00:00:00:07 – 00:00:22:01
Clint Loveall
Hey everybody happy Monday. Thanks for joining us as we jump into the text of job today. And I think it will be helpful if you’ve been with us in sort of the pre study that we did last week. It might be helpful to have that under your belt. If not, it’s okay. We’ll try to remind you of the things that matter.

00:00:22:03 – 00:00:51:25
Clint Loveall
The book of job is, very complicated, very complex. And it is structured so that there’s a narrative part in the beginning, then a dialog or a, you know, yeah, a series of discourses and then some Prolog at the end, another narrative section. Today we jump into that narrative section. I’m going to read five verses, and then we’ll come back and we’ll have some conversation about them.

00:00:51:30 – 00:01:18:16
Clint Loveall
There was once a man in the land of Oz whose name was Jobe. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. He had 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

00:01:18:21 – 00:01:40:37
Clint Loveall
His sons used to go and hold feasts in one another’s houses in turn, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When the feast days had run, their course, Joab would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings. According to the number of them all for job said.

00:01:40:42 – 00:02:04:14
Clint Loveall
It could be that my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. This is why this is what job always did. So we mentioned this a little bit last week. Job opens in a very strange way. It is not clear by the nature of this book whether it is intended to be read as history or to be read as story.

00:02:04:19 – 00:02:36:13
Clint Loveall
The language, which is often a clue in that decision, isn’t very helpful in the book of Job. Once a man who lived in the Land of Oz, scholars don’t. So nearly everything in job is argued over because so much of it is uncertain. We don’t have a good working answer. For what? The word job. The name job means there are a couple different options, but there’s not agreement.

00:02:36:18 – 00:03:10:04
Clint Loveall
We don’t yet know or have not figured out if Oz is a real place, and if so, where it is, other than it’s to the east, which represents for Israel, the wilderness, the outside. It’s generally understood that Jobe and his friends are probably Israelites, though the names are problematic, and nowhere does it say that. But Jobe here gives, he follows some of the now not really the codes, but he does some things that Israelites do.

00:03:10:04 – 00:03:28:24
Clint Loveall
So. So even as we begin here, Michael, there’s just a lot of looseness. And while that’s interesting, I think we have to be careful that it doesn’t get in the way of the clear takeaway that the first part of the story is trying to establish.

00:03:28:39 – 00:03:53:25
Michael Gewecke
I think that that’s very helpful. I think that we need to remind ourselves why this matters. Why does it matter that job is told in this way? And I think there’s two things I want to lift out as a complement to what Clint has shared. The first is to say, starting with There lived a man makes it clear that we’re not supposed to be looking for the exact time anchor that this happens.

00:03:53:25 – 00:04:17:21
Michael Gewecke
And that is not altogether the case in the old Testament. In fact, very frequently it’s going to be, you know, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar or, you know, there will be some link to in the reign of Saul. You know, these kinds of things will often happen, and it provides you a sense in the in the larger timeline and the larger arc of the people of Israel.

00:04:17:22 – 00:04:40:09
Michael Gewecke
This is where this story is supposed to fit. We recognize very quickly in this story, right as we look at this, that that is disrupted. So here instead we have there was once a man. And so it is making it clear that this is a much more universally pointed story. It doesn’t necessarily need to be located on the historical timeline for the people of Israel.

00:04:40:13 – 00:05:04:10
Michael Gewecke
And then you also have, this piece here that scholars point out, that there was a man gets paired with, stories and things like in first Samuel. You remember when Nathan comes to David and he, comes to tell him the story, in parable of the about the man and his sheep, and, sheep is taken from him.

00:05:04:12 – 00:05:26:11
Michael Gewecke
And at the end, it all comes back around to saying, David, you are that man, right? Well, it’s the same type of phrase, an idiom being used here, that there was once a man. So here you have this sort of setup which has other Old Testament precedent in which you get this idea of, a story being told, a fable not I don’t mean that to say like an untrue.

00:05:26:11 – 00:05:52:22
Michael Gewecke
I just mean to say a story with a purpose, a story with a lesson. And so I think, Clint, that’s a long way, me getting around to say, I think as we look even at the first couple words of this book, we already see some intention of the author is to say that job isn’t supposed to be found looking for the exact person, and the story that he had in particular.

