I did everything right so what has happened? When Job's children and wealth were taken
away he was philosophical, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord." This enduring pain changed things. Job has lost any sense of hope that things
will turn around for him and his friends have increased his pain by accusing
him of some secret and unconfessed sin in his life, blaming him for his
circumstances. He has no choice left but
to maintain his integrity and honor and we happen to know that Job was indeed a
righteous man. Job says here that even
his heart was righteous, he didn't treasure in his wealth, and as noted, it
seems that was true. He also says that
he didn't exult when his enemy was brought low.
He did justice, his servants were well-treated and so was his land. Fairness is what Job wants, the covenant
benefits of righteousness.
Mary comes to see Jesus and she repeats what Martha had
said, "Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have
died." Clearly they wanted Him to
come when they sent word of Lazarus' illness but we know Jesus deliberately
stayed away. The mourners see Jesus'
tears and conclude that He loved Lazarus but the reality must be that His
weeping was for something other than Lazarus' death, He has power to overcome
death. Some conclude Jesus must not have
loved Lazarus and the family all that much since He could have come and done something to prevent the death and
subsequent grief. Martha has faith, but
not enough to roll away the stone without encouragement. The Jewish belief was that for three days the
soul waited to see if the body would revive and after that it left and the body
began decomposing. Some have said that
Jesus called Lazarus by name in order that all the dead didn't come forth. Jesus always calls us forward in faith. The sisters and even some of the mourners
believed Jesus could have prevented the death but that wasn’t enough faith,
they needed to come up a little higher.
Why did the apostolic council only ask a few things from the
Gentile believers? Why not give them the
Old Testament and let them chew on it?
They didn't have rabbis to teach them, they had been given the Holy
Spirit, and they thought the return of the Lord was imminent. If you think time is short you only hit the
highlights. James recognizes that this
Gentile harvest is exactly what Amos prophesied for the end times. The dietary demands placed on them allow for
table fellowship within the new Christian community. The Jewish Christians would abstain from the
prohibited food as a matter of course, and the Gentiles, in order to share
fully in the community would need to do the same. The prohibition on sexual immorality was a
result of the differing moral standards between the Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish sexual ethic was more restrictive. Everyone was to be treated equally so long as
they remained faithful.
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