These are the devotionals that are taken from the book For the Love of God by D.A. Carson. It goes along with the church's bible reading plan
March 8 - 2 Corinthians 7
Sometimes people present Paul as if he were a cold intellectual. Why “cold” should be connected with “intellectual,” I am not sure. It certainly does not fit Paul. Obviously, God gave Paul a first-class mind. But he was also a man of passionate intensity.
In 2 Corinthians 7 Paul testifies that, on the one hand, his joy knows no bounds (2 Cor. 7:4); on the other hand, this joy has resulted from some news of the Corinthians that Paul received when he went to Macedonia. For on his first arrival in Macedonia, Paul had experienced no rest, but was “harassed at every turn—conflicts on the outside, fears within” (2 Cor. 7:5). But then his fears and conflicts turned to joy when he received the good news about the Corinthians
What prompted this vast transformation in the apostle’s outlook?
(1) Whatever the mechanics, Paul recognizes that the transformation was brought about by God, “who comforts the downcast” (2 Cor. 7:6). In this case God brought comfort to Paul by restoring Titus to him, who brought with him some news of the Corinthians.
(2) The news Titus brought was that the Corinthians, however much they had been wounded by Paul’s previous visit and by the painful letter he had sent, had regained their equilibrium. They now longed to see Paul and expressed “ardent concern” for him (2 Cor. 7:7). Titus brought the news that the sorrow evoked by Paul’s letter turned out to be a “godly sorrow” in that it led to repentance (2 Cor. 7:8–10). Sorrow that generates repentance “leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2 Cor. 7:10). All this news of the Corinthians’ reactions has filled Paul with joy and encouragement.
This indicates, of course, that Paul is intimately involved in the lives of the people to whom he ministers. His own emotions may go up and down as a function of how they relate to him. But what is striking is that Paul avoids two very common traps. (a) Obviously, he avoids the kind of professional distance projected by some ministers as a protective shield. (b) Although his own joys and sorrows are clearly tied to what the Corinthian Christians think of him, that link is not primarily a personal link. When that is the case, the minister loses his prophetic voice and will say and do only what he thinks will maintain the affection of the flock. Paul has felt duty-bound to reprimand the Corinthians, in person and in writing; he has not flinched from that responsibility. His joy that they have returned to him is thus inseparable from his joy that they have returned to faithful allegiance to the Gospel—the heart of his unbounded delight.
March 9 - Job 38
As we approach the end of the drama, God addresses Job directly for the first time (Job 38); he will continue to address Job through chapter 41. Elsewhere God speaks to Elijah in a still, small, voice (1 Kings 19); here God speaks to Job out of a storm (Job 38:1), for he wants even the form of his communication, or its venue, to substantiate the large points he wishes to make.
God’s first words are terrifying: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me” (Job 38:2–3). This opening salvo might lead the unwary to think that Job is the one with whom God is primarily displeased, and that the three miserable comforters have got off rather lightly. But like a drama that teeters back and forth between this perspective and that, this book is not finished yet. After all, the opening chapter records God’s estimate of Job, and nothing in these chapters reverses that estimate. Further, I have already drawn attention to Job 42:7, where God says he is angry with the three friends (something he never says about Job), because they did not speak what was right about God (as God’s servant Job did). God’s terrifying challenge to Job in these four chapters must be placed within the larger framework of the book, if we are to make sense of the whole.
Job has repeatedly said that he wishes to question God. Now God says that he will question Job (Job 38:3). Yet the nature of the barrage of rhetorical questions God raises in these chapters is scarcely the kind of questions Job wants to address. Job wants to talk about his own sufferings, about the justice of them, about God’s role in sanctioning such sufferings, and the like. He wants to do this not least because he desires to maintain his justifiable reputation for integrity and righteousness. But God’s questions focus on a much bigger picture. God asks, in effect: “Job, were you present at the dawn of creation? Do you have intimate knowledge of the entire world, let alone of the heavens? Do you control the course of the constellations—Pleiades and Orion, let us say? Were you the one who constructed the human mind, so that you can explain how it works? Does your word exercise the kind of providential sway that grants food to hungry ravens or to a hunting lioness?”
At one level, of course, this response does not at all answer the kind of questions Job was raising. At another level, it does. It warns Job that his capacity to understand is more limited than he thinks. It prepares us for the conclusion that God wants something more from us than mere understanding.
March 10 - 2 Corinthians 9
The September 20 meditation in volume 1 worked its way through 2 Corinthians 9. Nevertheless I want to come back to that passage.
