Passage of the Day: Chapter/Verse Reference: Job, Chapters 35-37 … To study these chapters, go to this link -
Job 35: … [Elihu continues his argument before Job and “friends”]
1 Then Elihu said: 2 "Do you think this is just? You say, 'I am in the right, not God.'
3 Yet you ask him, 'What profit is it to me, and what do I gain by not sinning?' >>>
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9 “People cry out under a load of oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful. >>>
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12 He [God] does not answer when people cry out because of the arrogance of the wicked. >>>
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16 So Job opens his mouth with empty talk; without knowledge he multiplies words.”
Job 36: … [Elihu continues]
1 Elihu continued: 2 [To Job] “Bear with me a little longer and I will show you that there is more to be said in God’s behalf. 3 I get my knowledge from afar; I will ascribe justice to my Maker.
4 Be assured that my words are not false; One who has perfect knowledge is with you. >>>
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26 How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out.
Job 37: … [Elihu’s conclusions]
19 “Tell us what we should say to Him [God];
we cannot draw up our case because of our darkness. >>>
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23 The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.
24 Therefore, people revere him, for does he not have regard for all the wise in heart?[k]”
My Journal for Today: Well, if you were with me yesterday as I’m here trudging through Job in my chronological read through the Bible, … day 12 saw the introduction of a new, younger critic of Job, who has been crying out to God in his [Job’s] tribulations. And this younger “friend” demonstrates what happens when people see life unfolding and think they (in this case young ELIHU) have a corner on knowing what is going on.
I think it is quite interesting that the younger critic, Elihu, actually criticizes Job for the arrogance to cry out to God, not trusting that God is in control and knows all about Job’s condition. Yet, Elihu openly, and very arrogantly, declares that he, himself, has the inside track of knowledge on the nature of God (see Job 36: 1-4 copied above). And isn’t that the way we are many times, thinking – and even speaking – like we’ve got the answers to the problems of others.
Now it turns out that Elihu does, in fact, speak much truth to Job about the nature of God; and this young man does show a lot of faith in God’s sovereignty and the Lord’s promises to be there – ALWAYS – when we get into circumstances we cannot explain, as did Job find himself. But we must take care in counseling others that we don’t think that we completely understand or speak for God.
As I sit here, writing this journal entry – as I do on so many days – I feel that God does give me insight into life from His word; but I have to take care, as I would hope you do in seeking after God’s truth, that I don’t arrogantly think I’ve got the answers or that I can, with great confidence, interpret God’s word in my trek to understand His will for my life. That’s why, as I study God’s word, I very often use God’s word itself to try to interpret or understand His written truth (i.e., The Bible). In studying the Book of Job, for instance, I’m led by good study Bibles to many other books of the Bible and other passages of Scripture to understand what is going on in the life of Job as he seeks for understanding into his very painful human dilemma.
And above all, I have to avoid letting my VERY HUMAN feelings get in the way of my search for and my understanding of God’s truth. As I read through the Bible this year, I will be on my guard to do exactly what Elihu, Job’s young critic, is saying today. I will be going to God (in my case through His written word) to understand my LORD rather than relying on my own internal compass of understanding. But I know from God’s own word and promises (see Isaiah 55: 11, Lamentations 23: 19, or 2nd Timothy 3: 16-17) that I can trust, with the help of Spirit-led enlightenment, what God gives me in and through His word (i.e., the Bible), using it as my guide to understanding life. And thankfully, I have so much more of His truth in His word than did Job.
However, I cannot or will not be able to tap into this vast and perfectly accurate source of truth unless, as Job wrote about in Chapter 28 of the Book of Job, I did deeply into the minefield of God’s mind by going deep into His word, which is my minefield full of nuggets of pure truth. And so, I will continue to mine for God’s truth daily in this place. And if you come here to dig with me, you’re going to have to pick up your pick and shovel of motivation and dig out the gems of truth from our trek chronologically through the Bible this year; … and so, we move on!
