Understanding Chapter and Verse: The Bible Has Guidelines, Not Inspired, But To Guide

THE QUICK: Bible references are written in a specific pattern:

BOOK NAME CHAPTER: VERSE, i.e. Job 2:10.

Job 2:10 is then the Book of Job, the second chapter, and the tenth verse.

Job 1:1-2:10 is then the Book of Job, with a passage beginning with the first verse of chapter one and ending with the tenth verse of chapter two.

           In the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean”, Elizabeth Swann, daughter of the governor, is kidnapped by-you guessed it-pirates. After initially hiding herself, she goes almost willingly, feeling that she is prepared to deal with them. She knows the ‘pirate code’, which she feels to be the inspired code of conduct for pirates. Thus the term ‘parley’ is supposed to grant an immediate protected status, something akin to being in ‘sanctuary’ within a religious compound.

          As she comes to find out, aside from not being a pirate and therefore not bound by the code, they are not so much the inspired word of pirate behavior as simply guidelines.

          I use this as an example because we in the Christian faith also have our inspired text. It is not inspired by pirates, but it is inspired by God. There have been books written that seek to unpack what that means, but that is another blog.

          I am asking people to read the book of Job, one section of the Book as inspired by God. For people unfamiliar with it, there are guidelines built into the text, a numbering system. For those of you familiar with chapter and verse, walk with me. I am so used to the system, I do not even see it anymore. But it is significant.

          Job is divided into 42 chapters. Each runs about a page or two, although there is one less than half a page long. Each chapter is then subdivided into verses. If you follow the reading guide from our previous post, you will see that most of the readings begin and end with chapter openings and closings. But not all.

          Because the Word is inspired by God, devout Christians devised these guidelines, these chapters and verses, so that any specific portion of the Bible could be accessed quickly and consistently. However, those numbers are NOT inspired. They were put in place after the fact.

          To pick an example, Paul writes a couple of letters to Timothy that are included in the New Testament. He did not pick up his quill and write, “Chapter One, VERSE ONE, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, VERSE TWO…To Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy, and peace…” No, he wrote "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy, and peace…"  What he wrote is considered among the inspired works of God, with the system of chapter and verse imposed later for ease of study. 

    And, in fact, he did not write in English, but in the everyday Greek language of the Roman Empire which, unlike English, has no punctuation. But that is another blog post.

          In general, the rules of the guidelines seem to be that each verse is one idea and a chapter a section within the flow of the entire book. But that is by no means absolute.

          The importance of understanding this comes in the danger of chapter and verse as our guide to the Bible. These are artificial impositions on the text for the convenience of study. Just because someone decided a chapter stops at a certain point does NOT mean that the idea or the discussion topic concludes at that point. It may, and often does. Because the text of the Bible is inspired, it is important to understand these guidelines are not inspired.

The first Reading in Job with Initial Commentary

    Each reading in Job will take a similar form. It will go verse by verse, or section by section, with comments in italics between. The intent is to point out salient points, clarify some of the more obscure pieces and references, and give a running commentary on what is happening in the text.

    This is ALL DONE TO INVITE YOUR QUESTIONS, either for me or for your own opportunity to take a deeper look at God's Word.

 The First Reading: Job 1:1-2:10

1There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.

Uz is mentioned a couple of other times in the Old Testament, but never given a precise location, except in parallel to Edom. It may have a deliberately mythic property, being ‘out there’ somewhere.

That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 

This is echoed in God’s assessment of Job in the coming Divine Council.

²There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. ³He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants;

All of these are measures of great and diverse material blessings, both in family and in livestock. The sheep are herd animals, providing wool, meat, and so forth. The camels, yoke of oxen, and donkeys, in such numbers, as beasts of burden. The implication of such numbers is that they are hired out, that Job has ‘corporate’ interests in providing donkeys and camels in transportation and yokes of oxen for plowing.

 so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.

Not just great, but the greatest. And Uz is in ‘the east’, presumably in reference to the Promised Land.

⁴His sons used to go and hold feasts in one another’s houses in turn; and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 

This sets us up for two things. The first is that the children lived off the riches of their father. The second is the coming disaster that will befall them.

⁵And when the feast days had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” This is what Job always did.

This builds on the description of Job that he was one who turned away from evil. It also foreshadows what Satan hopes to accomplish against Job in the coming verses.

⁶One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.

So this is a unique location in the Bible, this ‘Divine Council’. The heavenly beings, or the angels as some versions speak of them, are gathered as is Satan. His role is as ‘the Accuser’, not so much the classic ‘devil’ of Christianity.

 ⁷The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 

There is not a reason ascribed to this wandering, not even an implication that he is the devil, tempting people away from God.

⁸The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.”