Paul’s carefully worded exhortation to the Christians in Corinth—to have ready for him the money they pledged to send to the poor in Jerusalem (chaps. 8–9)—need not be reviewed again. What I shall focus on for today’s meditation is how Paul’s exhortation about giving and money is tied to the Gospel.
In chapter 8 Paul invokes the example of Christ’s self-giving: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). Here in chapter 9 Paul says that, if the Corinthians come through with their promised gift, people “will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity” (2 Cor. 9:13, italics added). In any case Paul never lets Christians forget that all our giving is but a pale reflection of God’s “indescribable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15), which of course lies at the heart of the Gospel.
So much of basic Christian ethics is tied in one way or another to the Gospel. When husbands need instruction on how to treat their wives, Paul does not introduce special marriage therapy or appeal to a mystical experience. Rather, he grounds conduct in the Gospel: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). If you are looking for maturity, beware of any “deeper life” approach that sidesteps the Gospel, for Paul writes, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Col. 2:6–7). Of course, there is “deeper life” in the sense that Christians are exhorted to press on toward greater conformity to Christ Jesus and not to be satisfied with their present level of obedience (e.g., Phil. 3). But none of this is an appeal to something that leaves the Gospel behind or that adds something to the Gospel.
We must avoid the view that, while the Gospel provides a sort of escape ticket from judgment and hell, all the real life-transforming power comes from something else—an esoteric doctrine, a mystical experience, a therapeutic technique, a discipleship course. That is too narrow a view of the Gospel. Worse, it ends up relativizing and marginalizing the Gospel, stripping it of its power while it directs the attention of people away from the Gospel and toward something less helpful.
March 11 - Job 40
Halfway through his long speech to Job, God gives him an opportunity to respond. Following a rhetorical question (“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?”), God says, “Let him who accuses God answer him!” (Job 40:2).
It is vital for the understanding of this book that we do not misunderstand this challenge. God is not withdrawing his initial estimate of Job (Job 1:1, 8). Even under the most horrible barrage from Satan and from the three “miserable comforters,” Job has not weakened his fundamental integrity nor lost his basic loyalty to the Almighty. He has not followed the advice of his suffering wife to curse God and die; he has not followed the advice of his friends and simply assumed he was suffering for sins hitherto unrecognized and therefore turned to repentance. But he has come within a whisker of blaming God for his sufferings; or, better put, he has certainly insisted that he wants his day in court, that he wants to justify himself to God. Implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, Job has accused God of being unjust, or of being so removed that the just and the unjust seem to face the same ends. In his better moments Job steps back from the least restrained parts of his rhetoric, but he certainly feels, to say the least, that God owes him an explanation.
But now God is saying, in effect, that the person who wants to “contend” with God—to argue out some matter—must not begin by assuming that God is wrong or by accusing the Almighty of not getting things right. That has been the thrust of the rhetorical questions (chaps. 38–39): Job has neither the knowledge nor the power to be able to stand in judgment of God.
By this point Job has apparently absorbed the lesson: “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more” (Job 40:4–5). But the question arises, Is Job really convinced that he was out of line? Does Job now really believe that, however righteous he may have been, he really does not have the right to talk to God that way? Or, devout man that he is, has he simply been cowed into quiescence?
God takes no chances: he presents Job with two more chapters (Job 40–41) of unanswerable rhetorical questions. Once more Job is told to “brace [himself] like a man”—and then God begins: “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” (Job 40:8). It is as if God wants something more from Job, something that Job recognizes only in the last chapter of the drama.
March 12 - Job 41
Like the previous three chapters, much of Job 41 is designed to help Job come to terms with his limitations. If Job admits what he does not know and cannot do—all of which God knows and can do—then perhaps he will be less quick to accuse God.
One verse, Job 41:11, demands further reflection. God speaks: “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.”
Is God’s immunity from prosecution built on nothing more than raw power? We imagine the lowliest citizen in Nazi Germany trying to sue Hitler, and Hitler’s brutal response: “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything in the Third Reich belongs to me.” Coming from Hitler, this would have seemed a distinctly immoral declaration. So why should God avail himself of its cosmic analog?
First, if this were God’s only declaration about himself, it would not be a very good one. But this declaration comes within the context of the book of Job, and within the larger context of the canon of Scripture. Within the book of Job, there is common ground between Job and God: both acknowledge that in the last analysis God is just. Job is not a modern skeptic searching for reasons to dismiss God; God is not a Hitler. But if God and Job agree that God is just, at some point Job must also see that God is not a peer to drag into court. Trust in God is more important than trying to justify yourself before God—no matter how righteous you have been.
