2/1 Reading (Job 19-21; Titus 3)

Job 19: Job responds to Bildad. He asks them why do they continue to treat him this way and talk to him in such a negative way. He wants to know if it will end soon. Job then shifts his tone to state again that God is purposefully targeting him and doing bad things to him. First Job’s examples focus more on violence. He then talks about how God’s actions toward him have ostracized him from the community. He then directly challenges his friends again, wanting to know why they are so nasty to him like God is. He desires to finally come face to face with God hoping that God will acknowledge that he has done nothing wrong.

Job 20: Zophar responds a second time. This entire chapter is a long list of things that happen to all evildoers. The emphasis here is that nothing good will come to the wicked. They will all experience bad things in their lives, not good things. My assumption here is that Zophar’s goal was to potentially scare Job into stopping his comments about God and accept that what has happened to him is because of his own sins. Not likely that this will work.

Job 21: Job responds to Zophar. He uses a very logical argument here. He presents many examples of good things that happen to the wicked. He’s trying to make the argument that instead of nothing but bad things happening to bad people, many good things happen to bad people. Best of luck on trying to convince them. 

Titus 3: This is the last chapter in Titus. Paul emphasizes the importance of being respectful and courteous toward Titus’ authority, governmental authority, and outsiders in general. I like something the notes include that provides some context: “The basis for believers’ attitudes toward outsiders in the Greco-Roman world was that believers, though guilty of the same behavior, were saved because of God’s mercy, not believes believers were somehow better than others” (p. 424 NT; note for 2:15-3:8). I like the context here. Very helpful.

Overall the purpose of this chapter is the emphasis on doing good things. Here’s a picture of a sidebar on doing good things for others:

I like to think that I do good things for others. I hope that others think that too.