00:05:52:33 – 00:06:11:17
Michael Gewecke
Job is from the very start, pulling us back to have a wider view to, I think, encourage us to imagine job could be any man in any time, quite frankly, in any place we’re seeing in job some of the first order of things, some of those principles are being displayed for us.

00:06:11:22 – 00:06:37:30
Clint Loveall
I think that’s right, Michael. I think whether intentionally or unintentionally, this book obscures almost everything that we would normally try to lean into as a detail. We don’t know where this is. We don’t know when this is. We don’t really know who this is, though. There is Jobe also mentioned I think it’s in, Ezekiel as a righteous man, a famous man.

00:06:37:42 – 00:07:01:55
Clint Loveall
It it’s possible this is that job. That seems reasonable, though. There is no back story. So when we look for the specifics of the details in job, and that even goes down into those who are able to study the language itself, there’s this question mark after question mark after question mark, and there’s something beautiful about that in a book.

00:07:01:55 – 00:07:40:19
Clint Loveall
This complicated and trying to address things, themes this deep, that that level of mystery is, I think, appropriate. However, one of the tools that leaves us is when we have something for certain in the book of Job, we should latch on to it. I think pretty solidly. And the detail that Jobe is trying to teach us right away is that this man job here’s the language blameless, an upright, feared God and turned away from evil.

00:07:40:24 – 00:08:06:56
Clint Loveall
And as a sign of that, and remember that we are in an era, and we are in a book that’s going to wrestle with the connection of faithfulness and blessedness as a sign of his goodness. His prosperity is is poured out there seven sons, sevens, a special number, three daughters, also a special number. The four a total of ten.

00:08:07:01 – 00:08:35:24
Clint Loveall
Also a favorable number in the Old Testament. Sheep, camels, oxen. He was the greatest. And that word greatest, can literally be translated the richest. He was the richest of the people of the East. And not only that, it appears the next part of the story that his sons and daughters enjoy being together. The sons make room not only for one another, but for their sisters.

00:08:35:29 – 00:09:06:40
Clint Loveall
They get together, they celebrate. They have relationship and job. Looking in on a father as a father is both pleased with that and concerned with that. And we should not miss those details. That job here is a good person. We’re going to even learn more about that in the next couple of passages. But even even in the first opening verses here, we have that idea that is, well established right away.

00:09:06:45 – 00:09:36:43
Michael Gewecke
There’s a couple movements here, Clint, that I think are really important. The first is to recognize that the writer of job’s life wants to make it abundantly clear to us, the reader, blameless, upright, feared. God, turned away from evil light. So let’s just dispense with this right from the start. Joel was a person who cared that deeply about righteousness, and also cared deeply about living in right relationship with God.

00:09:36:46 – 00:09:59:49
Michael Gewecke
Okay, then we move to which are earthly markers of that faithfulness. You have the children, you have the property. And notice that this description of the oxen, donkeys, servants, this is what gets used for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. I mean, the descriptions that we have in Genesis of the patriarchs are very similar, right? That that this man has been blessed.

00:09:59:54 – 00:10:26:03
Michael Gewecke
And then you move ahead. Not only is he someone who has benefited greatly in life, not only has he done well, but he’s also a man who deeply cares and is thoughtful not just about being upright in his life, but he’s thinking about the fact of what? What if they what if my children may have committed sins, in their revelry?

00:10:26:07 – 00:10:48:25
Michael Gewecke
What if they’ve curse God? And so therefore, he’s rising early in the morning, offering burnt sacrifices on behalf of them. This is what Jobe always did. I think this is just a shorthand way of saying we’re going to seal up every possible weakness here in this argument. Right? We’re going to start telling you Jobe is upright. He is.

00:10:48:39 – 00:11:12:00
Michael Gewecke
He’s, a person who stands deeply, in fear of God. He’s turned away from evil. He’s been blessed. Look at all of these earthly provisions that demonstrate it. And now, look, he’s not just looking after his own interest. He’s also making sacrifices on behalf of his children. He’s doing the family patriarch. Not patriarch, but patriarchal duty.