Second, within the context of the entire canon, God has repeatedly shown his patience and forbearance toward the race of his image-bearers, who constantly challenge him and rebel against him. He is the God who with perfect holiness could have destroyed us all; he is the God who on occasion has demonstrated the terrifying potential for judgment (the flood; Sodom and Gomorrah; the exile of his own covenant people). Above all, despite the Bible’s repeated insistence that God could rightly condemn all, he is the God who sends his own Son to die in place of a redeemed new humanity.
Third, within such frameworks Job 41:11 is a salutary reminder that we are not independent. Even if God were not the supremely good God he is, we would have no comeback. He owns us; he owns the universe; all the authority is his, all the branches of divine government are his, the ultimate judiciary is his. There is no “outside” place from which to judge him. To pretend otherwise is futile; worse, it is part of our race’s rebellion against God—imagining he owes us something, imagining we are well placed to tell him off. Such wild fantasy is neither sensible nor good.
March 13 - Job 42
Three reflections on Job 42:
(a) Job’s response to the Lord (Job 42:1–6) is not, “Now I get it. Now I understand,” but hearty repentance. He even summarizes God’s argument back to him: “You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’” (Job 42:3). Without a trace of self-justification, Job responds, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3). Job is now certain that in the last analysis none of God’s plans can be thwarted (Job 42:2). In fact, God’s massive self-disclosure in words to Job has revealed so much more of God that Job contrasts his present seeing of God with what he had only heard about him in the past—which of course reminds us that very often in Scripture God enables us to “see” him by disclosing himself in words. “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). This is not saying that the three friends were right after all. Job is not now admitting to large swaths of hidden guilt that ostensibly brought on his suffering, but to the guilt of demanding that God provide him with a thorough explanation.
(b) The three friends are forgiven for all the false things they said about God only because of Job’s intercession (Job 42:7–9). This eminently suits the crime: they have been condemning Job, but only Job’s prayers will suffice for their own forgiveness. What they have said that is not right about God (Job 42:7, 8) can only be their simplistic tit-for-tat merit theology. They have allowed no mystery and grandeur; implicitly, they have allowed no grace.
(c) The drama ends with a massive vindication of Job. His wealth is restored (and doubled), he is given a new family, and all of the old honor in which he was held is restored and increased. Many a contemporary critic finds this fanciful, or even a secondary ending that some dumb editor has tacked on to the end of a more nuanced book. Such skepticism is profoundly mistaken. One of the points of the book is that in the end the people of God are vindicated. God is just. Similarly, Christians are not asked to accept suffering without vindication, death and self-denial without promise of heaven. Evil may now be mysterious, but it will not be triumphant. We are not spiritual masochists who can only be fulfilled by suffering. If there is any sense in which we delight in sufferings, it is that we delight to follow the Lord Jesus who suffered. Even he did not delight in sufferings. The pioneer and perfecter of our faith was the one “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2, italics added). So “let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Heb. 12:1).
March 14 - Proverbs 1
Before embarking on Proverbs 1, I must say a little about “wisdom” in the Old Testament. For us, wisdom means something like sagacity. The wise person is insightful, perceptive, even shrewd, able to apply knowledge to diverse people and circumstances. One can understand why T. S. Eliot, in one of his more prescient anticipations of the digital age, asked where wisdom is now that it has been lost in knowledge, and where knowledge is now that it has been lost in information.
But wisdom in the Old Testament, though its meaning sometimes overlaps with modern English use, has a flavor all its own. At one level, it is a broad concept that embraces the structure of everything in God’s universe, both substance and relationships, even before anything exists (cf. Prov. 8:22). The glory of God is manifested in such wisdom; it may even be manifested by his resolve to hide such wisdom (Prov. 25:2). Yet at another level, wisdom in the Old Testament is simply a skill of one kind or another. (1) It may be the skill to survive, which is why ants and lizards are said to be extremely wise (Prov. 30:24–28). (2) It is the skill to get along with people, what we call “social skills”—how to get along with friends, employers, rulers, spouse, and above all with God. Intuitively one glimpses how this practical “wisdom” or skill is related to the fundamental wisdom, i.e., to how things really are in God’s universe. This use of “wisdom” is strikingly common in Proverbs. (3) Wisdom may refer to some technical skill or other (e.g., Ex. 28:3). In today’s categories, one might have the “wisdom” to run a lathe or program a computer or sew a fine garment. One of these practical skills, one that overlaps with the second entry, is administrative skill, administrative wisdom. This includes judicial insight. It involves not only the mechanics of administration, but being able to listen attentively and penetrate to the heart of a matter (e.g., Deut. 1:15). This, of course, was the “wisdom” for which Solomon prayed (1 Kings 3); it is the wisdom that characterizes the Messiah (Isa. 11:2).
