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FEBRUARY 26 — Exodus 9; Luke 12; Job 27; 1 Corinthians 13

THE LAST SPEECH FROM JOB’S “miserable comforters” is that of Bildad (Job 25), and it is pathetically short because even he now recognizes that he has nothing new to say, and neither do his friends. Job’s answer is long and complex (chaps. 26—31), as if he is determined to drive his friends into silence. Some of it is mere review. The opening chapter (yesterday’s reading, Job 26) finds Job mocking these “comforters” for their callousness, the sterility of their counsel in the face of suffering like Job’s. It also finds him agreeing with them regarding God’s unfathomable power. After a breathtaking review of God’s powerful deeds, Job concludes, “And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?” (26:14). While the “comforters” charge Job with reducing God to impotence, Job so insists on God’s transcendent power that he entertains the view that God is distant.

That brings us to Job 27. Here are all the tensions in Job’s position. Job puts himself under an oath (“As surely as God lives”) to make his point. He will never admit his opponents are right, for this would mean denying that he has lived his life with integrity: “Till I die, I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live” (27:5-6). But ironically, the God by whom Job swears, whose greatness Job has praised in chapter 26, the God who provides the very breath in Job’s nostrils (27:3), is also, Job insists, the God “who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul” (27:2-3).

More irony: this does not mean that God is corrupt or unjust. Job recognizes that God calls unjust and wicked people to account (27:7-10)—often in this life (27:11-23), but finally in death.

This is not Job’s final position, of course; the drama is not yet over. But we may reflect on the place we have reached so far.

First, it is always best to be honest in our reflections on God, to avoid positions that distort facts (the folly of the three “comforters”), to remain transparent before God. He knows what we think anyway. Hope of advance is possible where there is honesty, but almost impossible where deceit reigns.

Second, this means that at various stages of a believer’s pilgrimage there may be times when opponents will see in him or her conspicuous ironies or profound mysteries. One should not glory in contradictions, of course, but in matters relating to God, mysteries are inevitable. In time, some of these edge toward resolution, but almost always accompanied by the unfolding glory of new depths.

FEBRUARY 25 — Exodus 8; Luke 11; Job 25—26; 1 Corinthians 12

1 CORINTHIANS 12 BEGINS A three-chapter unit on tongues, prophecy, and other “grace gifts” (charismata) and their relation to love, which is the supreme “way” (not a gift) for the Christian. We may at least follow the flow of thought.

First, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 affirms that there are diversities of gifts but one source. The implicit Trinitarian reference is striking: different gifts, given by the same Spirit; different kinds of service, but the same Lord [Jesus]; different kinds of working, but the same God. This does not mean Paul is parceling these things up absolutely, as if, for instance, the gifts came from the Spirit but not from Jesus and not from God. Rather, this is a preacher’s device for insisting that however diverse the gifts and graces, there is but one source: the triune God.

Second, Paul enlarges upon this principle of unity tying together diversity (12:7-12). The various gifts mentioned—the message of wisdom, the message of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, and so forth—are not only manifestations of the one Spirit, but their primary purpose is the common good (12:7). So both in source and in purpose, they serve unity in their diversity. Moreover, although Paul will shortly say that Christians are to pursue the greater gifts (12:31), here he insists that in the final analysis the Spirit distributes them as he sees fit—which means there should never be pride in having this or that gift, nor covetousness toward another who has a gift you desire.

Third, the theme of the chapter is driven home in an analogy (12:12-20). The body is one, but it is made up of many parts that must function together. The analogy is apt, for Christians were all baptized by Christ in one Spirit (the Spirit here is the medium in which Christians are baptized, not the agent doing the baptizing, who is Christ) into one body, the church. Transparently, all the body parts are needed: it would not do for the body to be nothing but one giant eyeball, for instance. So the diversity and distribution of gifts in the church is to be cherished.

Fourth, it follows further that no part of the body has the right to say to any other part of the body that it is neither wanted nor needed (12:21-27). Indeed, in some ways the least presentable parts of the body should be accorded the highest honor precisely because they otherwise lack it. There ought to be so much empathy among the diverse parts that if one part is honored, all are honored; if one part suffers, all suffer.

Even though the applications to the church are obvious, Paul takes care to spell them out (12:27-31).

FEBRUARY 24 — Exodus 7; Luke 10; Job 24; 1 Corinthians 11

IN THE SECOND PART OF HIS REPLY TO Eliphaz’s last speech, Job begins (Job 24) with a pair of rhetorical questions: “Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?” (24:1). The argument is not that God never rights the books, but that meanwhile a great deal of evil takes place without any prompt accounting, and righteous people suffer without any prompt vindication.

So Job begins another long list of representative evils, frequently unrequited in the short haul, yet commonly observed; and of public injustices (24:2-17). The wicked move boundary markers, steal cattle, abuse the poor and needy, put the poor into indentured slavery, rebel against the light, and feed their sexual lust. Meanwhile the poor barely get by, eking out a living from the wasteland. They glean in the vineyards of the wicked, they are often cold and wet, they carry the sheaves of others and go naked themselves. “The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the souls of the wounded cry out for help,” Job contends. “But God charges no one with wrongdoing” (24:12).

