Let me back up. I’ve just finished the book of Job. That’s a hard read, for me, anyway. The book has several sections:
• Chapters 1&2: The Set Up. The conversations in Heaven between God and the devil (that Job never knows about!), and the resulting destruction of Job’s life.
• Chapters 3 – 31: Job arguing with his “friends,” Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. Mostly, Job is proclaiming his innocence and these three are telling him what God is like and why Job is wrong.
• Chapters 32 – 37: The lecture from “Elihu son of Barakel the Buzite, of the family of Ram.” Mostly, he’s defending God.
• Chapters 38 – 41: God speaks up. Essentially, “This is above your pay grade, Son,” but how beautifully he says it!
• Chapter 42: Job repents, God chews out Eliphaz, Bildad & Zophar, God restores Job.
The verse that stuck out to me most strongly this time was this:
"After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” [Job 42:7]
And I realized that God just declared that much of Job 3 – Job 31 is “not the truth” about God. That means there are lies there! In the Bible! <Gasp!>
(He also declares that Job was telling the truth when he protested that he was innocent in his suffering.)
So God says at least 29 chapters of my Bible contain lies. That’s worth thinking about.
Keep in mind that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” [2 Timothy 3:16-17]
So it’s “God-breathed.” Other translations read “given by inspiration of God or “breathed out by God.” But that doesn’t mean that every word is literally true or actually factual. It means that it’s inspired by God, motivated by God through the men who wrote the stuff down. It’s still profitable for teaching, rebuking & correcting, certainly.
But not every bit of Scripture is actually, factually correct, at least not these 29 chapters in Job. Don’t get me wrong: the Bible is telling the truth when it records the lies these yahoos are telling about God. But they are still lies, and they’re still in the Bible.
I wonder if there are other places, passages that are also inspired by God, where Scripture (accurately) records people saying stupid things, untrue things? (And I won’t even get into the question of where God is speaking metaphorically or symbolically.)
The Bible contains lies. It says so.
So apparently, more skill is required when employing the Bible than merely swallowing everything whole. That’s kind of true for all of life, isn’t it?
No comments:
Post a Comment