Today’s Scripture Reading (May 29, 2018): Job 8
Could you recognize a bear if you met one in
the wild? I love to drive through the mountains and looking for wildlife, and
it is always exciting when you come across an animal while you are on a hike or
even one walking by the side of the road. But I am not a naturalist. I can tell
the difference between the major species, I know a moose from a mountain goat
from a bear, but that is about where it ends. Don’t
get me wrong, I know a Grizzly Bear, or more properly called the “North
American Brown Bear,” by its famous hump between the shoulder blades, I know
that black bears are the smallest of the bear species, and that polar bears
inhabit the north and are not really white, but that probably ends it for me.
In the wild, and with the fleeting glance of a bear that I might get, I am not
sure that I could tell the difference. After all, some black bears are brown,
and some brown bears are black. And, in the wild, I don’t often get a long
enough look to evaluate whether the ears are longer (Black Bear) or more
rounded (Brown Bear). I saw a picture of a Polar bear the other day. She was
brown with three black cubs trailing behind her, and it left me realizing how little I know about the differences
that exist between even the major bear species. If you want to get into the
subspecies of bears, then I am really in trouble.
Bildad maintains a very popular form of
theology. He understands that there are
those who are blameless or perfect people, what he would call the “tam,” and that there are those who are
hypocrites or secretly sinful, what he would call the “chaneph.” The problem is that, on the outside, both types of people look the same. It might be like trying
to figure out whether the black bear on the next ridge is really a black bear or whether it is a small or
juvenile, black colored brown bear. Sometimes the difference is hard to see unless
you can examine them, and often for the novice compare them, a little more
closely.
Bildad knows that the “tam” and the “chaneph”
are hard to distinguish from each other. In fact, according to Bildad’s
theology, there is only one way to do it. To distinguish between the two types of
people you have to watch how God reacts to them. If God blesses them, then you
know that they are “tam.” But if God
appears to curse them, then you know that they are “chaneph” or a secretly evil person pretending to be good. The
suffering of Job is proof that he is “cheneph.”
So what Job needs to do is to repent of his lifestyle and ask God for his
mercy. He needs to stop being “cheneph”
and start being “tam.” What Bildad
doesn’t understand is that while he may call Job a “cheneph,” God has already declared him to be “tam.”
We still carry Bildad’s theology with us. We
judge each other by the outward appearance and by the blessing of God that
appears to be placed on our lives. Sometimes we need to be reminded
that it is God that knows the heart of a man, no matter what might appear to be
happening on the outside. “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance,
but the Lord
looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7b).
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Job 9
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