Talking about the Book of Job with the Nathanael Greene Society
The guys at the Nathanael Greene Society chapter of the OGC had me on to talk about the book of Job and boy did I talk. I did what amounted to an hour and a half lecture on this important book.
The guys at the Nathanael Greene Society invited me on to talk about the book of Job not realizing that I had recently prepared and delivered a four part sermon series on this important book. Job is one of those portions of scripture that lies at the nexus of many of the most important and deepest currents in the Bible. It is difficult to properly understand the spiritual life; the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus; what it means to follow The Way and more. At the heart of it is this question, this accusation of Satan, that we only follow God, we only given him devotion, praise, worship and obedience because we get something out of it. We only embrace salvation in Jesus Christ because we get something out of it in the bargain. What will happen when our “hedge” is take away? What happens when you suffer? What happens when you seem to be getting nothing out of being a Christian? Most of us approach our Christianity as in a pagan, transactional manner: we make our offering so that we will get a “good harvest.” What will happen when all the benefits of a relationship with God are taken away? I discuss all this and more in this stream:
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Excellent. Great plug. I’ll definitely be listening. Speaking of plugs, I did several months of content on Job last year.
https://open.substack.com/pub/problempassages/p/job-1?r=pm83&utm_medium=ios
What a great talk, thank you very much. I've just been reading Ellul's Money and Power which has this banger regarding Job and is a terrific takedown of the "social-centric church", socialism, and capitalism.
"Abraham’s attitude shows how he can be both rich and righteous. We see the same sort of righteousness in Job. Right from the beginning we see that wealth is a temptation. Satan says to God, 'Job is just, upright, a man of integrity because he is rich, because you have blessed him.' We often hear this idea from the poor, the unfortunate, laborers, employees, small businessmen: 'Honesty and piety and justice are luxuries. When you have what you need to live well, then you can also afford to be religious and moral; but when you’re poor, you don’t have time for such frills.' Job’s prologue (written at a time when middle-class morality did not exist, but wealth did) shows us that this popular attitude is a word from Satan, and those who promote it are Satan’s mouthpiece." (Page 39)
Yes. This idea is literally from Satan. So much for "good intentions".