00:11:12:05 – 00:11:18:36
Michael Gewecke
For the sake of those under his care. Jobe has got it all buttoned up, all the way down.

00:11:18:41 – 00:11:46:10
Clint Loveall
We we might get tripped up a little bit in the idea of the offering. I think almost anyone who has had the experience of parenting or having a beloved family member has probably you can think of them in terms of getting up to pray over them. Jobe takes that a step farther here, and in case they haven’t incurred a spiritual debt, he seeks to address it.

00:11:46:15 – 00:12:14:00
Clint Loveall
There’s a fascinating, word thing happening here in this last verse where it says, my children may have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. One of the difficult and confusing things of the Book of Job, as it’s written in it’s language, is that the word cursed is also the word blessed. And the word here cursed, is literally the Hebrew word blessed.

00:12:14:00 – 00:12:53:15
Clint Loveall
And it is not exactly clear why that is. And it’s thought that in that particular form of the word, it’s just the context of the sentence. But it may not mean curse God in the sense it may mean something like turn away. And the reason that matters is because in the next scene, when the adversary shows up to try and lead job astray, the challenge is to get job to turn away in his heart, to curse God in his own heart.

00:12:53:15 – 00:13:26:16
Clint Loveall
So job is concerned for his children, the very thing that Satan is going to try to get him to do, and the author here. It may seem like a strange phrase to just randomly worry that your children have cursed God in their hearts, but the author is doing something intentional here, setting up the the tension between what Joel was worried about for his children and the bet that will be made, whether he will do that or not.

00:13:26:16 – 00:13:33:27
Clint Loveall
And so it’s just, it’s just one of a million strange word things in this book.

00:13:33:32 – 00:14:03:14
Michael Gewecke
I’m not going to add much to that. That’s well said other than to say, I think if you have had experiences in your life with struggle or loss with children, that I think job as a book does hit very hard. Because the way that this book sets job up in the beginning as being a faithful man is a man with a blessed life and a blessed family, and that is deeply troubled as this story proceeds.

00:14:03:14 – 00:14:28:33
Michael Gewecke
And then at the end, job in many ways sees the fruit of family return. But surely it we are going to hear that in a way that is troubling. I think the way that family gets looped into this story, kids get looped into this story is, deeply disturbing. How they become part of the blast radius of this thing that happens to Jobe.

00:14:28:33 – 00:14:51:10
Michael Gewecke
This suffering is not just some kind of cosmic experiment that that’s a good word, but it’s not just some kind of cosmic act that happens to Jobe. I mean, these these the sacrifices he’s making for his kids are. We’re going to see what happens to his kids. Is this story I think that this is it has a dark, dark undertone.

00:14:51:15 – 00:15:33:40
Clint Loveall
I think one of the realities of being in the Book of Job is that it seeks to portray, an unreasonable, a troubling, a staggering amount of suffering. And in order to show us how low Jobe is going to sink, it has to first show us how high was the place from which he started. And so this big, wonderful family, this devotion that he has this, relational concern even over his children and and their standing before God.

00:15:33:45 – 00:16:05:52
Clint Loveall
One of the things that makes this book. Tough to near brutal at moments is that in exploring the depths of human suffering, it has to first show us all that Jobe is going to lose and that there’s simply no easy part to navigate that that it is supposed to hurt. It is supposed to be troubling, because that’s the nature of the question it’s asking.

00:16:05:52 – 00:16:32:24
Clint Loveall
You know, the the one last thing, Michael. We should perhaps, Try to cover the idea and we can just broach it today because it comes up again tomorrow. The idea of a righteous person, it is a stretch for us, right? We’re we’re reared in the reformed tradition. We know that all have fallen in sin. And therefore thereby fallen short of the glory of God.

00:16:32:29 – 00:17:06:22
Clint Loveall
Natural depravity, human sinfulness. John Calvin So the idea of a good person is a little bit of stretch in terms of how we’ve been taught to read the Bible. I think I think really it’s one of those places where perhaps our theological background doesn’t help us. Yeah. The The Book of Job is not claiming that job is sinless or is perfect in the way that we might discuss those categories, but it’s going to say that he’s righteous, he’s God minded.