My Prayer Today: … Lord, thank You for offering up Your gems of truth as I dig into Your minefield of infinite knowledge. Amen
Showing posts with label searching for truth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label searching for truth. Show all posts
Friday, January 13, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
January 10, 2012 … Mining for God’s Mind
Passage of the Day: Chapter/Verse Reference: Job, Chapters 24-28 … To study these chapters, go to this link -
Study Passage: Job 28: Today’s focus and my journaling will focus on Chapter 28 in Job’s book. Here is a link to that chapter …
My Journal for Today: If you’re motivated to dig into what my reading plan has led me to study this morning [i.e., Job – Chapters 24-28], you’ve read that Job is continuing his dialog with his three critics (later a fourth joins); and Job strongly – at times even cynically – defends his own innocence and the biased misconceptions of his critics. Job agrees with them that God does – in truth – punish the wicked and gives favor to the repentant and contrite believer. However, Job also strongly contends that man cannot always know the mind of God, a place which can be a deep struggle for us in to know the purity of truth. Yesterday, I referred my followers to Isaiah 55: 8-9 [linked], which documents that searching for God’s way, His will, and/or His wisdom can often be very, very difficult.
And this brings me to my journal focus for today, which is found in one of my favorite poetic chapters in all of the Old Testament – actually in all of the Bible; and that is Chapter 28 of the Job’s book. And for any reader following me today, I must exhort you to click on the Chapter 28 link above or go to that chapter in your favorite version of Scripture and read/meditate on the entire chapter.
In Chapter 28 of the book by Job’s name, we read a poetic word picture of what man’s search into the mind of God is like; and for the human author’s (remember it is the Holy Spirit Who is the base author of Chapter 28) biblical picture of this search, he uses a description of the mining practices of that day. In past studies and teaching on this chapter, I’ve done my homework on this process by studying the middle-eastern mining practices in this age, which was in the iron-age historically. And bear with me for a moment while I describe these practices briefly.
In that day, miners would dig singular shafts down into the earth just wide enough for one man to enter each dig. When the hole was deep enough, they would rig themselves with a harness and lower themselves into the shaft to use digging tools to dig out the iron ore, jewels, or precious metals (gold/silver) which could be picked away from the mine shaft. Since this was a one-man operation, the miner would dig deeper and deeper into the earth so that he could reach the sides of the shaft to extract the valuable rocks, jewels, or ore he was seeking. Therefore, as the shaft deepened, the process of mining for what the miner was seeking got more and more risky. The holes sometimes got quite deep; and in general the deeper the miner went with his shaft the more productive would be his mining.
And if you’ve read this far with me, this is a wonderful word picture of what Job felt was the task ahead of him as he sought to mine the very MIND OF GOD for the wisdom he sought to answer all the WHY questions he had as to how he (Job) had gotten into this minefield of life where God had led him. Job knew that he was going to have to go on a risky trek to mine our the gems of wisdom from God’s mind (i.e., mine), digging and digging to find the jewels of explanation for why Job was where God had led him at this perplexing time in his life.
And this is a great word picture for all of us who seek to mine the very mind of God for all that God has to offer us in terms of Godly wisdom, trying to turn darkness into light with regard to our circumstances. The mining picture would say to us that we need to be willing to dig deeply into the minefield of God’s truth, which we know as Christians is God’s word (the Bible) to find God’s ways and His will for our lives. And just like the mining practices of that day, the digging is not easy; and maybe it can even be a bit risky; because sometimes, in pulling out gems or truth, we discover that those gems tell us clearly that God wants us to go down a different path in life, … a painful path we would not likely have chosen for ourselves.
And the summary of all of Chapter 28 in Job, … this mining picture into our search for wisdom, is found in the truth of the last verse in the chapter, Job 28: 28, which resoundingly states: And he said to the human race, … "The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding." And you’ll note that this verse is a quote, which comes from other Old Testament sources such as Proverbs 1:7-9 also Ps. 111: 10. And this shows this humble miner of God’s truth that the human author of the Book of Job was doing his truth mining directly from the same minefield where our mining for wisdom should center and that is God’s word (i.e., Scripture). But, my friend, we have a far richer minefield to dig for Godly gems of wisdom than did the author of Job’s book, don’t we?
Having the assurance of 2nd Tim. 3: 16-17 [linked], we have ALL of what we know of as SCRIPTURE (i.e., the entire canonized Bible) to dig for God’s pure gold of truth or for His gems of wisdom. The author of Job only had a few mines of the Old Testament into which he could mine for truth. We have ALL of Gods’ word – our entire Bible – as our minefield to search for God’s wisdom, His ways, and His will. I can only pray – as I will below – that we’re willing to dig and dig and dig for Godly wisdom as I’m trying to do with my mining of God’s word chronologically this year.
