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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey. Family. Welcome to day 323. We are trekking through the book of Job together. Hopefully we're all having a good time. I know I'm having a blast. Today we are looking at job chapters 34 to 37, 34, 35, 36, 37. Four chapters of the Bible that we are looking at today. And I'm pumped because after today we get to study what God has to say about all of the drama in Job's life. Can't wait to get there tomorrow. Don't wanna jump the gun. We'll get there tomorrow. Now, in the meantime, if you have not done the reading for the day for today, if you haven't read job 34, 35, 36 and 37, how about you stop this video, pause the audio, go get the reading done. I'm gonna give you a heads up though. If you haven't done the reading. Eli, who has a, a lot of words, but not a lot of, you know, he doesn't have a lot to say, but use a lot of words to say a little bit of content. I mean, it's, ooh, it can be a little draining. But anyway, just wanted to give you that heads up. Maybe if you've done the reading, if you feel that way, let me know in the comments if you've already done the reading and you're just like, this brother is long winded. Just let me know in the comments if you're watching this on YouTube that, that Ellie, who is not a concise individual. So hey, for all of you who have the reading done, we are going to dive into our context clues like every day. Then nerdy nuggets, then a timeless truth. So I want to knock out some context for us today as we dive into this episode. Just some big, big, big, big, big picture stuff. Okay, so remember we were talking about those three levers on the triangle, right? Like in the example that I gave is that I went to a mechanic one time and they said, you know, there was a little sign on the door that said, hey, this could either be cheap, fast or excellent, but it can't be all three, right? And so whatever you toggle on, the other thing is going to toggle Off. And that, that's really the tug of war that Job and his friends are in, right? That top lever is God is just. It's his character. It's. He can't not be just. He is just. Next is Job is innocent, okay? Job is experiencing suffering. That is not a punishment because he is innocent. Okay, so these are the two things. If we toggle them on, then we have to ask the question about the last toggle. And that is, does God govern the cosmos with a policy of retribution and reward? Now, Deuteronomy and Proverbs would both suggest that God governs with a retribution and reward policy. Okay? That's the policy. You read Deuteronomy. It is, hey, before you have placed life and death, blessings and curses, if you do this, this will happen cause. And if you do this, this will happen. Cause and effect. And then a book like Proverbs is really built on top of the foundation of a Deuteronomist. Deuteronomy stick worldview. Okay? That's always a difficult. That's always a tongue twister for me. And so I want to kind of give an analogy that'll help us out a bit. Because what Job's friends are arguing is they're going to toggle on God is just. Therefore, this is the policy in which God uses to run the universe. And I want us to think about it this way. Let's think about policies. Okay? So my son is 44 years old right now. And you know, we've been talking recently about telling the truth, that we don't say things that aren't true. So, you know, recently my wife went out of town and my son is like, mom said, da, da, da, da, da. And he just made up some stuff. He made up some stuff that my wife did not say. Okay, but mom said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, hey, buddy, are you telling me the truth? Okay, so at four years old, the only policy he needs is tell the truth, Always tell the truth. Should I tell the truth 80% of the time, 40% of the time, 20% of the time, or 100%, 100% of the time. Okay, fantastic. Now, so if that's the policy, right, imagine, you know, there's a scenario where he has to tell a lie to save human lives. And imagine me as the dad, okay? I've taught him a very black and white policy. But I know there's gray, but I know that he's not mature enough to handle that gray. Okay? So imagine he's, you know, six And I'm like, you know, hey, there are moments where you have to lie in order to save a human life. Because saving a life is morally holds more weight than telling the truth. Okay, so let's like think about a story in the Bible, in the beginning of the book of Exodus, the midwives who have been assigned to the Jewish women to take their babies and throw their babies into the Nile, they lie, right? They lie. They come up with all kinds of lies to tell Pharaoh. Why? Why do they lie? They lie in order to save human life. Or, or let's think about Rahab. Rahab lies in order to hide spies in her house. Why? In order for the will of the Lord to get done. So here we have two times in scripture where people do lie and it's not a problem. Why is it not a problem? Well, because telling the truth would then mean that they are violating a heavier something that has even more moral weight than telling the truth does. Can you imagine me trying to explain that to my 4 year old? Can you just imagine me saying, well buddy, you can lie sometimes if a human life is at risk. Like, like there's 1% of the time, 2% of the time where lying is going to be okay, but lying is only okay if someone. Can you imagine me trying to teach the story of Rahab to him? Or, or the story where the midwives lie to Pharaoh? Or like the magi, the wise men end up lying to Herod because Herod is killing