This is formulaic, echoing the words that open the book. God pointing him out sets the stage for what is to come.

 ⁹Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? ¹⁰Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

Satan sets the stage for a presupposition connecting material wealth and faith. God has blessed Job’s work, multiplied his possessions, all with a fence around him to protect him. Bad things do not happen to Job, so of course he fears God.

 ¹¹But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 

Thus the challenge is issued. Job’s faith is tied to his blessings. Cut that tie and Job will do what he always fears his children will, curse God.

¹²The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

God accepts the challenge, but only against his blessings. Job will taste poverty but he will maintain his health. Note how God has put all that Job has into the hands of Satan.

¹³One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother’s house, ¹⁴a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, ¹⁵and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.” 

The Sabeans are mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament. They seem to come from Arabia.

¹⁶While he was still speaking, another came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; I alone have escaped to tell you.”

The servant presumes that God is responsible for the natural disaster even though Satan has been set up as the agent for what is happening.

 ¹⁷While he was still speaking, another came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.” 

The Chaldeans come from the region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Both they and the Sabeans are more distant nations to the borders of Israel.

¹⁸While he was still speaking, another came and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, ¹⁹and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.”

The status of the children is reiterated at the beginning to set them up as the ultimate tragedy aimed at Job. Note how the events alternate between man-made assaults and ‘natural’ disasters.

²⁰Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. ²¹He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” ²²In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong-doing.

Tearing his robe and shaving his head, these are signs of mourning in the Bible, that is what Job has undertaken in the light of these disasters. And yet he remains faithful to the Lord, worshiping and blessing the name of the Lord. It may be a very embittered blessing that he offers, but he stands in the Lord, defying Satan’s expectations.

2One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. ²The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”

This opening to the Divine Council parallels the opening to the first council.

 ³The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.” 

Again, God uses the same formula to describe Job. But there is a distinct sense of God saying “I told you so” when he speaks of Satan’s failure to turn Job against the Lord.

⁴Then Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. ⁵But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” ⁶The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.”

If not the riches, then his health. ‘All that people have they will give to save their lives’. Threaten Job’s life and a curse will be forthcoming. God permits him to threaten, but not to take his life.

⁷So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. ⁸Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. ⁹Then his wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” 

It is his wife, the other party affected by all that Satan has done to their material possessions and their family, who questions Job’s integrity. Notice how anybody else who might be affected by this divine wager is outside of consideration. The feelings of the wife are not counted in this discussion at all. When restoration comes, Job’s children and his servants are not considered as human beings but just as tokens to count score as everything is given back to Job.

¹⁰But he said to her, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

At first glance, this might seem a summary dismissal of his wife as a woman, and therefore foolish. But it is deeper than that. In the book of Proverbs, the foolish woman and the wise woman are contrasted one with another, one leading to and the other from God. She seems to be just another piece of the story that points back to Job. All the things that Satan has done are to draw this curse from Job. It fits the narrative that a human voice would tell him to do so as well. Curse God and die. End it now.

But Job’s words speak to the heart of the book, Shall we receive the good and not receive the bad? Both are from God.

And Job does not sin with his lips. But I cannot help but wonder what thoughts and feelings were running through Job’s mind and heart. Sin would come from the expression of those thoughts and feelings as a curse against God.

Contrast this to what Jesus says in the latter portions of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. It is not just about what the person does, but what they feel. The one who hates their brother is a murderer. The one who looks at another woman with lust in the heart is an adulterer. That is different from Job, where the sin would come from the lips, from the expression of the curse out loud, instead of from within.

Job Notes: 25 Day Reading Cycle of Book of Job

 First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy           October 2022

1)     Job 1:1-2:10            Setting the Stage

a.    Job is introduced as a man of devotion and blessed material reward. In the Divine Council, he becomes the subject of discussion between God and Satan. From that discussion, Satan reduces Job to infirmed poverty.

2)     Job 2:11-3:26          Job’s Lament

a.    Three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar come to comfort and condole with Job. Job cries out in his anguish, seeking “Why?”

3)     Job 4:1-5:27            The first Speech of Eliphaz

4)     Job 6:1-7:21            Job’s Response

5)     Job 8:1-22               The first Speech of Bildad

6)     Job 9:1-10:22          Job’s Response

7)     Job 11:1-20             The first Speech of Zophar

8)     Job 12:1-14:22        Job’s Response

9)     Job 15:1-35             The second speech of Eliphaz

10)        Job 16:1-17:16     Job’s Response

11)        Job 18:1-21          The second speech of Bildad

12)        Job 19:1-29          Job’s Response

13)        Job 20:1-29          The second speech of Zophar

14)        Job 21:1-34          Job’s Response

15)        Job 22:1-20          The third speech of Eliphaz

16)        Job 23:1-24:25     Job’s Response

17)        Job 25:1-6            The third speech of Bildad

18)        Job 26:1-28:26     Job’s Response

19)        Job 29:1-31:40     Job’s Summary and “Closing Argument”

20)        Job 32:1-33:33     Elihu Steps In

a.    Not mentioned before, Elihu seems to be a young man who was just ‘observing’ but feels the need to speak.

21)        Job 34:1-35:16     Elihu con’t: Defending God

22)        Job 36:1-37:24     Elihu con’t: Request Job Consider God

23)        Job 38:1-40:2       God Speaks

a.    God speaks powerfully with a brief response from Job

24)        Job 40:3-42:6       God Speaks a second time

a.    Job responds with repentance

25)        Job 42:7-16          Conclusion and Epilogue

a.    Job intercedes for his friends and his life of material blessing is restored by God.

Rev. Peter Hofstra

So What is Unique About Job? 1. The Heavenly Council

           Perhaps the most unique element of Job is our observation of a "divine council". God is gathered with God’s Spirits (angels?), Satan is even present. In this council, the devotion of Job is acknowledged by God and Satan challenges that devotion. It is in that challenge that a ‘wager’ is struck. God will withdraw protection from Job and Satan can reduce his life to poverty and illness. The idea is that the material blessings of Job are the reward basis of his faith. 

    The book is structured with the human idea then that the removal of Job's blessings are therefore punishment. 

    Satan as 'the accuser' is first seen in Scripture as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Seeing this development in Job is a unique presentation of the supernatural order of things in the Bible. 

     The challenge that lies behind this council is the connection between material possessions and faith. Job is faithful and has been richly rewarded. The Accuser asks what will happen if those blessings are stripped away? And they are. Will Job remain faithful? His friends seem to be present to push the human presupposition that bad things that happen are punishment. The power of this book is considering God's response. 

     It seems to offer God's response to the age-old question of crisis and disaster, "Why?"

 

In Consideration of the Book of Job and our Lord Jesus Christ

           The book of Job tells us the story of a God-fearing man whose life is systematically destroyed; his livelihood, his family, and his health. To him, without explanation. For us, it seems to be a heavenly wager. God versus Satan, Satan seeking to destroy Job because Satan is convinced Job will then curse God and die. God believes he will be faithful.

          In the story, three friends come to comfort Job. But they come with a human presupposition about God. God sends bad things as punishment, therefore Job is being punished. Therefore, all he has to do is repent. But Job knows and we know that he has not sinned, that he is not being punished.

          So instead of comfort there is conflict. His friends are frustrated at his stubbornness. Job, on top of everything else, is burdened with their truculence. No comfort is to be had. Instead, Job is backed into a corner and finally openly challenges God as to “Why?”

          In the end, God does reply. But it is not to explain, not to throw Satan under the bus. Rather, it might be seen as ultimately unsatisfying to we who want to understand. Essentially, is Job big enough to see the full scope, magnitude, and power of God? If not, then he needs to take a step back out of God's face.

           And he does. 

          Job was a man beloved by God. He remained faithful even through his darkest trials and deepest doubts, even in his ignorance of why things were happening to him. But there is another beloved by God who was also ruined and destroyed by God. And unlike Job, God does not spare his life. And unlike Job, he knew this was punishment. And unlike Job, he knew for what. But like Job, it was for nothing he did, because it was for what we did.

          What can we learn about our Lord Jesus in the light of Job? As another innocent man who seems to have suffered at the hands of God? What then can we learn about our faith in the light of the stories of these two men beloved by God? This is what we are going to explore this month in worship at First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy.

Tax Collectors and Sinners Mark 2: 11-17

         So the passage for our worship service next Sunday is Mark 2: 11-17. What we have here are some reflections of parts of that passage, to clarify, to illustrate, or simply to develop. The first one this week is a consideration of people Mark refers to collectively as "tax collectors and sinners". 

          The gospel writers are often very deliberate about identifying groups of people when they interact with Jesus. We know this chiefly among the leadership of the Jews, the scribes of the Pharisees, the lawyers, the Sadducees, the high priests, the Pharisees in particular. We have come to know them generally as the opponents of Jesus, but there are subtle distinctions that can fulfill our understanding of the gospel when we take time to sort them out.

          But on the other side, there are our ‘tax collectors and sinners’, a group of individuals that Jesus has chosen to sit down to dinner with at the house of his latest disciple, the tax collector Levi. What do we know about these people? We know that they are segmented out of polite society by the scribes of the Pharisees. They ask how Jesus could be eating with them.

          Understanding the ‘tax collector’ is more straightforward. These were local individuals employed by the Romans to collect taxes. To my understanding, the Roman system of taxation was not complicated. A census would be taken, enumerating a certain population level. Taxes were based on the headcount. That is what Rome collected. Easiest to find those who wanted to get rich quick to collect it for them, for a percentage.

          Tax collectors were the ‘face of the government’ to the people, a place where Jew and Roman approximately intersected. It was the position of a turncoat, someone more interested in money than loyalty to their people subjected to Roman tyranny.

          But what about ‘sinners’? It is a named, therefore more precise category. We can surmise that their presence is also unwelcome to the scribes of the Pharisees, that they see Jesus as wrong in daring to eat with them, that they are, in Jesus’ words, in need of the physician.

          So, there is another passage where Jesus heals a blind man. The leadership, hoping to disprove the miracle, call not only upon the man but also upon his parents. And his parents, for fear of being put out of the synagogue, deflect the questions back onto their son.

          I am taking a leap, I recognize that, but I hope it is an educated one. In the Jewish community, there is the leadership, scribes and so on, there are those who go to synagogue, those whom Jesus has been preaching to on the Sabbaths, and those put out of the synagogue. I think tax collectors and other ‘unsavory’ types branded generally as ‘sinners’.

People know who those excluded from the synagogues are. They are not related to by ‘polite’ company. There is a list kept by the leadership, formally or informally. But it is known that Jesus should not be sharing time or a meal with them.

But that’s not who Jesus is. These are the people whom he has precisely come to.

Dr. Strange and the Choices Jesus Makes

           The opening to Dr. Strange is a powerful one. We meet a gifted and arrogant surgeon who can save lives where others fail. If you have not seen the movie or heard of the origin story of the character, SPOILERS.

          Dr. Stephen Strange, in his arrogance, gets into a terrible car accident, his hands are crushed, all fine motor skills lost, and his ability to perform surgery is terminated. So he goes on a quest. He blows all his money and, from the movie, chases every fantasy, goes after every possible treatment that could help, insulting anyone he sees fit along the way, all to get his hands back, which will give him his life back (in his own mind).

          He gets so desperate, he even pursues a fairy tale of miraculous healing out to Nepal.

          He is willing to stake everything on getting healed.

          That’s my point of connection.

          Jesus was out preaching and teaching and healing and casting out demons. In Mark 1:40, a leper comes to him with a rather unique challenge.

          “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Another version puts it “If you choose…” Jesus’ response is “I am willing” or “I do choose”, and he cures the man of his leprosy.

          This is not the ten lepers crying out from a distance for mercy. This is not the woman who was so shy she only dared to touch Jesus’ cloak to be healed. This is not someone to whom Jesus has said, “Your sins are forgiven” to demonstrate the healing power of God to the spirit as well as to the body.

          If You Choose. So the man was prepared for both failure, if the healing skills of Jesus were not up to challenge, and for rejection. Jesus could have rejected him, calling him ‘unclean’ and driving him off.

          The life of the leper was on the margins. We know about social distancing, but that’s a mutual undertaking for the prevention of Covid. The leper was required to maintain distance, at the risk of being driven off with rocks or worse. There is a reason that Gregory Peck, playing Brigadier Frank Savage in the World War 2 film “Twelve O’clock High”, put all the worst elements of his bomber crews together into one plane called “The Leper Colony”. It is the place of the undesirables.

          In the movie, he did not care if they got killed. He put the losers together so they would not get other airmen killed. Neither did society at large in the time of Jesus care if lepers were killed. It kept the disease from spreading.

          "If you choose", the man said. I think he said it because he was beyond caring. He no longer carried the desperation of a Stephen Strange trying to get his life back. One did not get their life back after leprosy. So here came another faith healer who seemed to be getting popular reviews. What is the worst that could happen to the leper? Jesus rejects him and turns the crowd on him for ‘daring’ to infect the Teacher? If they stoned him to death, that’s another way out of his miserable existence.

          But Jesus chose to heal him, and the man received his life back in joy and thanksgiving.

          So am I saying that if Stephen Strange found his way to Jesus that he might have been healed? No. The franchise is about Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, not Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord. Besides, how much arrogance would Dr. Strange have to swallow before coming to our Lord?

          What I am saying is that there is One who will always choose to heal, always choose to forgive, always choose to love us. The leper opened a choice for Jesus, but for Jesus, there is no choice. This is what He does-for us. When we come to Jesus to be cleansed from our sins, when we lift up our illnesses and failings to His healing power, when we seek His grace, Jesus will always choose to heal us.

          But as the journey of healing for Dr. Stephen Strange, brilliant but now broken surgeon, went down a very different path, so could our journeys in Christ. It could turn into quite a ride.

Peter Hofstra