Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, dear ones.

Memorial Day is a good thing…giving honor to whom honor is due. It’s a memorial day in more ways than one for us…Memorial Day (actually on May 28 that year) 2001 was the day of Thano’s brain injury accident, as well as the passing of my father…a double whammie…all while we were far away in Vanuatu.

Since there is solid rain out there, I think I’ll lay aside my jog excursion again. Oh well…

I’m afraid that I have served up kind of a whopper here again…without even trying…and I could have easily made it bigger.

It sure would be nice if I could achieve joining the main timbers today for this big table top. I’ll give it a good try.

Have a great Memorial Day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

We observe our remarkable role model of chapters 1 and 2 begin to falter in chapter 3—and it’s very understandable. Without a clue as to why he would be the target of such an obvious intentional attack of harm and evil, he lets fly with his first verbal response to it all in the presence of his three “friends.” Up till now, “No one said a word, because they saw how great his suffering was” (2:13). As Job speaks, it seems he is resorting to a technicality that he probably hopes will excuse his heart-wrenching complaint. He doesn’t come right out and charge God with wrongdoing, but “Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth” (3:1)—which logically plays out to be an indirect way of doing just that—charging God with wrongdoing. Birthing is clearly a God thing. Let’s agree on that fact. There is no science or technology capable of replicating it. And besides that, history is a stubborn thing. Men can get all bent and huffy all they want over things that have happened, but it has absolutely no affect on the fact of history—any more than you can edit today what you did yesterday. Even attempts to re-write history by injecting the record with fiction or lies does nothing to alter the facts behind the record.

There is great pain in the loss of all he had. There is great pain in the loss of his health. Now Job grapples with the pain of ideaological conflict—causing him to feel rejected his by so-called friends—firstly by Eliphaz, who makes a very strong accusation that Job has to be covering up some kind of secret sin and evil—otherwise this terrible storm would never have struck. And that reveals the serious error within the reasoning of Eliphaz and his friends—the dogma that BAD HAPPENS TO BAD PEOPLE, AND GOOD HAPPENS TO GOOD PEOPLE. Up to this point we can assume that Job was inclined to think the same way. But now he is left to go nearly nuts trying to find the missing link—that which links cause with all this effect. It is not to be found. It can only be revealed.

I’ve never died before. I’ve never been to heaven—and I’ve never been to hell. I’ve never experienced what comes after my last breath. So how is it that so many claim to know so much about so much of the unknown? I’m afraid that some who will not attempt to re-write history will attempt to re-write the future and inject it with some really off-the-wall stuff. I think we are wise to avoid developing our worldview and perspective of the future from country Gospel music—like “Just Build My Mansion Next Door to Jesus.” This is a good time to review a valid thesis relating to God’s Word, the Bible: GOD’S WORD IS AS MUCH INSPIRED BY GOD FOR WHAT IT DOES NOT SAY AS IT IS FOR WHAT IT DOES SAY.

The best valid advice that Eliphas gives so far is this: “But if it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay out my cause before him” (5:8). To that I say, “Amen, Eliphaz.” Like little children, we should never out-grow crying out to our Father. I think this is also a good time to review another valid thesis that I find myself repeating often: THE BEST WAY TO DO LIFE IS TO DO IT IN CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ONE WHO MADE IT—THE ONE WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING.