Saturday, November 6, 2010

Implicit trust

Key verse
Job 2:10 - "Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?"

I've done some background reading on the new books we're looking at in my Archaeological study bible.   Here are some things I learned, along with my own thoughts I'd like to share.

Job
I've learned something new about the book of Job.  Apparently, when it was written, the popular idea about suffering was that if you were going through bad times, it must be because you had sinned or your ancestors had sinned.  The story of Job shows that people can suffer even though they are righteous.  This new view presents a whole different picture of what God is like, and how little we can understand of him in our finite world.  Implicit trust and faith in the ultimate goodness of God is required.

How do you reconcile the problem of suffering in this world with the belief in a good God?

Ezekiel

This book was written for the exiles to Babylon.  Ezekiel was preparing them (in 593 BC) for the destruction of Jerusalem so that they wouldn't live in the false hope that the city would somehow be spared.  The city was destroyed in 586 BC.

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