The proverbs of this book, then, are set out “for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair” (Prov. 1:2–3). The opposite of wisdom is therefore not only “folly” in some intellectual sense, but “folly” understood to be little short of sin. So the “son” of this chapter is exhorted to follow the instruction of Mum and Dad (Prov. 1:8), or more generally, to pursue wisdom (Prov. 1:20ff.); the alternative is to be enticed by sinners into some other path (Prov. 1:10ff.).
March 15 - Proverbs 2
Perhaps nowhere is it clearer than in Proverbs 2 that the antonym of Old Testament wisdom is sin.
Solomon addresses his “son”—perhaps his immediate son and heir to the throne, or perhaps a more general reference. Solomon wants this son to “store up” his father’s commands, to turn his ear to wisdom and his heart to understanding (Prov. 2:1–2). If that is his passion, then (Solomon tells him) “you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Prov. 2:5–6). Such pursuit of wisdom will not make a person cunning or shrewd in a crafty sense. Far from it: “Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse” (Prov. 2:9–12).
We should reflect a little on such an understanding of wisdom. The cynical might condescendingly say that this vision of wisdom is too small. It is nothing but the parochial advantage of religious people. Genuine wisdom in our world is often associated with the kind of “sophistication” that moves comfortably, and with equal lack of commitment, around secularists, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, pagans—taking from each a bit, rejecting other things, all in the name of a cosmopolitan wisdom. Alternatively, wisdom might be linked with the kinds of “people smarts” that enable you to run a large corporation and make your way in the business world or in the arts. Certainly it has nothing necessarily to do with religion.
Not for a moment should such gifts as “people smarts” be despised. But by itself, such “wisdom” would be judged raw folly in the Bible’s view of things. From God’s perspective, what advantage is there in gaining the plaudits of a culture that disowns God? Does not Jesus ask, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36–37). If this is God’s universe, if he is our Maker and Judge, why on earth (or beyond the earth, for that matter!) should anything be called “wise” that ignores him? How much less should it be called “wise” if it indulges in actions or attitudes forbidden by him? Far from the Old Testament wisdom being confined or too religious, for the Christian, who knows the living God, it is the only view of wisdom that makes sense. Any other stance is necessarily rather sad and frequently merely self-serving.
March 16 - Proverbs 3
Proverbs 3 includes several well-known passages. Many Christians have been told not to be wise in their own eyes (Prov. 3:7). The passage that likens the Lord’s discipline of believers to a father’s discipline of the son he delights in (Prov. 3:11–12) reappears in the New Testament (Heb. 12:5–6). Growing up in a Christian home, I was frequently told, “Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding.… She [wisdom] is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her” (Prov. 3:13, 15). Wisdom is either God’s plan or the personified means of establishing the entire created order (Prov. 3:19–20).
But first place should go to Proverbs 3:5–6, enshrined on many walls and learned by countless generations of Sunday school students: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Observe:
(1) The first part of this familiar text attacks the independence at the root of all sin. Our own understanding is insufficient and frequently skewed. The only right path is to trust in the Lord. Such trust in the Lord is not an ethereal subjectivism; it is the kind of whole-life commitment (“with all your heart,” Solomon says) that abandons self-centered perspectives for the Lord’s perspectives. In the context of biblical religion, that means learning and knowing what the Lord’s will is, and obeying it regardless of whether or not it is the “in” thing to do. Far from being an appeal to subjective guidance, this trusting the Lord with your whole heart entails meditating on his word, hiding that word in your heart, learning to think God’s thoughts after him—precisely so that you do not lean on your own understanding. Joshua was required to learn that lesson at the beginning of his leadership (Josh. 1:6–9). The kings of Israel were supposed to learn it (Deut. 17:18–20), but rarely did.
(2) The second couplet, “in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight,” demands more than that we acknowledge that God exists and that he is in providential control, or some such thing. It means we must so acknowledge him that his ways and laws and character shape our choices and direct our lives. In all your ways, then, acknowledge him—not exclusively in some narrow religious sphere, but in all the dimensions of your life. The alternative is to disown him.
