Lamentations 3
I hear the questions often: if God is so good, why are things in this world so bad? How can a loving God tolerate evil? How can He just let us suffer? Actually, there is much in Scripture to suggest that the assumption behind these questions is misguided. God isn’t sitting back with His arms folded in some distant locale, letting evil run rampant.
Isaiah 36
Have you ever noticed that for everything God offers, Satan has a counterfeit? And usually, it sounds pretty good. So good that, sometimes, it can be hard to distinguish the right from the wrong. Instead of trying to decide between black and white, it’s more like trying to decide between white and off-white.
Ecclesiastes 10
Solomon begins this chapter with an interesting proverb: “As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.” (vs 1) He’s saying that it takes far more energy to create something beautiful than it does to muck it up. And unfortunately, in this world, there are people who would rather spend their time going around tearing things down than building things up.
Job 41
Most people believe that Job got to the end of his life without ever understanding why he went through all that he did. They don’t believe God gave His friend any explanation for his sufferings. I disagree. I think God’s explanation to Job is contained in this chapter, and it’s stunning, considering that a general knowledge of Satan didn’t enter Israelite thinking until close to the end of the Old Testament time period.
Job 18
I don’t remember when it was that I finally worked up the courage to watch the movie Braveheart. It was a long time after it was released, and even then, I remember watching most of it through the laced fingers covering my eyes. (I have a problem with graphic violence.) But I can never forget the final moments of that film, as Mel Gibson’s character, William Wallace—bound and seconds away from death—cries with his last breath, "Freedom!"
Job 10
Here is the passage from today’s chapter that I want to focus on in this blog: "Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave! Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment’s joy before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and utter darkness, to the land of deepest night, of utter darkness and disorder, where even the light is like darkness." (vs 18-22)
Job 4
In this chapter, Job’s friend, Eliphaz, related something he had seen in a dream: "A word was secretly brought to me, my ears caught a whisper of it. Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on people, fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end. It stopped, but I could not tell what it was. A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice: 'Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker? If God places no trust in his servants, if he charges his angels with error, how much more those who live in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who are crushed more readily than a moth!'" (vs 12-19)
Job 3
At the beginning of this chapter, Job wished for something that many people have wished for at some point: that he had never been born. "May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, 'A boy is conceived!' That day—may it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine on it." (vs 3-4)
Job 2
To me, there are two very interesting things regarding evil in the first and second chapters of Job. The first one involves how Satan perceives the spread of evil in the world: he blames God. Did you notice that? Check this out from chapter one: "'Does Job fear God for nothing?' Satan replied. 'Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.'" (vs 9-11)
Job 1
Much has been written and said of Job, the friend of God who underwent immense personal suffering. The book that bears his name begins with a description of what could arguably be considered the worst day a person could have—Job loses all his wealth and all his children in the same day.
But here’s the thing that startled me the first time it dawned on me: God was the one who pointed out Job to Satan. Did you catch that?
LEVITICUS 13
In preparing to write this blog, I read a lot of commentaries on Leviticus 13. I was intrigued by the detailed instructions God gave regarding the "infectious skin disease" which most scholars agree refers to leprosy. Why send people to the priests for a diagnosis? They were spiritual leaders, but doctors?
Photo © Unsplash/Johann Siemens
As soon as eyes were opened, there was shame,
And fig's-leaf clothing could not quell the fear.
In bushes, hiding, fear gave way to blame
That promised to unravel all things dear.
To lose our paradise would be our gain,
Since sin destroys if it is left unchecked.
But we could not perceive the gift in pain:
God drove us out in order to protect,
While promising we'd one day see that Tree
Within a heav'nly garden where we'd thrive.
And this, his brilliant plan to make us free:
Another firstborn Adam would arrive
To fight the snake—to love, to bleed, to cry,
So we could be reclaimed and never die.
Sonnet: A poem consisting of 14 lines with a particular rhyming scheme.
