Old Testament reading: Job 8-10
Job 8 finds Job’s friend Bildad taking up God’s cause against Job. What is interesting about the friends’ statements is this – what they say about God is generally accurate, while what they assume about Job is patently wrong. For example, in verse 3 Bildad declares, “Does God pervert judgment? Or does the Almighty pervert justice?” This statement is true. On the other hand, he follows that statement with this error in verse 6, “If you were pure and upright, surely now He (God) would awake for you and prosper your rightful dwelling place.” Such was not only an indictment against Job, it also in some way was a misrepresentation of God Himself. When we begin with a false premise, we are in danger of wrongly applying God’s truths in various situations. The proper premise in this case is the righteousness of God; the false premise is that Job has sinned and brought this calamity upon himself.
New Testament reading: Matthew 26
It is generally understood that the gospel of Matthew was written for a primarily Jewish audience. Beginning with his introduction of Jesus as the son of David (Israel’s greatest king) and the son of Abraham (the father of the Jewish nation), Matthew’s gospel account is filled with references to Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Matthew 26 contains a multitude of Old Testament imagery, particularly two specific prophecies found in Zechariah, one of the last books of the Old Testament. In Matthew 26:15 we find the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy that Jesus would be betrayed for the price of thirty pieces of silver (cf Zech 11:12). In verse 31, Jesus Himself quotes from Zechariah, and applies its meaning to Himself and to the apostles, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered’” (cf Zech 13:7). When Jesus (the Shepherd) was taken into custody, “all the disciples forsook Him and fled” (v 56). The fulfillment of these prophecies to the most minute detail is a marvelous testimony to the validity and authority of the Sacred Text.
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