children and the wise men don't want to blow Jesus's cover that he's escaped to Egypt. Like, can you imagine me trying to explain that amount of gray to my 4 year old son while he's only able to think in black and white? And herein lies the problem. You and I, like, actually I'm closer to the intelligence level of my 4 year old son than God is to us. And so the question is not is God just or is Job innocent? We could toggle both those on. But does God use a strict policy of retribution and reward to govern the universe? And the answer, actually God's answer is no. The universe is too complicated of a place for there to be that simple of an equation. And so is the policy correct? Like is the policy that's laid out in Deuteronomy and Proverbs, correct? Yes. Yes. Generally speaking, if you do good, good things happen. Generally speaking, if you walk upright, you will be blessed. Generally speaking. But the Satan or the Satan Hasatan character is like, is that even a good idea? How will we know If Job actually loves you, if it doesn't cost him anything. And so that kind of gets us to this place of, hey, like, yes, God operates the universe according to just policies, but does God's just policy always mean a strict retribution and reward, one for one, you know, punishment or reward? And the answer is no. That life's too unpredictable for that, that life's too complicated for that. That that kind of a system does not work, that's too rigid. And the cosmos is gonna need way more flexibility. Now, Elihu is not able to come to that conclusion, and Job is not able to come to that conclusion until God talks. Now, I just wanted to provide that level of context, like, when we talk about policy, the policy that God uses to govern the universe, like, that's what the book of Job is really about. And when we start talking about that, I want us to kind of understand what we mean by that. Okay? And I thought that the example of my son and lying kind of could help bring that to life. Hope that's helpful. Only other thing I'll say about context for today, okay. Is that when we got done with Job's Oath of innocence from a narrative perspective, like, from a literary perspective, I don't know about you, but I was ready for Yahweh to respond. Like, Job's Oath of innocence should have gotten us to the edge of our seats, should have created suspense. That's what it's designed to do. And then out of nowhere, here comes Eli, who I don't know if you've ever been watching a good movie and it felt like that. It feels like this movie's about to end, and then they tack on, like, 20 extra minutes. Like, that's an artistic choice, and the book of Job is making that artistic choice. Okay. That. What Elihu's monologue is doing is it's prolonging the payoff of what Yahweh is going to say even more, because Job, chapter 28, already told us only Yahweh can provide wisdom. So if Job is demanding to meet with Yahweh, and we know that that's the climax of the book, he's the only one that can bring wisdom. And so that's where the action is headed. And Elihu is kind of supposed to keep us in suspense just for a little while longer. So just from a. Not a spiritual perspective, just from a literary perspective, I hope that you can appreciate where Elihu's speeches are placed, because Job's Oath of Innocence is supposed to get you ready. I mean, like, leaned in and ready for Yahweh to drop some truth bombs. But then, out of nowhere, here we go. Elihu's here. Okay, let's dive into our nerdy nuggets. Okay, number one, first nerdy nugget. Elihu is the first Hebrew name we have in the entire book. And that name means he is my God. So that's already a good sign that, like, what Elihu's gonna say is probably not as ridiculous as the other three friends. Okay, number two, the second nerdy nugget that I want us to kind of center our minds on is not just Elihu's name, but Elihu's claim. Okay. Elihu claims that God used the suffering of Job as a preventative justice for future sin. Okay, now this is actually creative. The three friends have not even proposed that as an idea or as an option. So I could kind of get behind the thought process that maybe Elihu is smarter than these other three guys. Okay. Some scholars believe Elihu adds no real value, that he's just regurgitating the arguments that he's already heard. I don't line up there. I actually think that essentially what Eli Hu is claiming is that you. Okay, Job. Okay, Job, we believe you. You didn't sin yet, but God knew you would sin in the future, and so you're dealing with suffering now. All right, by the way, that is the perspective that the disciples have when they ask Jesus about the man born blind. They say, who sinned him or his parents that he was born blind. Okay? You can't understand the disciples question of Jesus if you don't understand how the book of Proverbs and Deuteronomy really function, which is a black and white never tell a lie, always tell the truth policy. Okay? And so the disciples are like, hey, who sinned this man or his parents? And why would it be this man if he was born blind? Right. Obviously, the man couldn't have sinned while he was in the womb. But what the Jewish people believed, especially in the first century, was that God knows the future sins that you are going to commit. And since God is omniscient, he can make you blind at birth because he's aware of some future sin that you're going to commit when you're like, 38 years old and Jesus has to go, guys, no. Like, that's a. The question is not who sinned? Question is, how can the glory of God be on display through this man's life? Okay, so number one is Elihu's name. Number two