My Prayer Today: … Lord, help me – and my friends who come along with me – to go deep into your mine of truth, the Scriptures, this year as we search for your purified wisdom. Amen
Study Passage: Job 28: Today’s focus and my journaling will focus on Chapter 28 in Job’s book. Here is a link to that chapter …
My Journal for Today: If you’re motivated to dig into what my reading plan has led me to study this morning [i.e., Job – Chapters 24-28], you’ve read that Job is continuing his dialog with his three critics (later a fourth joins); and Job strongly – at times even cynically – defends his own innocence and the biased misconceptions of his critics. Job agrees with them that God does – in truth – punish the wicked and gives favor to the repentant and contrite believer. However, Job also strongly contends that man cannot always know the mind of God, a place which can be a deep struggle for us in to know the purity of truth. Yesterday, I referred my followers to Isaiah 55: 8-9 [linked], which documents that searching for God’s way, His will, and/or His wisdom can often be very, very difficult.
And this brings me to my journal focus for today, which is found in one of my favorite poetic chapters in all of the Old Testament – actually in all of the Bible; and that is Chapter 28 of the Job’s book. And for any reader following me today, I must exhort you to click on the Chapter 28 link above or go to that chapter in your favorite version of Scripture and read/meditate on the entire chapter.
In Chapter 28 of the book by Job’s name, we read a poetic word picture of what man’s search into the mind of God is like; and for the human author’s (remember it is the Holy Spirit Who is the base author of Chapter 28) biblical picture of this search, he uses a description of the mining practices of that day. In past studies and teaching on this chapter, I’ve done my homework on this process by studying the middle-eastern mining practices in this age, which was in the iron-age historically. And bear with me for a moment while I describe these practices briefly.
In that day, miners would dig singular shafts down into the earth just wide enough for one man to enter each dig. When the hole was deep enough, they would rig themselves with a harness and lower themselves into the shaft to use digging tools to dig out the iron ore, jewels, or precious metals (gold/silver) which could be picked away from the mine shaft. Since this was a one-man operation, the miner would dig deeper and deeper into the earth so that he could reach the sides of the shaft to extract the valuable rocks, jewels, or ore he was seeking. Therefore, as the shaft deepened, the process of mining for what the miner was seeking got more and more risky. The holes sometimes got quite deep; and in general the deeper the miner went with his shaft the more productive would be his mining.
And if you’ve read this far with me, this is a wonderful word picture of what Job felt was the task ahead of him as he sought to mine the very MIND OF GOD for the wisdom he sought to answer all the WHY questions he had as to how he (Job) had gotten into this minefield of life where God had led him. Job knew that he was going to have to go on a risky trek to mine our the gems of wisdom from God’s mind (i.e., mine), digging and digging to find the jewels of explanation for why Job was where God had led him at this perplexing time in his life.
And this is a great word picture for all of us who seek to mine the very mind of God for all that God has to offer us in terms of Godly wisdom, trying to turn darkness into light with regard to our circumstances. The mining picture would say to us that we need to be willing to dig deeply into the minefield of God’s truth, which we know as Christians is God’s word (the Bible) to find God’s ways and His will for our lives. And just like the mining practices of that day, the digging is not easy; and maybe it can even be a bit risky; because sometimes, in pulling out gems or truth, we discover that those gems tell us clearly that God wants us to go down a different path in life, … a painful path we would not likely have chosen for ourselves.
And the summary of all of Chapter 28 in Job, … this mining picture into our search for wisdom, is found in the truth of the last verse in the chapter, Job 28: 28, which resoundingly states: And he said to the human race, … "The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding." And you’ll note that this verse is a quote, which comes from other Old Testament sources such as Proverbs 1:7-9 also Ps. 111: 10. And this shows this humble miner of God’s truth that the human author of the Book of Job was doing his truth mining directly from the same minefield where our mining for wisdom should center and that is God’s word (i.e., Scripture). But, my friend, we have a far richer minefield to dig for Godly gems of wisdom than did the author of Job’s book, don’t we?
Having the assurance of 2nd Tim. 3: 16-17 [linked], we have ALL of what we know of as SCRIPTURE (i.e., the entire canonized Bible) to dig for God’s pure gold of truth or for His gems of wisdom. The author of Job only had a few mines of the Old Testament into which he could mine for truth. We have ALL of Gods’ word – our entire Bible – as our minefield to search for God’s wisdom, His ways, and His will. I can only pray – as I will below – that we’re willing to dig and dig and dig for Godly wisdom as I’m trying to do with my mining of God’s word chronologically this year.
My Prayer Today: … Lord, help me – and my friends who come along with me – to go deep into your mine of truth, the Scriptures, this year as we search for your purified wisdom. Amen
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