Thus the second couplet is essentially parallel to the first. The result is a straight course, directed by God himself.
March 8 - 2 Corinthians 7
Sometimes people present Paul as if he were a cold intellectual. Why “cold” should be connected with “intellectual,” I am not sure. It certainly does not fit Paul. Obviously, God gave Paul a first-class mind. But he was also a man of passionate intensity.
In 2 Corinthians 7 Paul testifies that, on the one hand, his joy knows no bounds (2 Cor. 7:4); on the other hand, this joy has resulted from some news of the Corinthians that Paul received when he went to Macedonia. For on his first arrival in Macedonia, Paul had experienced no rest, but was “harassed at every turn—conflicts on the outside, fears within” (2 Cor. 7:5). But then his fears and conflicts turned to joy when he received the good news about the Corinthians
What prompted this vast transformation in the apostle’s outlook?
(1) Whatever the mechanics, Paul recognizes that the transformation was brought about by God, “who comforts the downcast” (2 Cor. 7:6). In this case God brought comfort to Paul by restoring Titus to him, who brought with him some news of the Corinthians.
(2) The news Titus brought was that the Corinthians, however much they had been wounded by Paul’s previous visit and by the painful letter he had sent, had regained their equilibrium. They now longed to see Paul and expressed “ardent concern” for him (2 Cor. 7:7). Titus brought the news that the sorrow evoked by Paul’s letter turned out to be a “godly sorrow” in that it led to repentance (2 Cor. 7:8–10). Sorrow that generates repentance “leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2 Cor. 7:10). All this news of the Corinthians’ reactions has filled Paul with joy and encouragement.
This indicates, of course, that Paul is intimately involved in the lives of the people to whom he ministers. His own emotions may go up and down as a function of how they relate to him. But what is striking is that Paul avoids two very common traps. (a) Obviously, he avoids the kind of professional distance projected by some ministers as a protective shield. (b) Although his own joys and sorrows are clearly tied to what the Corinthian Christians think of him, that link is not primarily a personal link. When that is the case, the minister loses his prophetic voice and will say and do only what he thinks will maintain the affection of the flock. Paul has felt duty-bound to reprimand the Corinthians, in person and in writing; he has not flinched from that responsibility. His joy that they have returned to him is thus inseparable from his joy that they have returned to faithful allegiance to the Gospel—the heart of his unbounded delight.
March 9 - Job 38
As we approach the end of the drama, God addresses Job directly for the first time (Job 38); he will continue to address Job through chapter 41. Elsewhere God speaks to Elijah in a still, small, voice (1 Kings 19); here God speaks to Job out of a storm (Job 38:1), for he wants even the form of his communication, or its venue, to substantiate the large points he wishes to make.
God’s first words are terrifying: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me” (Job 38:2–3). This opening salvo might lead the unwary to think that Job is the one with whom God is primarily displeased, and that the three miserable comforters have got off rather lightly. But like a drama that teeters back and forth between this perspective and that, this book is not finished yet. After all, the opening chapter records God’s estimate of Job, and nothing in these chapters reverses that estimate. Further, I have already drawn attention to Job 42:7, where God says he is angry with the three friends (something he never says about Job), because they did not speak what was right about God (as God’s servant Job did). God’s terrifying challenge to Job in these four chapters must be placed within the larger framework of the book, if we are to make sense of the whole.
Job has repeatedly said that he wishes to question God. Now God says that he will question Job (Job 38:3). Yet the nature of the barrage of rhetorical questions God raises in these chapters is scarcely the kind of questions Job wants to address. Job wants to talk about his own sufferings, about the justice of them, about God’s role in sanctioning such sufferings, and the like. He wants to do this not least because he desires to maintain his justifiable reputation for integrity and righteousness. But God’s questions focus on a much bigger picture. God asks, in effect: “Job, were you present at the dawn of creation? Do you have intimate knowledge of the entire world, let alone of the heavens? Do you control the course of the constellations—Pleiades and Orion, let us say? Were you the one who constructed the human mind, so that you can explain how it works? Does your word exercise the kind of providential sway that grants food to hungry ravens or to a hunting lioness?”
At one level, of course, this response does not at all answer the kind of questions Job was raising. At another level, it does. It warns Job that his capacity to understand is more limited than he thinks. It prepares us for the conclusion that God wants something more from us than mere understanding.
March 10 - 2 Corinthians 9
The September 20 meditation in volume 1 worked its way through 2 Corinthians 9. Nevertheless I want to come back to that passage.
