August 2nd
How do you handle a bully? When someone disrespects or mocks us, it’s tempting to lash back with the same. It may even make sense to appease a bully, going as far as to join their side to protect ourselves. Others may join them to wait patiently for sweet revenge, a chance to point and laugh when they fall. The proverbs in today’s reading warn against these options. If we follow evildoers down their crooked path, we will find ourselves snarled by thorns. But if retaliating against evil with our own evil is not an option, what actually works? The wisdom envisioned through the proverbs invites us to a new kind of freedom, where not even a hint of jealousy, contempt, or spite is in our hearts. We can experience this when we let God resolve the things we’re seeking revenge for. As you’ll see in the New Testament, Jesus expands on this idea, teaching his followers to live by God’s definition of good and bad, which requires creativity, wisdom, and trust in God alone. Watch today’s video to learn how Jesus invites his followers to respond to injustice.
August 3rd
Today’s reading features an excellent lesson in how to, and how not to, read the Bible. Say we ask, “What does the Bible say I should do when I encounter a foolish person?” No problem. Look up Proverbs 26:4, and find, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.” Easy. Don’t engage, or we’ll be pulled into foolishness as well. Then the next sentence says: “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes” (Prov. 26:5). Wait? Is this a contradiction? With our question in mind, it can seem that way. But the Bible is not answering the question we’re asking. It’s suggesting that we will encounter both situations in life, and there are no less than two legitimate ways to respond. You will have to operate with wisdom. Sometimes, you have to move along and not get sucked into the chaos. Other times, you should confront foolishness with bold truth. This two-verse example is a small picture of the larger whole of Scripture. It often does not answer our modern questions. Instead, Scripture invites us to meditate on its challenging stories and teachings that don’t always fit neatly together. The friction between the two forces us to recognize our limitations. This discomfort helps us stay humble and reminds us to seek the spirit of the law. Another similar example is the idea that when lots of people are helping, heavy work feels much lighter. That’s true. But in other situations, too many cooks spoil the broth. So it’s not always true that more people are better. The “right thing” depends on context. It takes time, conversation, and intentional thinking to let these proverbs develop wisdom in our lives. But that effort is worth it. Proverbs teaches that the way of wisdom leads to good—the way of folly … not so much. Watch today’s video to learn what Jesus said about using wisdom wisely.
August 4th
What’s the difference between knowing what is wise and doing what is wise? We’ve read a lot of wise sayings in this book, many of which remind us that the human plight in our modern context is not altogether different from the ancient world. Notice how authors explore ideas like human thought and will. Even now, we’re compelled more by what we love or want than by what we think, so it’s easier to think wisely than to live wisely. The book of Proverbs’ final two poems explore questions about how to live with wisdom in day-to-day life. The first poem describes Agur, a man who acknowledges his ignorance as well as his need for God’s wisdom. He discovers that the Scriptures can teach him what he wants to know. In Agur, we find a model reader of Proverbs: someone who’s always open to hearing God’s wisdom. The second poem of Proverbs tells the story of a “woman of noble character.” This woman acts according to the wisdom of Proverbs and lives according to God’s instruction in everyday life, according to her time and place. Notice how the end of Proverbs corresponds to the opening. It opens with a father encouraging his son to listen to Lady Wisdom. We end with a mother showing her son how to live like Lady Wisdom. Watch the video to review what you’ve learned about living well in God’s good world.
August 5th
Many of the proverbs support the idea that diligence pays off. Life goes well for the responsible and hard-working and poorly for the foolish and lazy. That makes sense in general, but only if circumstances are favorable. What happens when corruption strikes? You can work, save, and spend wisely but still end up broke and hurting while the unjust and wicked hoard wealth. What then? Enter the book of Job. Job did everything right, according to the wisdom described in Proverbs. His life exemplified diligence, virtue, and the fear of Yahweh. His family experienced abundance, safety, and blessing. The wisdom of Proverbs worked quite well for Job—until it didn’t. In the blink of an eye, injustice and violence reduce Job’s prosperous family and home to a pile of ash. Bereavement reduces him to a broken man who scrapes his open sores with broken pottery. How could such a thing happen in a world created by a good God? Job and his friends spend most of the book wrestling with this question in a fierce poetic debate. Job never gets an answer, and neither do we. The complexity lingers today. Watch the video to learn about God’s unexpected response to the problem of suffering in the book of Job.
