ESV Chronological Plan, Day 22 | Job 18-21

LOOK | WHAT DOES IT SAY?

Read Job 18:1-21:34

THINK | WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

(A) As Bildad and Zophar both take turns speaking against Job again  in these chapters, it's worth taking a moment to draw on Christopher Ash's popular-level book on suffering in Job, titled Trusting God in the Darkness, to lay out what exactly is wrong with Job's accusers. He writes, "The trouble with [Job’s] comforters is that so much of what they say sounds right. It would be a useful exercise to read their speeches with a pencil in hand, and to put a tick in the margin against every statement they make with which we agree. There would be many ticks, and generally high marks for doctrinal orthodoxy, so much so that it is easy to think the friends are doctrinally sound teachers whose fault is simply that they are pastorally insensitive. But more careful consideration suggests that their fault lies deeper than pastoral insensitivity. It is the content, not just the tone, of their teaching that is false... There are three vital truths they don’t believe." The three vital truths that they don't believe, Ash goes on to say, are: (1) "They have no place in their thinking for Satan." (2) "There is no hoping for a future promised, but only living in the present." (3) "Perhaps the deepest error and omission of the friends is this: they have no place for innocent suffering." It might just be possible that the reason Job's friends are such miserable comforters is that, having achieved some level of insight and knowledge, they have decided to rest on their high level of understanding and haven't explored any further, which is why they are not really in possession of the truth--they haven't even considered the problems of innocent suffering or of seeming injustice in this life. And, judging by their emotional reactions to Job, they don't want to consider them. So because they have stopped growing in their understanding, they haven't understood important theological truths that would have been important in helping Job. By contrast, Job asks them, "Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath?" (Job 21:29-30). Job seems to have previously taken the time to understand the way that the world is, and to apply his theology to what he is seeing on the ground, which is why even at the start of his suffering, he was able to say: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). As time goes on, Job's experience here leads to him being able to put the pieces together and intuitively come to understand some important truths, and he almost goes on to become his own comforter. Which leads us to the next bit.

(B) The Gospel continues to come into clear focus in Job's speeches. Although his friends keep pushing him back towards defensively explaining how he is suffering without cause, when Job is talking, he occasionally has some flashes of insight. We see one of these in Job 19:23-27: "Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were transcribed in a book... For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!" Who is Job's Redeemer? As we saw in yesterday's reading, "this witness who argues Job's case before God is--God himself." Job comes to believe at this point that there will be a life after this one, that God is for him (though he currently seems to also be against him), and that the unseen God who he holds on to by faith will one day stand upon the earth, visible, personified; and Job in his resurrected flesh will see it and be satisfied. This has already come true as God, in human form, has stood upon the earth as Jesus of Nazareth. He has ascended back into heaven, where he intercedes for us before God the Father: "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1)--a fulfillment of Job's intuition that in some strange way, God must be his advocate with God. And one day this will literally be true for Job, as he will participate in the resurrection of the saints, and life everlasting in the presence of Jesus, whom he anticipates in these verses. No longer will God be mysteriously invisible, nor will he speak in a hidden way "through the whirlwind" as God does at the end of the book (38:1), but Job says "I shall see God... my eyes shall behold, and not another." That is good news.

RESPOND | WHAT IS OUR PART?

There are many things in these passages that I did not get into, including knowing the difference between the time for correction and the time to just be there to provide comfort (19:2-4). But we can respond to the reading from today through an action item like taking time today to learn and grow in your understanding of how the Christian faith applies to tricky situations, or we can respond through worship as the picture of the Gospel in Job leads us into astonishment at what God revealed to Job, or we can respond through a change in attitude by choosing not to assume the worst of others, as Job's friends continue to do with him.

PRAY | HOW DOES THIS BRING US CLOSER TO GOD?

Here is a prayer prompt: "God, please help me to have an active faith that applies itself to every area of my life, and that helps me understand better the world that you have made. Don't allow me to settle for knowing just a few disconnected truths that will make me seem wise, as Job's friends seemed. Instead, help me to continually see everything around me in a new way, through the lens of the Gospel."