is Elihu's Claim. Okay. And then three, Elihu's accusation. Now where the other three friends are just kind of making suggestions like, maybe you did this and maybe you did that and maybe you did that. Elihu is like, I know exactly what your sin is. And you've been claiming to be righteous, but actually you're self righteous. You're not righteous, you're self righteous. That is Elihu's addition to these friends arguments is that number one God, Yahweh is giving preventative punishment. He's punishing now because of something he knows is gonna happen in the future. Second, he is saying that the issue here is not that you're righteous, it's actually that you're so righteous, you are self righteous family. The wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books A Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. All right. I hope that context clue and the nerdy nuggets were helpful. Let's move into our timeless truth for the day. I want to kind of just frame this up a little bit. We're going into the fact that Yahweh's about to actually respond. And what we've discovered already in chapter 28 is that, hey, man, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Like, there's this. How do I know whether or not there's a black and white policy or a policy with gray? Like, what do I. How do I know? And we're getting down to, okay. Like, so what is the point of this book? And I guess I could frame it like this. There are lots of things that we don't know. It's like if we made a list of, like, what we don't know. A lot, A lot. Eli, who's the wisest person we've talked to so far, and he's still Wrong. Cause what do we not know? We don't know many things. There are many things we don't know. But what do we know? We know that Yahweh can be trusted. And that's where the book actually wants you to end up. There's a lot of things we don't know, but here's what we do know. Yahweh can be trusted. So we have to then create some defaults. A default. Hey, when confused, when in suffering, when disoriented, when disappointed. Let's have a default. In the default, we trust God. In the default, we who walk in the fear of the Lord. In the default, we assume that even though we don't comprehend what's happening, whatever's happening is according to God's justice. There's a lot of things we don't know. But we're not going to make decisions based on what we don't know based on. We're actually going to make decisions based on what we do know. And we know enough. We know everything we need to know in order to follow God, to place our faith in him and to assume that he's good, that that's what Job is about, is needing to do. That's what everybody in the story needs to do, but that's also what you and I need to do. There's all types of moments where we could focus on all the things we don't know. And it's almost like by not knowing a lot, it could kind of cause paralysis. Like, since I don't know anything, I'm not going to do anything. Kind of like being in a dark room and you're just like, yeah, I'm not moving. I'm not banging my shin. I'm not. It's not moving. And whereas the book of Job is actually getting you to the place where you go, there's a lot of things I don't know. But there's one thing I do know. And the one thing that I do know can actually illuminate a path for me to begin to even know the things that I don't know by acting on what I do know to be true and what we do know to be true. Wow. What we do know to be true is that God is an incredible father. He's a phenomenal leader. That God can be trusted, that there's no one like him in all the earth, and he is undefeated. All right, I wrote down here, you must always have a default when you don't know what to do. You fear Yahweh on our Team. I always say, like, hey, there's all. Because there's going to be all types of moments where we don't know what to do. You know, I make decisions about our church plan. I probably average, like, 20 decisions a day. And there's always moments where I'm like, I don't know what to do. Should we hire that person? Should we not? Should we contact that person? Should we not? Should we have our church at this venue or not? Should we do this? Should we not? Should we this, that? And I'm like, guess what I do know. I do know that anytime I'm confused, we should love people anytime. I'm confused, man. We should honor people anytime. I don't know what to do. I'm never gonna allow the things that I'm overwhelmed by and by the things that I don't know, that are overwhelming me to overshadow all things I do know. I know enough. I may not have answers for a hundred of these things, but I know these five things. And I'm gonna educate on the five things I do know. And Job is actually trying to get you to the point of, I don't know why bad things happen to Goodview. I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea. But I know this. I know that God can be trusted. I know that he should be feared. I know that I stand in a humble position before him. And if I continue to do that, maybe, just maybe, he'll speak to me in the whirlwind. Which is exactly what we're gonna look at tomorrow. Tomorrow is day 324. We're going to look at job chapter 38 and 39. We've been waiting with baited breath to get here because Yahweh's now going to respond and set the record straight. Tomorrow we'll dive into it. It'll be fantastic. Same time, same place. If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. If you're not, it's okay. Come on, let's get it together. Love you guys so much. See you tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram @thebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.