00:17:06:27 – 00:17:32:40
Clint Loveall
He lives his life under the wisdom of making sure, to the best of his ability, that he’s in keeping with the will of God. He’s obedient. He’s he’s thoughtful, he’s sincere, he’s genuine. Don’t let the language of righteousness get get caught up in theological definitions, which I, I would argue this book doesn’t mean.

00:17:32:45 – 00:18:06:10
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. In fact, the commentator that I have in front of me right here makes that same exact argument and says, in fact, says explicitly these words, blameless and upright should not be construed to imply he’s sinless, but Clint, one of the ways our tradition doesn’t help us is I don’t know that we emphasize wisdom in a way that the Old Testament does, and celebrate wisdom as and not wisdom as intellectual profundity or knowledge that is been crammed into your brain.

00:18:06:10 – 00:18:30:10
Michael Gewecke
It’s not the one who has the most degrees is the wisest. It’s the one who is capable of seeing and knowing the universe as it is, and God’s relationship in right relationship. And if one has that awareness, then one is able to live in lockstep with the way that things are supposed to be. And if you can do that, then one’s life will be enriched.

00:18:30:10 – 00:19:01:24
Michael Gewecke
One’s life will will be well with one, because you’re living in the vein of the way that things truly are and not, made up version of it. If you’re able to get your head in that space and then to think about job is wise enough to know what needs to be done to do well, he he’s prospered financially, but he’s also wise enough to know it’s not just what my family does, it’s also what they think.

00:19:01:24 – 00:19:17:45
Michael Gewecke
It’s also the measure of their heart. Right? There’s nuance in this character, Joe. We haven’t had a lot of words, but we’ve already seen some of this nuance leaking through. I just think instead of thinking, yeah, Joe, there’s no way that you were perfect. I think that that’s a mistake of a thing. We are bringing and putting on the text.

00:19:17:45 – 00:19:35:34
Michael Gewecke
I think what the text is actually trying to show us, this is the kind of guy that you turn to when you need something, when you have a question. Jobs, the kind of guy who would rise to the top of your list to ask that question to it. If you’re going through a struggle, job is the kind of guy who would give you good advice.

00:19:35:34 – 00:19:50:12
Michael Gewecke
He’s a wise man, though that word is not used here. It’s embedded inside this text and that fits inside of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. There’s a tradition that this book sits in, and job is representing that I think, you know, very meaningful way.

00:19:50:16 – 00:20:23:22
Clint Loveall
There’s also one, I think this is second time I’ve said last piece that that’s the problem with job. There’s generally more to it, but there’s a foreshadowing here. I think that happens, Michael, in that we see in job’s concern for his children a fear that sin will lead to a bad thing happening. Yeah, he he’s afraid for his children that they may have sinned and thereby invite misfortune upon themselves.

00:20:23:27 – 00:20:54:09
Clint Loveall
That is very subtle, but it’s extremely important because it is the seed that is going to grow into the rest of the story. And so I think it’s helpful to notice how Jobe thinks, because ultimately, how Jobe thinks is going to be tested and challenged in the case that Jobe is going to make it is already revealed in in this in this instance that you could easily read by and not notice.

00:20:54:14 – 00:21:16:03
Michael Gewecke
As Clint has already said, there’s a lot to this book, and I think the story of this study is like a plane. I think the beginning of it here, we’re going to be dealing with these Prolog verses where it kind of be giving up some speed on the runway, and at some point we’re going to lift off. We won’t be verse by verse and chapter by chapter in the same way that we are right now.

00:21:16:03 – 00:21:35:58
Michael Gewecke
But I think it’s important that we understand the set up of this book, know who we’re talking about, know how these discourses become framed. Because as you go on this journey with us, all of this layering, you’ll remember this is a masterfully crafted story. None of this is here on accident. None of it is dispensable. It’s all here for a reason.

00:21:36:05 – 00:21:52:52
Clint Loveall
And and though the discourse parts are sort of cyclical and repetitive, that’s not true of the narrative parts. And so it’s worth slowing down to make sure that we try to wrestle with what we learn part by part of the story, I think.

00:21:52:57 – 00:21:59:38
Michael Gewecke
Thanks for being with us. Like and subscribe helps others find it. Make sure that you don’t miss the study as we go through. See you all the more! Thanks for.