job Repents, your version of the Bible may have shown him saying, I despise myself. The Hebrew word used for despise here, which I won't try to pronounce because it actually sounds like a curse word, is used elsewhere to mean to withdraw or to reject, like I withdraw from myself. The tone it carries is more about humility than shame. There's a huge difference.

Shame feels like an accusation about who you are as a person, someone who's undeserving of love. Whereas humility is rightly viewing who you are, as a person who is loved despite being undeserving. Humility is the narrow zone where you're not building yourself up or beating yourself up, because you realize it's not about you. It's immediately clear that Job has been humbled by reflecting on all the things

God has pointed out to him. After Job repents, God finally addresses Job's friends. In fact, he rebukes them. So we finally get an official confirmation on how wrong these guys were. We knew it from what God said in the first chapter, but it's good to hear God say it to them. I really wish Elihu had been here for this part of the conversation, but most of the commentaries I read suggested he wasn't there, which could potentially be why God only rebuked the original three friends. We can only hope God had a word with him one-on-one at some point. In 42.8, God says that those three friends haven't spoken of him what is right. We've been talking all along about how a lot of what they said

about God is true, but not all of it, obviously. Do you remember how they kept saying they were delivering the very words of God to Job, and how they were visited by a spirit that told them these things? It takes me all the way back to the first chapter of this book where God is addressing the sons of God. Remember how we learned on day two that the phrase sons of God is often a way to refer to angels, and in this specific instance, fallen angels who are enemies of God.

If Job's friends were telling the truth about being visited by spirits who spoke these things, doesn't it seem to make sense that those spirits would be evil spirits? Fallen angels masquerading as angels of light? doesn't it seem to make sense that those spirits would be evil spirits, fallen angels, masquerading as angels of light? Whether Job's friends were lying intentionally, or whether they were deceived by these spirits and were just passing those deceptions along to Job, their statements weren't from God. And what they've missed the mark on primarily here is God's heart. Because if they imagine those were God's words they were speaking, it's clear they've viewed his heart wrongly. In the midst of all the true things they were saying about God, their speech was peppered with lies about him.

That's one reason why it's important for us to look for the full view of God, like we're doing in our daily reading here. Instead of just plucking one or two attributes that we want to hone in on to the exclusion of the others. That's how we end up painting a two-dimensional picture of God, but we don't even put him in a box, we put him in a square. In 42-10, God tells Job's friends to apologize, and then God tells Job to forgive them and offer a sacrifice for their sins. Maybe this was the final test for Job.

Had he really been humbled, had his heart really changed? Forgive-ness does not come from a heart that holds on to bitterness and entitlement. So this act of repentance on their part and forgiveness on Job's part is one way that we see that Job and his friends have grown here. We see God's work to purify and humble them all

and we see God working to restore, not just relationships, but everything in Job's life. Job gets it all back in a double portion. Now, regardless of your gender, I hope you didn't gloss over the numbers and genealogies at the end of this book, because women have a moment here. Men, there are lots of moments for you in the whole rest of the Bible, but for women, this is a rare moment where the females are named in the lineage, but not the males. That is the exact opposite of what most ancient genealogies did. So enjoy it women.

There will be plenty of moments where the ancient cultures ignore you, so hold on to this when you feel like scripture overlooks you. And not only did the women get named instead of the males, but they also got an inheritance along with the males, which was relatively unheard of in those days. This was a gesture of extreme generosity on Job's part, which also revealed a lot of humility. What was your God shot for the day? I saw his heart for restoration. He not only restored Job's fortunes and his family, but he also restored Job's relationships

with his friends, and most importantly, God restored Job's view of God and himself. He set things right. If you've ever felt distant or alienated from God, you know how disorienting it is, how paralyzing it can be. And here's the God who drew near to the very people who viewed him wrongly, misunderstood him, told lies about him, and accused him of being cruel, and restored them in relationship with each other and himself. I think Joe probably valued that a lot more than 6,000 camels because I think

Joe finally figured out that he's where the joy is. Tomorrow will be starting the second half of Genesis. We're linking to a short video overview in the show notes, so check that out if you have eight minutes to spare. And if you're using our plan in the Bible app, this video will also be linked for you at the start of tomorrow's reading. Uh oh, did your podcast not load today? Of course not. You're listening to it right now. But someday, that's going to happen to you.

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That's our source app, and it has the least flitches for most people. Number four, go to our YouTube page. YouTube.com, forward slash the Bible recap. It has the whole year of content, but if you're searching, you may have to enter all three digits of the day, so day 005 or day 023. So now you have 0000 excuses for missing a date. You're welcome!