Author: Bryan Jay

My name is Bryan Jay and I have been teaching the Bible full-time for almost 30 years now. In 1992, I began pastoring a new church in Asheville, North Carolina, and in 1997, I moved with my family to Brazil where we lived and served for many years. Since that time, we have moved on to other places, continuing to teach the Word of God.

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Theology

Unlocking the book of Job

After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. (Job 42:7)

This verse for many years was like a key that locked the meaning of this book to me, rather than unlocked it.  As a young man reading through the Bible, I remember thinking, “OK, if Job’s friends didn’t speak what is right, then I can just skip over 30 some chapters of this long book.  Why does God record all their babble if it isn’t right?”

After having read through this book many, many times throught the years, I’ve come to see it quite differently.  Everything that the friends say about God and about his dealings with men is true and can be defended from other scriptures.  Rather than dismissing their words as untrue, in this verse God is rebuking them for the same reason as he rebuked Job.  To understand God’s rebuke of the friends, it is necessary to look closely at Job’s words in Job 42:1-6 because God himself says, “you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”   The “right” that Job has spoken of God is what he has just said in verses 1-6, it is not a contrast of what the three friends spoke throughout the book and what Job spoke throughout the book.

Although throughout the book both Job and his friends say much that is wise and true about God and his dealings with the righteous and the unrighteous, what they say is still incomplete.  At the end of all the truth that they have stated, they still have no answers.  This is why God at the end of the book challenges Job.  He brings Job to a place of  “laying his hand on his mouth” (Job 40:3-5).  Job’s words, therefore in Job 42:1-6 are a humble repentance for thinking that he could explain the actions of God.

God’s anger burns against the three friends because they do not with Job speak this same word of humiliation and acknowledgement that God’s wisdom and purposes and actions are beyond their explanations.  Job acknowledges that he has “uttered what he did not understand”.  There is no mention that what he has said throughout the book is incorrect.  To the contrary, he says that he has spoken things “too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”  So the fault seems to be not in saying incorrect things, but in saying them in the wrong way, without a humbling experience of the presence of God whose wisdom and greatness and dealings with men go beyond comprehension and explanation.

What Job says at the beginning of verse 3 and in verse 4 is a quote of what God had said to him in Job 38:2-3, and Job 40:7  He is responding to God’s words to him by recognizing that his understanding of God previously had been without the deeper experience and manifestation of God’s majesty and glory that his suffering and God’s response to it had brought him.

Notice also in Job 42:7 that God does not say that what the three friends have said is wrong, but that they have NOT spoken what is right, and what that is, is clearly defined as that which “Job has” spoken in verses 1-6, “as my servant Job has”

Application:  Wisdom recognizes that in understanding our own suffering and helping others deal with their suffering, there is a place (a comforting place) in recognizing that we are not going to be able to explain everything that God does in our lives.  Certain experiences are opportunities for us to bow before God, recognize his greatness and trust him, as the one who orders everything for our good.

This is the purpose of the end of Job’s story.  To understand Job’s restoration as a “health and wealth” promise is to miss the point.  It is showing that God’s ultimate purpose for his children is one of blessing.  It is an “under the sun” Old Testament way of saying what Romans 8:28 makes explicit, God works everything for our good and we can trust him, even when we don’t understand what he is doing.

Categories
Bible Study Theology

Luke 24:30-45 “…their eyes were opened”

I’ve shared the gospel enough times with people who had no interest in it to need some sort of encouragement not to give up. Perhaps you can identify with that. I found some of that encouragement this morning in Luke 24 in the story of Jesus talking with two of his followers on the road to Emmaus.

Cleopas and his friend are walking to the village of Emmaus when they are unexpectedly joined by a stranger who begins to interpret to them “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (the Messiah).” (v. 27) It’s amazing to me that as the stranger reveals to these two such deep spiritual truths, they still don’t realize who he is!

But after arriving at Emmaus and sitting down to dinner together, Jesus takes bread and breaks it and gives it to them, and in that moment, “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” This is what I long to see in the lives of people with whom I share the good news of all that the Scriptures reveal about Jesus the Messiah. I long to see their eyes opened so that they recognize Jesus for who he is. This is what I ask those of you who pray for our ministry to ask the Lord for. Pray that God would grant spiritual sight to those who are blind to the glory of Jesus Christ.

