In the February ‘09 edition of “The Briefing” (Matthias Media), Andrew Barry examines Job from the perspective of theology, our relationship with God and prayer.
Job treats God as someone with whom he has a relationship….his
friends treat God as a theological debate. They may score good
theological points, but it’s Job who trusts God. Rather than being
just a book about the problem of evil, the book of Job contains a sharp
and scary message for would-be theologians. These people actually
infuriate God with their endless discussions if they are not men and
women of prayer (Job 42:7).
Far too often I find myself so enraptured with the study of God’s Word that I neglect to apply it to my life. I wonder if, at times, I am more concerned about my relationship with the Bible than I am my relationship with God. As I seek to dive deeper into God’s Word may I not become so enmeshed in the pursuit of spiritual knowledge that I fail to give equal importance to spiritual wisdom and spiritual practice.
Terry,
I am not even noble enough to be “more concerned about my relationship with the Bible”. I can be tempted to be more worried about my relationship to orthodox theology. Or to put that another way I can neglect both Jesus and the Scriptures but devour tons of books by men–and be certain I adhere to what the say. Thanks for this it’s convicting.
When our guys went through Job for our after school bible study one of the principles we took out of it is that “good theology wrongly applied stinks”.