Offender and Defender
Jan 13, 2025 - Bible Reading
Bible Reading:
Job 15-16 and Luke 13
Passages that arrested me:
Job 15:14 ESV
[14] What is man, that he can be pure? Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?https://bible.com/bible/59/job.15.14.ESV
Job 16:19 ESV
[19] Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and he who testifies for me is on high. https://bible.com/bible/59/job.16.19.ESV
Luke 13:4-5 ESV
[4] Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? [5] No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” https://bible.com/bible/59/luk.13.4-5.ESV
Offender and Defender
What do you think is the basic nature of humankind? Are we basically good? Are we basically evil? Did we start out one way and then become another way?
What does God think of us?
Job's friend Eliphaz is pretty certain that people are unable to be pure or righteous in and of themselves. Jesus, too, seems to indicate that the players on the playing field share equally in their quantity of offense.
Yet, Job looks to Heaven for his defense. It is God who will declare Job's standing.
And Jesus declares both our universal need and our one hope: repentance. We must turn from how we want to think of ourselves, to how God understands us to be. We must embrace the solution God has provided if we hope to live.
Love to my West Coast Willseas