It is interesting that the revelation of Jesus to these two occurs in the breaking of the bread. This is most likely a reference to the Lord’s Supper, which is itself a revelation of the sacrifice for sins that Jesus made when he offered his body and his blood on the cross. It is in the declaration of that event, the Calvary event, that blinded eyes are opened.

That is not to say that everyone who hears the news of Jesus’ death and resurrection will be able to see with spiritual sight the glory of Christ. But when God in his grace opens blinded eyes and brings people to faith, he does it through the proclamation of the gospel. It’s difficult to proclaim the gospel to spiritually blind people who may not care two cents about what you are saying, but how necessary it is to be willing to open our mouths and to share the message without which no one can be saved (Acts 4:12), and trust that God will use it to save those lost sheep he has committed himself to finding (John 10:16).

This also shows us how we can pray for unbelievers: “Lord, open their eyes to see the glory of Christ the way you opened the eyes of those two in Emmaus.” Notice also that after Cleopas and his friend go to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples about what happened, Jesus appears again to them all. And verse 45 says, “he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

“Lord Jesus, as we are faithful to declare the gospel message to those around us, please open their minds to understand the Scriptures. Give spiritual sight that blinded sinners may see the glory of Christ.”

In verse 47, Jesus says that “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Commit yourself anew to proclaiming the good news of repentance for forgiveness of sins. Commit yourself anew to pray for those who are hearing that message. Pray that God would open their eyes and their minds to understand the Scriptures and to see the glories of Jesus, our wonderful Savior. Be encouraged as you speak to and pray for the hardest of hearts. God is able to open closed minds and eyes.

Categories
Bible Study

Exodus 15 Jesus’ victory over our enemy

I read yesterday about Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea and today I read in Exodus 15 the victory song that the Israelites sang after the crossing.  Some things stood out to me in the song.  First of all, it is important to realize that the Exodus from Egypt is a picture of God’s salvation of his people.  It was a real historical event, and it was a real salvation, but in God’s eternal plan, it was only a foreshadowing of the eternal salvation that he provides for those whom he has chosen.  So when we read about the Exodus, we should see in it a picture of what God has done for us.

One of the things that stood out to me is that this was a salvation from an enemy.  Pharaoh was against God and out to keep the Israelites in slavery.  In the same way, we have an enemy, Satan, who wants to keep us enslaved to himself, and one of the aspects of our salvation is that we are delivered from him and he is destroyed.  This is mentioned in the song when they sing in Ex. 15:4-10

4  “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.   5  The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone. 6  Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. 7  In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble. 8  At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.

9  The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake,
I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them.
I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’
10  You blew with your wind; the sea covered them;
they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

This encouraged me because I very definitely see Satan scheming against me daily, and to know that he is defeated is very encouraging.  When Jesus died on the cross, it was Satan’s ultimate defeat, and just as Pharaoh and his officers sunk in the Red Sea and were “shattered” (v. 6) our enemy is also shattered.  By the “greatness of his majesty” Jesus has overthrown our adversary.  Of course, the ultimate manifestation of this is still future when Satan is cast into the Lake of Fire, but it is a certain thing that has already been accomplished.  So I can have confidence that I, in Christ’s strength am able to overcome our enemy.

Also encouraging were verses 16-18 where the song describes the effect of the Red Sea deliverance on the pagan peoples around who would certainly hear about this great act of salvation…

16  Terror and dread fall upon them;

because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone,

till your people, O Lord, pass by,

till the people pass by whom you have purchased.

17  You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain,

the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode,

the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.

18  The Lord will reign forever and ever.”

Notice that verse 16 says that God has “purchased” his people.  Jesus has purchased us by his blood–his death on the cross.  The idea of being purchased is a very special way of thinking of our salvation.  We belong to God and he will certainly care for us because we are his.  1 Cor. 6:20 says, “you were bought with a price…”  and 1 Peter 1:18-19 say, “…you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”

We can rejoice today in the fact that we belong to God and that he has defeated our enemy!  Hallelujah!