Old Testament reading: Job 4-7
Following seven days of silence (2:13) and Job’s emotional and moving lament cursing the day of his conception and birth in chapter 3, Job’s friends engage him in a dialogue. However, rather than offering words of comfort and prayers for Divine intervention and solace, they condemn him of committing some grievous sin. Eliphaz begins with a commendation of Job’s past good in upholding the weak, but now says calamity has come upon him because of his own sin: “Remember now, who ever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright ever cut off” (4:7). Unfortunately, many today still believe this error. While we can suffer physical consequences caused by sin (illness, bankruptcy, etc), calamity is no more necessarily the result of sin than prosperity is of righteousness. Moreover, this error is held not only in personal matters, but also on a much larger scale. I well remember many believers who openly expressed their belief that the calamity that befell New Orleans during and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was somehow a testimony to God’s divine retribution against that sinful city. My response to this foolishness was, “What? Do you think God doesn’t know about Las Vegas and San Francisco? Why haven’t both of those cities been swallowed up by now?”
New Testament reading: Matthew 24-25
Matthew 24:29-31 contains language that many claim necessitates a description of the end of the world. However, investigating a number of Old Testament texts reveals similar, if not identical, language is used to describe God’s judgment upon nations. For example, we find this type of language in Isaiah 13:10 in the burden of Babylon. “Burden” in this sense is a curse of judgment and destruction (cf Nahum 1:1). Later, in Isaiah 34:4-5, we find this language in the curse of Edom (Idumea), and we find it yet again in Ezekiel 32:7-8 in the prophecy against Egypt. As all these are Divine pronouncements against nations, so also is Matthew 24, as it foretells God’s judgment upon the nation of Israel. This reminds us how we must let the context and similar texts explain the meaning of a passage, lest we assign to it the results of our own biases or misunderstandings.
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