Paul’s carefully worded exhortation to the Christians in Corinth—to have ready for him the money they pledged to send to the poor in Jerusalem (chaps. 8–9)—need not be reviewed again. What I shall focus on for today’s meditation is how Paul’s exhortation about giving and money is tied to the Gospel.
In chapter 8 Paul invokes the example of Christ’s self-giving: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). Here in chapter 9 Paul says that, if the Corinthians come through with their promised gift, people “will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity” (2 Cor. 9:13, italics added). In any case Paul never lets Christians forget that all our giving is but a pale reflection of God’s “indescribable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15), which of course lies at the heart of the Gospel.
So much of basic Christian ethics is tied in one way or another to the Gospel. When husbands need instruction on how to treat their wives, Paul does not introduce special marriage therapy or appeal to a mystical experience. Rather, he grounds conduct in the Gospel: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). If you are looking for maturity, beware of any “deeper life” approach that sidesteps the Gospel, for Paul writes, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Col. 2:6–7). Of course, there is “deeper life” in the sense that Christians are exhorted to press on toward greater conformity to Christ Jesus and not to be satisfied with their present level of obedience (e.g., Phil. 3). But none of this is an appeal to something that leaves the Gospel behind or that adds something to the Gospel.
We must avoid the view that, while the Gospel provides a sort of escape ticket from judgment and hell, all the real life-transforming power comes from something else—an esoteric doctrine, a mystical experience, a therapeutic technique, a discipleship course. That is too narrow a view of the Gospel. Worse, it ends up relativizing and marginalizing the Gospel, stripping it of its power while it directs the attention of people away from the Gospel and toward something less helpful.
March 11 - Job 40
Halfway through his long speech to Job, God gives him an opportunity to respond. Following a rhetorical question (“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?”), God says, “Let him who accuses God answer him!” (Job 40:2).
It is vital for the understanding of this book that we do not misunderstand this challenge. God is not withdrawing his initial estimate of Job (Job 1:1, 8). Even under the most horrible barrage from Satan and from the three “miserable comforters,” Job has not weakened his fundamental integrity nor lost his basic loyalty to the Almighty. He has not followed the advice of his suffering wife to curse God and die; he has not followed the advice of his friends and simply assumed he was suffering for sins hitherto unrecognized and therefore turned to repentance. But he has come within a whisker of blaming God for his sufferings; or, better put, he has certainly insisted that he wants his day in court, that he wants to justify himself to God. Implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, Job has accused God of being unjust, or of being so removed that the just and the unjust seem to face the same ends. In his better moments Job steps back from the least restrained parts of his rhetoric, but he certainly feels, to say the least, that God owes him an explanation.
But now God is saying, in effect, that the person who wants to “contend” with God—to argue out some matter—must not begin by assuming that God is wrong or by accusing the Almighty of not getting things right. That has been the thrust of the rhetorical questions (chaps. 38–39): Job has neither the knowledge nor the power to be able to stand in judgment of God.
By this point Job has apparently absorbed the lesson: “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more” (Job 40:4–5). But the question arises, Is Job really convinced that he was out of line? Does Job now really believe that, however righteous he may have been, he really does not have the right to talk to God that way? Or, devout man that he is, has he simply been cowed into quiescence?
God takes no chances: he presents Job with two more chapters (Job 40–41) of unanswerable rhetorical questions. Once more Job is told to “brace [himself] like a man”—and then God begins: “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” (Job 40:8). It is as if God wants something more from Job, something that Job recognizes only in the last chapter of the drama.
March 12 - Job 41
Like the previous three chapters, much of Job 41 is designed to help Job come to terms with his limitations. If Job admits what he does not know and cannot do—all of which God knows and can do—then perhaps he will be less quick to accuse God.
One verse, Job 41:11, demands further reflection. God speaks: “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.”
Is God’s immunity from prosecution built on nothing more than raw power? We imagine the lowliest citizen in Nazi Germany trying to sue Hitler, and Hitler’s brutal response: “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything in the Third Reich belongs to me.” Coming from Hitler, this would have seemed a distinctly immoral declaration. So why should God avail himself of its cosmic analog?
First, if this were God’s only declaration about himself, it would not be a very good one. But this declaration comes within the context of the book of Job, and within the larger context of the canon of Scripture. Within the book of Job, there is common ground between Job and God: both acknowledge that in the last analysis God is just. Job is not a modern skeptic searching for reasons to dismiss God; God is not a Hitler. But if God and Job agree that God is just, at some point Job must also see that God is not a peer to drag into court. Trust in God is more important than trying to justify yourself before God—no matter how righteous you have been.
