For examples of patience in suffering, dear brothers and sisters, look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We give great honor to those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end, for the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy. [James 5:10-11 (NLT)]
Within the first two chapters of the book of Job, a man whose life had been blessed with health, wealth and family loses his livestock (meaning his livelihood), along with his servants, ten children, and health. Although James cited Job as an example of patience and endurance through suffering, we really don’t know how long Job’s pain and anguish lasted.
We do know Job’s friends sat and mourned in silence with him for seven days but we don’t know how long it took for the news of his loss to reach them or for them to travel to Job. Once Job’s friends start talking, we have thirty-five chapters of dialogue followed by four more chapters of God questioning him but no way to know if it all took place in a day, several days, or even months. The only clue to the length of Job’s suffering is when he complains of being assigned “months of futility” and “long and weary nights of misery.” [7:3] Those sound like the words of someone suffering from a chronic illness but he could have been speaking figuratively—that it felt like he’d been in agony for months. Whether days or months of misery, Job maintained his faith the entire time.
In Chapter 38, God finally appears. Rather than answer Job’s questions, God asks questions of His own and Job realizes how limited his knowledge of God is. Accepting that God alone knows what is best, the man finally understands that he can’t judge God’s actions or question His reasons. Submitting to God’s authority, he repents and says, “I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” [42:6] After God rebukes Job’s friends, demands a sacrifice, and has Job pray for them, Job’s life is restored. God blesses him with health, a long life, twice his original wealth, and ten new children. It’s a real “happily-ever-after” ending!
What if Job’s story ended another way? What if Chapter 42 ended at verse 6 with Job’s repentance for questioning God? What if his health, wealth and family had not been restored? Instead of Job’s misery dragging on for several months, what if it dragged on for years? As Job continued to suffer from pus-filled boils all over his body, insomnia, nightmares, fever, and pain, how would Job’s next chapter read? After all, fairy tale endings are few and far between. Would Job remain faithful if his adversity lasted his lifetime or would he turn bitter? Would he still be able to say, “Praise the name of the Lord!” as he did in Chapter 1?
Perhaps the answer is found earlier in Job’s story, in Chapter 19. Even though he doesn’t know why he’s suffering, Job expresses confidence that God would vindicate him from his friends’ false accusations. Moreover, Job is certain that death would not be the end of his existence and that he eventually would see God—if not in his lifetime, then when resurrected in the next. After speaking with God in Chapter 42, Job knew that God had not abandoned him and had heard his prayers. He understood that God’s infinite wisdom was behind the unpredictable and arbitrary nature of life, and he no longer questioned the why of his misfortune. Even if health, wealth, and family had never been restored, by Job 42:6 the most important thing Job had was restored—his relationship with God. The lesson found in the book of Job is the same whether or not his suffering came to an end. Had his suffering continued, I think Job would have endured—would we?
Although the Apostle Paul seems to have mixed figures of speech by referring to the military with “fought” and “fight,” athletics with “race,” and religion with “faith,” all three references relate to athletics. The word used for fought was agónizomai (the root word for the English word “agonize”) which meant “to contend for a prize” or “struggle.” The word translated as “fight” was agōna, meaning “a gathering, contest, struggle.” Rather than a conflict or dispute, it referred to a gathering to see contests like the ancient games held at Olympia or the games themselves. Paul’s audience would have understood that he meant something grueling and, in their 1st century world, athletic competitions were so fierce and brutal that even the winners usually carried scars.
Today’s email contained a meme of that lovable loser Charlie Brown with the caption: “The smile on my face doesn’t mean my life is perfect. It means I appreciate what I have and what I have been blessed with. I choose to be happy.” The meme reminded me of words spoken by Jane Marczweski when she appeared on America’s Got Talent last week: “You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.” Known as Nightbirde, the 30-year-old vocalist sang an original song called “It’s Okay” and received the “golden buzzer” from judge Simon Cowell. She said she wrote the song as a reminder that, “You can be happy and also be going through something really hard at the same time—you don’t have to pick one or the other.”
“The luckiest traitor ever,” are the words historian Mary Beard used to describe Flavius Josephus, a first-century Jewish general who ended up allying himself with the Romans—the very people who destroyed his homeland and demolished the Temple during the Great Revolt (66-70 AD). Born in 37 AD, Josephus grew up in Jerusalem and studied with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes before serving as a general during the Jewish rebellion against Rome. According to Josephus, when fleeing the Roman army, he led his troop of 40 men into a cave. Rather than surrender, they agreed to commit suicide and drew lots to determine the order in which they would die. Either Josephus was incredibly lucky or he’d fixed the lottery but, when only he and another man remained, he convinced him to join in surrender to the Romans. In support of his story, excavations at Jotapata in the 1990s revealed the remains of 30 to 40 men assumed to have been Josephus’ men.
In its entirety, the Shema consists of three sections: Deuteronomy 6:4–9, Deuteronomy 11:13–2, and Numbers 15:37–41. The second paragraph of the Shema repeats the first one’s commands regarding the binding of God’s words to hands and forehead, writing them on the doorways and gates, teaching them to the children, and talking about them throughout the day. The primary theme of this paragraph, however, is that the promised land and the people’s enjoyment of it depended on their faithfulness to God. As long as they loved God and served Him with heart and soul, the people and land would be blessed but, if they turned aside to serve other gods, God’s wrath would result and things would not go well for the people or their land. In this warning, that is repeated again and again throughout the Old Testament, we see the fundamental Jewish belief that reward and punishment are based on the fulfillment of God’s commandments.
