Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Bible Challenge: Day 192

The scriptures read are Job 34-36, Psalm 7 and Galatians 3.

Job 34. Elihu says that God can't do evil, that he even knows secret sins and inadvertent ones. So, Job, fess up.

Job 35. Elihu points out that God is not dependent on us, our sins cannot hurt him nor can our good deeds do him any favors. People ignore God when their lives are good and only turn to him when their lives are bad.

Job 36. Elihu still. God doesn't pick on innocent people, though he allows suffering as a wake up call for them to repent.

Psalm 7: Here's a classical polyphonic setting in German: here.

Galatians 3. If you try to redeem yourself by obeying the law, remember that you are bound by every rule in the Bible. And nobody can keep all of the them. You have to do what Abraham did: trust God and his promises.

It's like a will. God's promise was to Abraham and his descendant (singular), which we now know is Christ. The law, given much later than Abraham, cannot nullify the promise. The purpose of the law was to point out how far out of harmony with God we are and to show that no human being could live up to the standards God requires. Or the law is like one of those tutors rich people have to escort their children to school. He acts more like a body guard, not so much educating the kids as protecting them.

In the body of Christ, things like whether you're a Jewish Christians or a Gentile one, whether you're a slave or a freeman, whether you're male or female, are irrelevant. We are all equal. But more than that, we are joint heirs with Christ. What's his is ours.

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