Reading from Sunday, August 22

Yo yo.

Reading for August 22
Job 4:1-7:21
This is a pretty long span of text, but I think it tells the next chunk of the story of Job. So after all these horrible things had happened to him, Job's friends come over to comfort him. First, one of the friends speaks and basically says that there must be a reason for the punishment - that Job must have done something to entice God's extreme anger. Which, I think if we weren't given the insight into the dealings between God and Satan at the beginning of the book, most of us would be reading back through the beginning to try and figure out what Job had done to deserve such punishment. It goes against not only our intuitive rule that good things should happen to good people and vice versa - but also what we've read so far about God. Sure there have been times when I felt the punishment did not match the crime, but God only punishes those who have broken his rules - and it says that Job was "blameless". It's counter-intuitive. It's outside the mold of what God has been explained to us as. Which is why I would assume it was even more frustrating to Job - who must have been racking his brain to try and figure out what he had done to deserve what came to him.

After his one friend finished speaking, Job comes back in to rebut the situation. He basically says "Hey man, I don't need your judgment," but then cuts into some really poetically deep stuff about his anguish

 ² "If only my anguish could be weighed
       and all my misery be placed on the scales!
 ³ It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas—
       no wonder my words have been impetuous.

 ¹⁶ I despise my life; I would not live forever.
       Let me alone; my days have no meaning. 

In any other story I would be calling Job a whiny baby, but remember the context. His entire family was just murdered by God - well it was Satan, but just like the Midianites - God allowed it. Then he says something really cool at the end of the reading:

 ¹⁷ "What is man that you make so much of him,
       that you give him so much attention,
 ¹⁸ that you examine him every morning
       and test him every moment?

In one way this could be a flattering question - "What is man that we so deserve your love?" but I think what Job is getting at here is asking the question of "why us?" Sure, God, you protect us and love us and everything, but why attack us? Why hurt us intentionally? And then digging even deeper - why hold us to that standard? The cheetahs are totally cooler than people...I guess its a trade off - you get love and protection but you're constantly being tested.

1 Corinthians 14:18-40

Paul is still talking about speaking in tongues and how it should be orderly and anyone who does it in front of a congregation, there must be an interpreter to let the audience know what the person is saying.

Pretty simple...

Psalm 37:30-40
Nope:

³⁷ Consider the blameless, observe the upright;
       there is a future ^[a] for the man of peace.

Proverbs 21:27
 ³⁷ Consider the blameless, observe the upright;
       there is a future ^[a] for the man of peace.

So sleepy...