Job Crosses Bildad

Job crosses the line… Well, several actually

By chapter 7 Job has come to the point in his calamities where he is reconsidering the nature of God.

The lines Job begins to cross are in thinging that even if he had sinned and repented, God would simply plunge him back into the mire of guilt since He is determined to destroy him. He believes that God protects the wicked and punishes the innocent and that God literally laughs and takes pleasure in the adversities of the blameless.

Making matters FAR worse is that Job keeps wishing for an audience with God to present his case, as if God cannot hear him and as if he could not just do so at any time in prayer.

Bildad is the friend who addresses Job in these chapters. He steps in and offers very solid counsel. However, like their friend Eliphaz, he comes to wrong conclusions because of he believes Job’s troubles are due to unconfessed and un-repudiated sin.

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Imitation Admiration

Imitation from admiration IS the Gospel!

The recurring theme of Paul’s letter to the Colossian believers was to stay centered on Jesus.

Our lives are hidden with Christ in the Father. This implies a need to seek Him, discover Him in growing and intimate ways.

The overall picture is very much like a young boy who imitates his father who he looks up to. He admires him and wants nothing more than to be just like him. He pays attention to what he does, where he goes, what he likes, what he wears and becomes SO influenced by him, that he begins to acclimate to his ways. This is not just by means of forced imitation, but through loving admiration – his find himself influenced by his father to the point that he is becoming like him without any real effort at all.

THAT is the gospel!

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Job weariness

Job, in your weariness will you listen?

Job’s trials are now in full bloom and his friends, upon hearing of it, come to comfort him.

After 7 days of silence sitting in ashes of mourning, Job speaks from the bitterness of his heart and curses the day of his birth. He also offers subtle blame at God for being complicit with his suffering.

His friend Eliphaz hears his words and discerns his heart of grief offering advice that was both solid and mistaken all at the same time.

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