Job: God's response

The key to God's response to Job's questioning about his suffering is in the first sentence (notably, a question, of a series of questions):

'Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?' (38.2)

The friends have accused Job of speaking without knowledge repeatedly (though they are guilty of the same offence), and Job's assertion of his blamelessness is based on his knowledge of his own situation. But the point is, Job doesn't have the knowledge to understand God's actions. The reader, via the prologue section where Satan is given permission to afflict Job, already has knowledge of Satan's testing of Job that he himself does not have. God's repeated questions to Job firstly reflect Job's questioning of God, and secondly draw Job's attention to all the things in the wider universe, beyond simply his own suffering, that he does not understand: from the foundations of the earth (38.4), the boundaries of the sea (38.8), the dawning of each day (38.12), the constellations (38.31), the calving of the does (39.1) and the callousness of the ostrich (39.13-18). The point is, there is so much going on in the world that we don't even consider, let alone affect or govern. Part of our sense of entitlement to know and understand now why suffering has come into our lives is rooted in our proud desire to be 'like God', just as Eve was tempted back in Genesis 3. But, just like the unfathomable details of creation, these things are beyond our knowledge - because we are not God!

Job has demanded justice from God, and complained that his righteous living should have protected him, but God shows him that he can't comprehend justice on a global scale: 'Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low... Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you.' (40.12-14) Job has to embrace his dependence on God, because then he will know the joy of salvation.

Job is humbled and awed by the Lord's revelation. He confesses and repents: 'I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted... Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me; which I did not know.' (42.2-3)

The conclusion of the book shows that God gave Job 'twice as much as he had before' (42.10). His community is re-established as his three friends are humbled and need Job's mediation (ironically as they perhaps sought to be mediators for Job themselves). The ESV study Bible notes that Job ends up receiving comfort primarily through his matured relationship with the Lord. Job's comfort does not lie in getting the answers to his questions about his own suffering and the wider concept of justice, but in knowledge of God's character, the security that everything is in His hands.

Matthew's gospel: knowing and doing

There is a constant contrast in Matthew's gospel with the people who know the Scriptures, meet Jesus, listen to His teaching and do nothing about it, with those who believe and obey. What marks out Jesus immediately when He is in the wilderness and, just before this, in His baptism, is His perfect obedience to the Father and His use of the Scriptures to affect His practical actions. He is baptized to 'fulfil all righteousness'(Matt 3:15). When tempted, He used the Scripture to blunt the weapons of the enemy and, through His fasting and refusal to give in to Satan's demands, He showed the practical impact the Word had on His life.

The amazing dynamic of Jesus' healing ministry grew out of His understanding of His role as the Messiah, defined by the prophets, such as Isaiah, quoted in Matt 4:15-16. Jesus knew He had the blessing of God His Father, and this knowledge and anointing of the Holy Spirit fuelled His hands-on ministry. I wonder if sometimes we know so much about who we are in Christ, and we know that we have the Holy Spirit, and yet we allow ourselves to be held back. You don't often see dynamic ministries like Jesus had, and perhaps we should question why not. Jesus is alive today to work through us! The picture Jesus gives of His people being salt and light both speak and convey the impact the people of God should have on those around them, and it is 'your good works' that have this impact and 'give glory' to the Father (Matt 5:16). It's not going to be the theological qualifications of Jesus' followers that have an impact; it's the radical behaviour that results from right understanding of who they follow.

One of Jesus' big criticisms of the people's religion was that they practiced righteousness 'before other people in order to be seen by them' (Matt 6:1). God's glory was not the motive. Jesus said they will have 'no reward'. In a particularly chilling teaching, Jesus says "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty work in your name? And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.'"(Matt 7:21-23) The point is not to simply try to do impressive miracles or good deeds, but to genuinely serve God with our lives and actions, not just heaping up knowledge about what is true without it ever affecting our behaviour. The well-known story of the man who built his house on the rock (Matt 7:24-26) is all about hearing Jesus' words and doing them.