Second, within the context of the entire canon, God has repeatedly shown his patience and forbearance toward the race of his image-bearers, who constantly challenge him and rebel against him. He is the God who with perfect holiness could have destroyed us all; he is the God who on occasion has demonstrated the terrifying potential for judgment (the flood; Sodom and Gomorrah; the exile of his own covenant people). Above all, despite the Bible’s repeated insistence that God could rightly condemn all, he is the God who sends his own Son to die in place of a redeemed new humanity.
Third, within such frameworks Job 41:11 is a salutary reminder that we are not independent. Even if God were not the supremely good God he is, we would have no comeback. He owns us; he owns the universe; all the authority is his, all the branches of divine government are his, the ultimate judiciary is his. There is no “outside” place from which to judge him. To pretend otherwise is futile; worse, it is part of our race’s rebellion against God—imagining he owes us something, imagining we are well placed to tell him off. Such wild fantasy is neither sensible nor good.
March 13 - Job 42
Three reflections on Job 42:
(a) Job’s response to the Lord (Job 42:1–6) is not, “Now I get it. Now I understand,” but hearty repentance. He even summarizes God’s argument back to him: “You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’” (Job 42:3). Without a trace of self-justification, Job responds, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3). Job is now certain that in the last analysis none of God’s plans can be thwarted (Job 42:2). In fact, God’s massive self-disclosure in words to Job has revealed so much more of God that Job contrasts his present seeing of God with what he had only heard about him in the past—which of course reminds us that very often in Scripture God enables us to “see” him by disclosing himself in words. “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). This is not saying that the three friends were right after all. Job is not now admitting to large swaths of hidden guilt that ostensibly brought on his suffering, but to the guilt of demanding that God provide him with a thorough explanation.
(b) The three friends are forgiven for all the false things they said about God only because of Job’s intercession (Job 42:7–9). This eminently suits the crime: they have been condemning Job, but only Job’s prayers will suffice for their own forgiveness. What they have said that is not right about God (Job 42:7, 8) can only be their simplistic tit-for-tat merit theology. They have allowed no mystery and grandeur; implicitly, they have allowed no grace.
(c) The drama ends with a massive vindication of Job. His wealth is restored (and doubled), he is given a new family, and all of the old honor in which he was held is restored and increased. Many a contemporary critic finds this fanciful, or even a secondary ending that some dumb editor has tacked on to the end of a more nuanced book. Such skepticism is profoundly mistaken. One of the points of the book is that in the end the people of God are vindicated. God is just. Similarly, Christians are not asked to accept suffering without vindication, death and self-denial without promise of heaven. Evil may now be mysterious, but it will not be triumphant. We are not spiritual masochists who can only be fulfilled by suffering. If there is any sense in which we delight in sufferings, it is that we delight to follow the Lord Jesus who suffered. Even he did not delight in sufferings. The pioneer and perfecter of our faith was the one “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2, italics added). So “let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Heb. 12:1).
March 14 - Proverbs 1
Before embarking on Proverbs 1, I must say a little about “wisdom” in the Old Testament. For us, wisdom means something like sagacity. The wise person is insightful, perceptive, even shrewd, able to apply knowledge to diverse people and circumstances. One can understand why T. S. Eliot, in one of his more prescient anticipations of the digital age, asked where wisdom is now that it has been lost in knowledge, and where knowledge is now that it has been lost in information.
But wisdom in the Old Testament, though its meaning sometimes overlaps with modern English use, has a flavor all its own. At one level, it is a broad concept that embraces the structure of everything in God’s universe, both substance and relationships, even before anything exists (cf. Prov. 8:22). The glory of God is manifested in such wisdom; it may even be manifested by his resolve to hide such wisdom (Prov. 25:2). Yet at another level, wisdom in the Old Testament is simply a skill of one kind or another. (1) It may be the skill to survive, which is why ants and lizards are said to be extremely wise (Prov. 30:24–28). (2) It is the skill to get along with people, what we call “social skills”—how to get along with friends, employers, rulers, spouse, and above all with God. Intuitively one glimpses how this practical “wisdom” or skill is related to the fundamental wisdom, i.e., to how things really are in God’s universe. This use of “wisdom” is strikingly common in Proverbs. (3) Wisdom may refer to some technical skill or other (e.g., Ex. 28:3). In today’s categories, one might have the “wisdom” to run a lathe or program a computer or sew a fine garment. One of these practical skills, one that overlaps with the second entry, is administrative skill, administrative wisdom. This includes judicial insight. It involves not only the mechanics of administration, but being able to listen attentively and penetrate to the heart of a matter (e.g., Deut. 1:15). This, of course, was the “wisdom” for which Solomon prayed (1 Kings 3); it is the wisdom that characterizes the Messiah (Isa. 11:2).
