Job 12:4The Message“I’m ridiculed by my friends: ‘So that’s the man who had conversations with God!’ Ridiculed without mercy: ‘Look at the man who never did wrong!’ It’s easy for the well-to-do to point their fingers in blame, for the well-fixed to pour scorn on the strugglers. Crooks reside safely in high-security houses, insolent blasphemers live in luxury; they’ve bought and paid for a god who’ll protect them. See the chapter |
26 Cross References
“But no longer. Now I’m the butt of their jokes— young thugs! whippersnappers! Why, I considered their fathers mere inexperienced pups. But they are worse than dogs—good for nothing, stray, mangy animals, Half-starved, scavenging the back alleys, howling at the moon; Homeless ragamuffins chewing on old bones and licking old tin cans; Outcasts from the community, cursed as dangerous delinquents. Nobody would put up with them; they were driven from the neighborhood. You could hear them out there at the edge of town, yelping and barking, huddled in junkyards, A gang of beggars and no-names, thrown out on their ears.
“But now I’m the one they’re after, mistreating me, taunting and mocking. They abhor me, they abuse me. How dare those scoundrels—they spit in my face! Now that God has undone me and left me in a heap, they hold nothing back. Anything goes. They come at me from my blind side, trip me up, then jump on me while I’m down. They throw every kind of obstacle in my path, determined to ruin me— and no one lifts a finger to help me! They violate my broken body, trample through the rubble of my ruined life. Terrors assault me— my dignity in shreds, salvation up in smoke.
“Believe me, I’m blameless. I don’t understand what’s going on. I hate my life! Since either way it ends up the same, I can only conclude that God destroys the good right along with the bad. When calamity hits and brings sudden death, he folds his arms, aloof from the despair of the innocent. He lets the wicked take over running the world, he installs judges who can’t tell right from wrong. If he’s not responsible, who is?
You pushed me into this, God, and I let you do it. You were too much for me. And now I’m a public joke. They all poke fun at me. Every time I open my mouth I’m shouting, “Murder!” or “Rape!” And all I get for my God-warnings are insults and contempt. But if I say, “Forget it! No more God-Messages from me!” The words are fire in my belly, a burning in my bones. I’m worn out trying to hold it in. I can’t do it any longer! Then I hear whispering behind my back: “There goes old ‘Danger-Everywhere.’ Shut him up! Report him!” Old friends watch, hoping I’ll fall flat on my face: “One misstep and we’ll have him. We’ll get rid of him for good!”
When the Pharisees, a money-obsessed bunch, heard him say these things, they rolled their eyes, dismissing him as hopelessly out of touch. So Jesus spoke to them: “You are masters at making yourselves look good in front of others, but God knows what’s behind the appearance. What society sees and calls monumental, God sees through and calls monstrous. God’s Law and the Prophets climaxed in John; Now it’s all kingdom of God—the glad news and compelling invitation to every man and woman. The sky will disintegrate and the earth dissolve before a single letter of God’s Law wears out. Using the legalities of divorce as a cover for lust is adultery; Using the legalities of marriage as a cover for lust is adultery.
At the phrase “raising him from the dead,” the listeners split: Some laughed at him and walked off making jokes; others said, “Let’s do this again. We want to hear more.” But that was it for the day, and Paul left. There were still others, it turned out, who were convinced then and there, and stuck with Paul—among them Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris.
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