The Pharisees and scribes come across as a sorry group. They know the letter of the law, but when the long-awaited messiah comes, they do not believe in Him. It is the tax collectors and sinners who respond to Jesus in faith (see Matt 9:9-13). They are the ones who recognise the truth and Jesus changes their lives. At the end of Matthew's gospel, the Pharisees remain unchanged.

The parable of the sower (Matt 13) vividly depicts the fact that there are different responses to the Word and not everyone will be changed in a lasting way by it. This doesn't mean the Word is any less powerful as it clearly has the power to multiply fantastically. But those who know the truth and allow the thorns to choke them will end up bearing no fruit.

As the parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great value illustrate (see Matt 13:44-45), if we really understand the nature of God's kingdom and the salvation Jesus offers, then we won't question how much it costs to pursue it; we will let nothing stop us.

Jesus makes it clear that nothing is impossible for God (Matt 19:26). There are no limits to His kingdom. He feeds 5000, He feeds 4000, He walks on water, He calms the storm, He heals the sick and yet He did not see these things greeted with full faith but constant doubt. The Pharisees demand signs as if these things are not sufficient, but the greatest sign -Jesus' death and resurrection- was something they themselves initiated in the sovereignty of God's plan. Jesus said 'if you have faith and do not doubt... even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen.' (Matt 21:21) Sometimes we need to question whether our knowledge is really being worked out in our lives... in our prayers... in our faith. If not, it's time to do something about it.

Bible bashing

I typed 'Bible basher' into Google and the Urban Dictionary gave me these definitions:

A Bible Basher is someone who constantly goes around forcing the word of the bible on everyone else, and claims that everything BUT the Bible is evil.

A religious person who is obsessively you could say, and insanely into his or her religion. They tend to 'bash on' about their religion and try to feed it to you. No disrespect to their religious beliefs, but knowing a bible basher can sometimes get sticky. They tend to be very protective over their religion, and know nearly everything about it. They will argue the point, and during times of bashing, can become quite violent.

A bible basher is one who lives their life by the bible, and tries to force the bible upon all they meet.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bible+basher

Wow! I'm guessing all these people have had a pretty negative experience with Christians. Faced with this definition, who wants to be a 'Bible basher'?

Well in this post I want to try to explain why the Bible is so important to me (and therefore why so much of my blog is based on the Bible), and also try to explain how I have no intention of bludgeoning people in an insensitive and emotionally detached manner, but I do want to confront people with the truth that the Bible claims has relevance for their life as much as mine.

The Bible is a unique book. It's made up of many different types of literature, written by different people at different times in history. It makes astonishing claims about who we are, why we are here, who God is, and how we can know Him. Many people look at the world around and think 'There must be a God behind all this'. But it's only in the Bible that we find out exactly who this God is. I believe this because, having read the Bible over and over since my childhood, I have never found a book like it which holds together so well, considering it was written under so many different circumstances as I mentioned above.

I love reading. I studied English at university and read many books by the same author (Dickens and Eliot being my favourites). What has always interested me is the way that a writer's ideas change over time. Even when you find ten books written by the same author, they will not always be consistent in ideology and morality or politics. And yet, despite the fact that so many different individuals contributed to the Bible, there is a striking coherence and unity throughout the various books. The main idea is that God is real, He made everything and wants to know us. Over the centuries that the Bible texts cover, there is a recurring cycle of people turning away from God to 'do their own thing' and live life the way they want to. God is never happy with that. He keeps on calling people to follow Him and go his way. But man's disobedience has separated him from God, so God sent Jesus, His Son, to come into the world and die on the cross to be punished for the sins of the world. He raised Jesus to life and calls people everywhere to follow Him and believe that their sins can be forgiven through Jesus.