August 6th
After seven days of stunned silence, reeling from the disaster they just witnessed, Job’s friends speak. Launching into the poetic debates that make up most of the book, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar all assume that God orders the world by a strict principle of justice. If you honor God, you get rewarded. If you dishonor God, you will be punished. It’s simple. The friends conclude that the only thing that can explain Job’s suffering is wrongdoing on Job’s part. Each of Job’s friends offers a slightly different spin on this basic logic. Eliphaz, the first friend to speak, tries to put a positive spin on the situation: “Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope?” If Job truly believes he’s innocent, Eliphaz reasons, he should have grounds for hope. God will eventually treat Job as he deserves and restore him to a state of shalom. This Hebrew word, as you’ll learn in the video, means more than just peace. It also refers to wholeness and well-being. But Eliphaz’s reasoning offers no comfort to Job. Job insists he’s done nothing to deserve the suffering he’s experiencing. Therefore, Job concludes that either God doesn’t run the world according to justice, or God himself is not just. Job and his friends will spend most of the book defending their respective positions in long, increasingly heated cycles of poetic speeches. This leaves the reader to wonder: Who has the correct view of wisdom and God?
August 7th
In today’s reading, the second of Job’s friends, Bildad, enters the ring for his own theological wrestling match. Bildad’s logic follows Eliphaz’s: God is just and runs the world on the simple principle of justice. He agrees with the idea that righteous people will experience blessing, and sinful people will suffer. Where Eliphaz tried to spin this logic into a message of encouragement, Bildad’s approach is less diplomatic. He argues that Job’s children must have died because they deserved it. “Does God pervert justice?” Bildad uses the tragic fate of Job’s children to offer a warning to their father. Job’s sons and daughters all received the death penalty, but Job is (for now) still alive. If Job is innocent, then God will restore him. But this condition comes with a warning. Job needs to do some intense soul-searching to make sure he’s not guilty of any of his children’s crimes. Job refuses to budge from his claim of innocence. He knows “divine justice” cannot be the answer to his suffering. The situation is too complex. Job laments—what’s the point of pleading his case with a God who’s already decided to condemn him? Even though Job has given up hope of a fair hearing, he continues to pour out his complaints to God in prayer. “Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me?”
August 8th
What’s worse than receiving bad advice? Getting the same bad advice three times in a row. In today’s reading, we meet Job’s third friend, Zophar. He puts a new, crueler twist on the friends’ shared assumptions about suffering, retribution, and God’s justice. Eliphaz focused on the positive implications of Job’s unswerving belief in his own innocence, trying to offer Job hope. Bildad at least talked about Job’s innocence as a conditional possibility. Zophar flat-out denies Job’s claim to innocence. For Zophar, Job’s suffering is irrefutable evidence of God’s just punishment for some wrongdoing: “Surely he recognizes deceivers; and when he sees evil, does he not take note?” As far as Zophar is concerned, Job’s only hope is repentance. His suffering proves he’s done something terrible. Job’s only hope now is to beg for God’s mercy. Yikes. Imagine how helpless and misunderstood Job must have felt. His close friends are opting for simple, straightforward answers to life’s most complex issue, and they’re doing so in the middle of Job’s deepest pain. Zophar assumes that if God runs the world according to justice, it is reasonable that the prosperous and safe are doing right while the poor and suffering are doing evil. In other words, you can judge a person’s character based on their wealth and prosperity. When someone is suffering or thriving, you can be sure they had it coming to them.