Thursday, January 14, 2010

My small group is doing a Bible in a year reading program. So, I'm going to do a light commentary on my daily readings:

Job 1-2: Job is the oldest book in the Bible, and it amazes me that this is the first book God inspired and gave His people. It raises some of the thorniest issues in theology, yet God let pre-modern people know and grapple with this story. I love how God and the Bible are unafraid of difficult issues; it shows a supreme confidence it the truthfulness of the underlying story and God.

In Job 2, Job clearly attributes his losses to God (God gives and God takes away). However, the chapter notes that Job was without fault. He must have been without fault because he did not find fault with God allowing Job's things to be taken from him. This actually represents the orthodox Christian answer to the most difficult question of if there is a God, why is there evil in the world. The answer is that God did ordain evil to be in the world (or else He isn't sovereign), but we also must believe that God is blameless in evil's presence in the world; God does not do evil.

Again, an amazingly sophisticated book Job is, and written something like 6,000 years ago.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Edith Wharton's 'The Dilettante' separates spirit from soul.
This article by Ross Douthat is exactly what I think of the Brit Hume/Tiger Woods controversey.