All the Bible books in some way contribute to this message. They could be establishing the fundamental disobedience of humanity, as seen in Genesis. They could be calling men back to follow God, as seen in the prophets such as Isaiah. They could be predicting the coming of Jesus, such as the prophet Micah. They could be telling the story of Jesus' life, like the gospel of Matthew. All of the books in the Bible provide a piece to the puzzle. Together, they give a wholistic picture of who God is and how we can know Him.

So really, you have to read the Bible through and through before you judge it. So many people have said to me that the Bible is not trustworthy, that it's full of contradictions. But many of these people have not read it thoroughly. Perhaps their knowledge is based on taking some words out of context. The Bible is not always easy to understand, but I have found that the more I study it, the more it makes sense. It really does fit with what I see around me: people suffering with broken lives, desperate for meaning, but unable to find that meaning in human relationships, money and status. I see a world that needs Jesus. I can testify to how He has changed my life, and the lives of many others too.

Ultimately, I follow the Bible because Jesus did. Jesus is the most impressive person that ever existed, to me. He had an astounding impact on history and on the lives of those who met Him. And He identified the scriptures as the indestructible and authoritative word of God. He upheld the Bible at every turn, as an authority about God (Mt 21:42, Mt 22:29), as true promises which will always be fulfilled (Mt 26:54), as never becoming void (Jn 10:35, Mt 5:18). He saw the Bible as coming from God, revealing the truth and being utterly reliable. His life was based on scripture, and His life was amazing. Therefore I decided to follow Jesus, and so I am trying to base my life on scripture too.

The writer of Hebrews suggests that the word of God is 'living and active', 'Sharper than any double-edged sword... it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart' (Heb 4:12). I have always found this to be true. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:15-17 that scripture is 'God-breathed', and it certainly speaks with authority that seems to be more than human; divine. The Bible says many things which are difficult for us to accept -such as the existence of hell and the reality of God's judgement, which I have been blogging about recently- and I don't know why any human would make such terrifying stuff up! The Bible is full of genuine insight that makes sense with reality and does indeed judge the heart of anyone who reads it- again in a way that no human finds comfortable. Of course, humans physically wrote the Bible, but they were 'carried along by the Holy Spirit' (2 Peter 1:21), and it is God's words rather than the words of mere mortals.

The thing is, it's difficult to say that the Bible is only partially true and worship God. Surely you don't want to be friends with a liar? God has to be 'the true God' (Jer 10:10) or He is a false god. The Bible has to be truth, or lies. I don't think you can have it both ways.

The post-modern attitude towards texts and textual analysis is that there is no absolute truth and every reader brings something different to a text. For example, a Marxist will read Dickens and take away a Marxist message. English degrees are a lot about this! But I don't think you can approach the Bible as the same as any other text and just 'get something' from it. Either something is true, or it is false. If the Bible is true, it's worth building your life on it. If it's false, there is no point bothering.

And it follows that if the Bible is true, it is universally true. That means it's not just 'true for me'. It applies to everyone. That is why my blog is based on the Bible, and why I try to respond to people's questions, to the books I read, thinking about what the Bible says. I am sorry if it comes across as emotionally detached Bible-bashing! But in my view, what I personally say has very little value for the world. What God says does! That's why I look to Him for answers, rather than my own thinking.

Of course, I apply my thinking to the Bible. God doesn't ask us to switch our brains off when we open His word. But I think the tendency in our culture to come to the Bible with our own ideas of what is right and wrong, and judging its 'truth' on how it fits into our current worldview, is a fundamentally flawed concept. If it is the words of God, a God who is eternal and all-knowing and all-seeing, how can we possibly deem it our place to judge it against our standards? That would be like me handing my dissertation on George Eliot to a five year old who had just learned to read. My dissertation is nothing special, but I don't think the kid would have a chance of understanding it!

I don't want to bash the Bible, in both senses of the phrase. I don't want to crush people with it, but I don't want to under-value it and over-value my words and thoughts. I want people to know the truth, and I think the Bible contains better answers than my befuddled brain.