Today’s Scripture Reading (May 26, 2018): Job 5
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode
“Who Watches the Watchers,” the Enterprise is confronted with the discovery of
a group of cultural observers when a holographic duck-blind on a primitive
planet fails. Because of the failure, the people of the planet are introduced to a new god they now know of as
“The Picard,” who is, of course, not a god but simply the Captain of the
starship Enterprise. The episode explores our attitudes toward God and our reasons for believing in a Supreme
Being. At one point in the episode, Counsellor Troi makes this observation: “Are you sure you
know what he (their new god, “The Picard”) wants? That's the problem with
believing in a supernatural being - trying to determine what he wants.”
Troi is right; this is the
struggle of everyone who believes in some kind
of a Supreme Being. Without direct instruction, there is no way to know
what it is that God wants. Often we get carried down rabbit trails as we try to
explore what it might be that God desires of us. And more often then we might
like, we get it wrong. Christianity is rife with wrong beliefs that are built around readings of one verse, or
someone’s impression of what God desires of us or commands us to do. I once
attended a Bible Study on Revelation where one attendee disagreed with the
facilitator’s comment that Revelation was
written by a man named John (See Revelation 1:1-2 – “The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to
show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his
angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the
testimony of Jesus Christ.”) When she was asked
why she believed John was not the author, she said that God had told her that
Paul wrote it. God told me is a discussion stopper. How can I argue against
that? But God told me, without supporting evidence from the Bible, and I would
argue without also being supported by the testimony of the church and the
experience of people, is always dangerous. And even then, we always have to
admit that we might have gotten it wrong. This
is one reason why I believe that we need to major on what is the core of our
faith – God loves us, and he sent his
Son, Jesus, to die on a cross for our sins. On the third day, Jesus was raised again to life and now sends us into
the world to love those whom the Father created, being the presence of God on
the earth. Pretty much anything beyond that we need to hold loosely because there is the possibility that
we might have it wrong.
Eliphaz’s words here
illustrate the point. What is interesting here is that as a stand-alone verse,
the words of Eliphaz are very correct. There are times when God does correct
us. And when we understand that fact and
heed his correction, we are blessed. The reason why we discipline our children
is that we love them and we want them to
make the most out of this life. Our discipline shapes them, and it blesses them
by preparing them for the future. God’s correction of us serves the same
purpose.
What is wrong is that
here, in this comment between Eliphaz and Job, the words are misapplied.
Because we have read the introduction of the story, we know that there is no
correction from God expressed in Job’s current situation. This reveals our struggle, and supports the
premise of the fictitious Counselor Troi; by looking at a situation, it is almost impossible to know the
will of God. Sometimes we suffer because
God is correcting us. But that is not always the case. Sometimes we suffer
because Satan is testing us, And this is Job’s current situation. And to make
it even worse, sometimes we suffer because stuff happens. “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).
How do we know? Because
we are walking with him, we have kept short accounts with him and with others, and we have considered the actions and effects
of our own lives. What we can’t just make assumptions that because someone is
suffering, that God is correcting and disciplining them, or we will end up
misapplying the truth.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Job 6
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