The next big section of this chapter (24:18-24) is something of a puzzle. At first glance Job seems to be advancing the kind of argument his miserable comforters prefer: God answers the wicked in kind. Some scholars have suggested the passage has been misplaced; others think Job is deploying massive irony and means exactly the reverse. Yet perhaps the explanation is simpler. Job is not denying that justice will be done someday. To do that he really would have to change his view of God in very substantial ways. But Job acknowledges that the wicked will finally face judgment. They die; they are not remembered. God is not blind; he “may let them rest in a feeling of security, but his eyes are on their ways” (24:23). So in a while they are gone (24:24). All this Job acknowledges: “If this is not so, who can prove me false and reduce my words to nothing?” (24:25). But in the context of the first part of the chapter, the question remains: “Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment?” In other words, why does he wait until the end? Granted that he is the God of justice and that justice will finally be done, why wait so long for it, the wicked becoming more wicked and the victims still suffering?

It is a searing question. Part of the answer emerges later in the book. But at the very least we should acknowledge that instant judgment on every sin would have most of us in pretty constant pain, yelping like Pavlovian dogs to avoid the hurt, but without inner transformation. Do you really want what Job seems to be asking for?

FEBRUARY 23 — Exodus 6; Luke 9; Job 23; 1 Corinthians 10

WE HAVE HEARD TWO FULL ROUNDS of speeches from the three “miserable comforters,” plus responses from Job. There is one more round, a truncated and imbalanced one. Eliphaz speaks and Job replies (Job 22—24); Bildad speaks very briefly, and Job responds at great length (Job 25—31), with extraordinary sweep and fervor. The comforters have nothing new to say, and are winding down. Job’s per- sistent defense of his integrity, though it does not convince them, grinds them into sullen silence.

Eliphaz’s last speech (Job 22), though it extends the limits of his poetic imagery, does not extend the argument; it merely restates it. God is so unimaginably great, says Eliphaz, that he cannot derive any benefit from human beings. So why should Job think that the Almighty is impressed with his righteousness? That same greatness guarantees that God’s knowledge and justice are perfect. If so, Job’s sufferings are not groundless: God has winkled out Job’s hidden sins—sins that Eliphaz tries to expose by shots in the dark.

While he responds with some arguments he has used before, Job embarks on a new line of thought (Job 23). He does not now charge God with injustice but with absence, with inaccessibility: “If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling!” (23:3). This is not a longing to escape and go to heaven; it is a passionate and frustrated desire to present his case before the Almighty (23:4). Job is not frightened that God will respond with terrifying power and crush him (23:6); he is frightened, rather, that God will simply ignore him. However, no geographical search Job can undertake will find God (23:8-9).

Job’s words are quite unlike the modern literary protest that God is so absent that he must be dead. Job is not “waiting for Godot.” His faith in God is at one level unwavering. He is perfectly convinced that God knows where Job is, and knows all about the fundamental integrity of his life (23:9-11). This integrity is not the bravado of a self-defined independent; Job has carefully followed the words of God, cherishing them more than his daily food (23:12).

That is why God’s absence is not only puzzling, but terrifying (23:13-17). Job’s continued confidence in God’s sovereignty and knowledge are precisely what he finds so terrifying, for the empirical evidence is that, at least in this life, the just can be crushed and the wicked may escape. The “comforters” claim that Job should be afraid of God’s justice; Job himself is frightened by God’s absence.

When such days come, it is vital to remember the end of the book—the end of the book of Job, and the end of the Bible.

FEBRUARY 22 — Exodus 5; Luke 8; Job 22; 1 Corinthians 9

1 CORINTHIANS 9:19-23 IS ONE OF THE most revealing passages in the New Testament regarding Paul’s view of the Law.

On the one hand, Paul states that to evangelize Jews he has to become like a Jew; more precisely, to “those under the law” he has to become like one under the Law, even though “I myself am not under the law” (9:20). Thus although Paul certainly recognizes himself as a Jew as far as race is concerned (see, for instance, Rom. 9:3), at this point in his life he does not see himself as being under the law-covenant. When he sets himself the task of winning his fellow Jews, however, he wants to remove any unnecessary offense, so he adopts the disciplines of kosher Jews; in this sense he becomes like a Jew, like one under the Law.

On the other hand, when he sets himself the task of evangelizing Gentiles, he becomes like “those not having the law.” Recognizing that this stance could be understood as simple lawlessness, Paul adds, in a parenthetical aside, that this does not mean he is utterly lawless. Far from it; he writes, “I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law” (9:21).

So on the one hand, Paul is not himself under law; on the other, he is not free from God’s law, but is under Christ’s law. What does this mean?

(a) The “law” under which Paul sees himself cannot be exactly the same as Torah (the Pentateuch), or more generally the demands of God from the Old Testament Scriptures. True, Paul elsewhere says, “Keeping God’s commands is what counts” (1 Cor. 7:19). But these are not simply the commands found in the Old Testament. After all, the previous line reads: “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts.” The thoughtful Jew would reply, “But circumcision is one of God’s commands.” Not, however, for Paul: keeping God’s commands or obeying God’s law is not, for him, the same thing as adhering to the Mosaic Law.

(b) What binds Paul and establishes the limits of his flexibility as he strives to evangelize Jews and Greeks alike is “Christ’s law” (9:21). His statements make no sense if “Christ’s law” is exactly identical to God’s law as found in Torah. He must flex from his “third position” (the position of the Christian) to become like a Jew or like a Gentile.

(c) What the relationship is between the Mosaic “Law of God” and “Christ’s law” is complex and glimpsed, in Paul, in Romans 3:21-26 (see meditation for January 31). Here it is enough to observe that the motive for all of Paul’s magnificent cultural flexibility is that he may “win as many as possible,” “so that by all possible means I may save some” (9:22).