Textbook vs real

Sorry for the delay between posts. First I had a visit from Mr Jon Tyrrell, who is what the French sometimes refer to as a 'blogstopper'*, then I moved country.

Anyway, another reason that I'm enjoying Job is that it's pretty explicitly a conversation between theoretical (or 'textbook') beliefs, and real, back-against-the-wall, ruthlessly honest relating to God.

Job's friends maintain that he must have done something to deserve his suffering because that's how the world works: people who do bad things suffer, people who do good things prosper. In Job's response he argues that he has done no wrong (chapter 10), and that in fact he sees the wicked prospering all over the place (chapter 12) so his friends' theory is in need of some pretty drastic revision.

Interestingly, when Job starts complaining (chapter 3) his friends' first response is that when others were in trouble, he was the one to comfort them (chapter 4 v3-5), so it should be pretty easy for him to apply the counsel he gave in those days to his own case now. We all know the theory's much easier to apply when it's someone else who's at the sharp end right?

Eliphaz is particularly smug in dishing out the platitudes, with his "As for me, I would seek God, and to God I would commit my cause" (Chapter 5 v8, emphasis mine). I can almost feel Job wanting to punch him in the face at this point, maybe it was only the 'loathsome and painful sores' he was covered in that stopped him. I can feel a little bit like this if someone hits me with Romans 8 v28 just after something's gone majorly wrong. I've little doubt that Paul was writing the truth, but on those moments I feel more in need of Job's (and Marvin Gaye's)  "What's going on?", than a beautiful truth thrown in from someone who doesn't know what I'm going through.

* loosely translated it refers to someone whose presence is so enjoyable that it stops you blogging.

Job as prophet - further evidence

Just a quick note to finish off my thought process from yesterday.

In the verses which immediately follow Job's question re: life after death, he could easily be talking on behalf of the incarnate Jesus (especially 1st bit) and/or restored humanity (especially 2nd bit). Get your laughing gear round this:

(1sit bit)
All the days of my service I would wait until my release should come.
You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands.

(2nd bit)
For then you would (not) number my steps, you would not keep watch over my sin;
My transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.

We can't really blame Job for feeling like God is very much "watching over" his sin. He's going through hell (figuratively - to the extent that he seems to want to go there literally), and his friends are telling him it must be because of his sin. You can kind of imagine God listening and thinking "Ooh, covering over iniquity. Now there's a thought."

The point is that the thing that Job's pining after is our reality. He (again unwittingly it seems) gets a glimpse of the age to come. This is why reading people like Job and Jeremiah gives me such heart. God honoured their earnest (if tempestuous) pursuit of him by giving them glimpses of what He was up to. It gives me hope that if we are earnest and real in our pursuit of God, He'll maybe show us some of what the age to come's got in store. Whether we'll recognise it as such is another (and possibly less important) question.

Thanks for reading. I should probably note at this point that the Bible translation I'm quoting is the New Revised Standard Version. In the quote above, the (not) is there (without brackets) in the English, but a footnote tells me some versions of the Hebrew don't have it. I think the quote can work either way.

If mortals die, will they live again?

I'm gonna start in chapter 14 of Job, cos that's where this starts - and by "this" I mean, well, this; what you're reading now, and whatever comes after it. It may not be life, the universe, and everything, but it's where I am now, and that's all the explanation you're getting.

It starts, naturally, with death.

Job wants it - a bit - and seems to be complaining about it too. Chapter 14 includes his thoughts on how unfair it is that trees that get cut down can regrow, but "mortals lie down, and do not rise again". Things get really interesting though, when he asks the question in the title of this post:

If mortals die, will they live again?

BOOM! There's a first glance of what I promised last post: Job the prophet. We all know the answer - of course they will! Jesus Christ, the Son of Man (his words, not mine), and not just him of course. He was the firstborn from the grave, and he himself told us that if we believe in him, though we will die, yet we will live.

I think I'll spend a bit more time in the verses that follow, but what I'm getting at is what I closed with from Hebrews 11 in the last post. Jesus is what these guys were pointing to. Job was trying to make the point that life (and death) is unfair on us, but he unwittingly pointed towards a time when the ultimate victory of death would be overthrown - and by the Son of Man, a mortal.

I'm off out now to listen to jazz, cos jazz is good (sometimes). Thanks for reading.

An introduction (to who-knows-what).

A few hours ago I was in the mood for reading Job.

I must say I have a weakness for the gloomy prophets (maybe we don't often think of Job as a prophet, but that's one of the points of this post, as we'll see). Jeremiah's one of my favourite characters in the Bible, and I think I'll like Job for a similar reason - I love what they can get away with.

I think over the last 5 years or so, honesty has become more and more important to me in my relationship with God - particularly as my family has been through the mill a bit during that period. It's been vital that I've felt able to express my true feelings to God, safe in the knowledge that He can take it, and that as I beat against him, He's holding me fast. As a little example let me share this George Herbert poem that spoke to me so much in the weeks and months after my mum died:

Ah my dear angry Lord,
Since Thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve:
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament, and love.

So the appeal of Job and Jeremiah (and George) for me, is that it's like the pain and suffering they go through gives them the need (and the right?) to be frank with God about how they feel He's treated them. They don't run from the place of pain, or even from death, and I firmly believe that their faithfulness in occupying those places left us some precious treasures to enlighten our understanding, and to help us in our own troubles. Neither of them are mentioned by name in the "Hall of Faith" in Hebrews 11, but surely the words of verse 39-40 hold true for them:

Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, without us, be made perfect.

That last bit is intriguing, isn't it? I'll probably come back to it in time (certainly hope so), but that'll do for now as an introduction to some thoughts I'm gonna share as I read Job.