The proverbs of this book, then, are set out “for attaining wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair” (Prov. 1:2–3). The opposite of wisdom is therefore not only “folly” in some intellectual sense, but “folly” understood to be little short of sin. So the “son” of this chapter is exhorted to follow the instruction of Mum and Dad (Prov. 1:8), or more generally, to pursue wisdom (Prov. 1:20ff.); the alternative is to be enticed by sinners into some other path (Prov. 1:10ff.).
March 15 - Proverbs 2
Perhaps nowhere is it clearer than in Proverbs 2 that the antonym of Old Testament wisdom is sin.
Solomon addresses his “son”—perhaps his immediate son and heir to the throne, or perhaps a more general reference. Solomon wants this son to “store up” his father’s commands, to turn his ear to wisdom and his heart to understanding (Prov. 2:1–2). If that is his passion, then (Solomon tells him) “you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Prov. 2:5–6). Such pursuit of wisdom will not make a person cunning or shrewd in a crafty sense. Far from it: “Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse” (Prov. 2:9–12).
We should reflect a little on such an understanding of wisdom. The cynical might condescendingly say that this vision of wisdom is too small. It is nothing but the parochial advantage of religious people. Genuine wisdom in our world is often associated with the kind of “sophistication” that moves comfortably, and with equal lack of commitment, around secularists, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, pagans—taking from each a bit, rejecting other things, all in the name of a cosmopolitan wisdom. Alternatively, wisdom might be linked with the kinds of “people smarts” that enable you to run a large corporation and make your way in the business world or in the arts. Certainly it has nothing necessarily to do with religion.
Not for a moment should such gifts as “people smarts” be despised. But by itself, such “wisdom” would be judged raw folly in the Bible’s view of things. From God’s perspective, what advantage is there in gaining the plaudits of a culture that disowns God? Does not Jesus ask, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36–37). If this is God’s universe, if he is our Maker and Judge, why on earth (or beyond the earth, for that matter!) should anything be called “wise” that ignores him? How much less should it be called “wise” if it indulges in actions or attitudes forbidden by him? Far from the Old Testament wisdom being confined or too religious, for the Christian, who knows the living God, it is the only view of wisdom that makes sense. Any other stance is necessarily rather sad and frequently merely self-serving.
March 16 - Proverbs 3
Proverbs 3 includes several well-known passages. Many Christians have been told not to be wise in their own eyes (Prov. 3:7). The passage that likens the Lord’s discipline of believers to a father’s discipline of the son he delights in (Prov. 3:11–12) reappears in the New Testament (Heb. 12:5–6). Growing up in a Christian home, I was frequently told, “Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding.… She [wisdom] is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her” (Prov. 3:13, 15). Wisdom is either God’s plan or the personified means of establishing the entire created order (Prov. 3:19–20).
But first place should go to Proverbs 3:5–6, enshrined on many walls and learned by countless generations of Sunday school students: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Observe:
(1) The first part of this familiar text attacks the independence at the root of all sin. Our own understanding is insufficient and frequently skewed. The only right path is to trust in the Lord. Such trust in the Lord is not an ethereal subjectivism; it is the kind of whole-life commitment (“with all your heart,” Solomon says) that abandons self-centered perspectives for the Lord’s perspectives. In the context of biblical religion, that means learning and knowing what the Lord’s will is, and obeying it regardless of whether or not it is the “in” thing to do. Far from being an appeal to subjective guidance, this trusting the Lord with your whole heart entails meditating on his word, hiding that word in your heart, learning to think God’s thoughts after him—precisely so that you do not lean on your own understanding. Joshua was required to learn that lesson at the beginning of his leadership (Josh. 1:6–9). The kings of Israel were supposed to learn it (Deut. 17:18–20), but rarely did.
(2) The second couplet, “in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight,” demands more than that we acknowledge that God exists and that he is in providential control, or some such thing. It means we must so acknowledge him that his ways and laws and character shape our choices and direct our lives. In all your ways, then, acknowledge him—not exclusively in some narrow religious sphere, but in all the dimensions of your life. The alternative is to disown him.
Thus the second couplet is essentially parallel to the first. The result is a straight course, directed by God himself.