Category Archives: bible

Job 38

The storm arrives. Whether literal or not, it surely must have felt all too real for Job. We can’t pretend to know how God speaks to others, so one reader’s imagination is as good as the next. Job got a … Continue reading

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Job 37

The literary purpose of Elihu’s final words here open the door to what God intends to say when He speaks about this whole thing. To see the whole point of all this, we take a moment to review how we … Continue reading

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Job 36

Context is everything. To our Western eyes trained to read literally, this chapter could seem no different from what the trio said. However, Elihu has established already that he is not on their path. Thus, the same words in the … Continue reading

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What’s So Good about It?

Today is called Good Friday on the traditional Christian calendar. One person regards one day holier than other days, and another regards them all alike. Each must be fully convinced in his own mind. (Romans 14:5 NET) I am not … Continue reading

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Job 35

The moral reasoning of Job’s culture operates on multiple levels simultaneously. There simply is nothing to parallel this in Western Civilization. Job and the trio were guilty of contextual confusion in their debates. To be more precise, Job’s friends were … Continue reading

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Job 34

Elihu endeavors to use the same linguistic manners as Job and his friends. So he offers words on their level and invites them to assess carefully in a wider context whether the things they have said make any sense. Elihu … Continue reading

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Job 33

Elihu begins by noting he claims no special privilege or revelation. He appeals to Job as a fellow creature of God and does not accuse him of sin any worse than his own. Would Job listen to the words and … Continue reading

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Job 32

People in the Ancient Near East would recognize that most moral questions can be answered differently on different levels. They were untroubled by apparent paradoxes and reversals of good and evil when viewing the exact same issue from different contexts. … Continue reading

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Job 31

Let’s recall that the early chapters state Job did not sin against God in his words. That doesn’t mean he was without error in the sense of how his words affected others. We recognize that the elder trio provoked him … Continue reading

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A Higher Power

Daniel 3: The Hebrews in Nebuchadnezzar’s Furnace Ancient Hebrew culture was contemplative. You were supposed to read or hear something and think about it, extrapolating and expanding on it. You were training the mind to obey something much higher than … Continue reading

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