One month in folks! I'd be interested what my average posting time is. Just to clarify I've started writing this before midnight so it's not officially late. Been to the pub to see old friends today so was nice to be out and looking forward to Bible before bed. Onto business then
Today’s readings
Job 15:1-18:21
Matthew 20:20-34
Psalm 17:13-15
So we start today with Job getting yet another round of bashing from his so called friends and we're back to Eliphaz, who I keep wanting to call Elephant. Now Eliphaz and company are banging on about the same sorts of things. They make good points about how God can be or how being religious can be but they never actually talk to Job in a specific way. If they were true friends, firstly they'd comfort him as Job points out, but also they'd take the time to find out what he had done rather than just assume the worse. It's a trap Christians can fall into when we see someone worse off than us and think our faith makes us able to dismiss or judge them. The sort of feeling you might get from watching Jeremy Kyle for instance! He does keep getting mentioned in this blog... Clearly we all ought to pray for his strange way of trying to help.
Job's response is one of exasperation. Sadly, he's only half way through telling these friends to shut up and keeps persisting his innocence. I get the feeling Job knows it isn't God's hand that is making these wrongs but is almost managing to be sarcastic with his friends about how far off the mark and unecessary their observations are.
Bildad ends our reading with another retort and I'm running out of ways to say that he makes good points about how those who defy God will be eventually seperated from His glory. Once again though he misses the point that Job isn't guilty of that and nothing in his speech is directed to Job. Sometimes the Bible like to use repitition to hammer a point home and I feel Job is one of those times. Bear with it.
Into the New Testament we shimmy, and once again the disciples are making idiots of themselves. James and John, urged on by their mother, are asking to sit in the VIP lounge in heaven. So many things wrong with this idea, like the fact that they still can't get their head around everyone being equally loved in God's eyes, but this sort of celestial shotgun game they're playing is nonsense and Jesus knows it. Not only does he shoot them down by saying God assigns places (it's a nice get out clause to say another part of the Trinity is responsible for that) but also that the sons haven't done anything to earn a place. Their flippant response to being sure that they can follow Jesus' example perfectly leads to Him giving them the news that their futures will be very much mirroring his service with James being executed and John writing revelation and actually seeing heaven. We then end on a miracle and I love how Matthew just throws this in. This is an amazing thing that you'd never forget if you saw it but Matthew is so focused on the truth of Jesus' teaching that he takes it as given that miracles happen around Him. It's worth remembering that if we focus more on Jesus' teaching than His miracles, the miracles won't stop happening.
Finally our Psalm I covered two days ago so go read it again if you want to :) It's getting hard to keep going with Job at the moment because it's such a hard and depressing read. Jesus tells us today that we should be servants to Him and to others and I think that's my challenge. I do want to keep up with Bible in one (not a) year and this blog is a service to you, my readership. Even if it's mostly badly written, full of typos (thanks for pointing them out Chris and Richard) and completely free of charge and without feedback! :p But it's also a service to God and I think today God is telling me just to keep plugging away. I think things are slowly changing for me in the rest of the world and so it's important I'm like Job and keep that hold on Christ throughout. I guess if I had to link today's passages I'd pull out that Job is getting more and more frustrated because his friends don't listen and assume just like James and John assumed they would be able to call shotgun on seats in heaven. Yet Jesus calls us to be last, not first. To put our pride and judging attitudes to one side and to love people for who they are and help them with specifics not generalisations.
And that's your lot. Short and sweet. Yesterday's tune is here. Today's is as much about the song title as it is about the band who do the punk cover version. Bonus points for that! Questions, criticisms and comments welcome as always
Jon
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