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Welcome to 5 -Minute Bible, your daily guide for your daily reading. Today is
January the 6th and we'll be reading Job 10 -13. Now today's reading continues the first cycle of the dialogue in the book of Job and it intensifies the conflict.
Job 10 -13 remains firmly rooted in the patriarchal world as we said yesterday, long before Mount Sinai or the sacrificial system.
Job is still without a law, without a priest, and without a mediator. So, what we are hearing now is not merely grief but a man wrestling openly with God without a representative.
He's trying to understand how the Creator could fashion him with care and yet now seemed utterly determined to crush him.
In chapter 10, Job turns directly to God questioning why the one who formed him so carefully now treats him like an enemy.
He affirms that God created him with intention and skill and purpose and yet he cannot reconcile that truth with the pain that he's feeling in his body.
Chapters 11 -12 brings Zophar's sharp rebuke, accusing Job of arrogance and urging him to repent.
Then Job responds forcefully, rejecting their false wisdom and affirming the true wisdom belongs to God alone.
By chapter 13, Job himself declares his willingness to speak directly to God even if it cost him his own life and he's no longer content to argue with men.
He wants his case to be heard in heaven. Now as you read today, I want you to ask the following question.
How can a suffering man appeal to God without actually being destroyed by Him?
Job believes God is wise and sovereign yet he cannot understand how that wisdom aligns with his pain.
His desire is not to necessarily escape suffering but he wants clarity on why it's happening.
He wants justice and he wants restoration of the fellowship that he felt with God before this suffering entered in.
You see, the central tension in Job 10 -13 is audacity born out of desperation.
Job knows he cannot win an argument with God and yet he also knows that silence is going to destroy him.
He's caught between this world of both fear and faith. He's terrified of God's power and yet he's unwilling to let it go because he knows that he's dead anyway if he's apart from God's goodness.
Job rejects the shallow certainty of his friends and he chooses instead to risk everything on a divine appeal.
It's better to die in the presence of God than to live apart from Him. That's what Job is saying and the pattern is so striking.
As suffering deepens, Job's theology doesn't collapse but his patience with false explanations and false counsel does.
Job's bold appeal exposes the limits of even the best of human wisdom and righteousness. Job wants to argue his case before God but he knows that without protection, without a covering, such an encounter would be fatal because God is holy.
This tension points directly to Jesus Christ.
Job longs for access to God without annihilation and Christ provides that access. Where Job risks his life to speak,
Christ lays down his life to speak a better word for us. Where Job cannot survive
God's presence without mercy, Jesus is that presence, being that mercy and bearing it in his own blood.
Job's cry teaches us that courage before God is impossible without a mediator.
Christ is the advocate that Job dares to imagine. Jesus is the one who stands before God, not like Satan to argue against us and not even like Job who cannot stand in the presence of the
Almighty. Jesus is the true one who stands in front of the presence of God and who pleads perfectly on behalf of sinners.
He is our true advocate. He is our true paraclete. As you read
Job 10 -13 today, I want you to notice how Job's questions sharpen rather than fade away.
I want you to notice how his confidence in God's wisdom is growing even as his understanding is withering and fading away.
The dialogue is going to continue to escalate over the coming days, pressing into this question of justice and suffering and righteousness.
And it's going to challenge us to think to ourselves. How is it that we suffer?
Do we suffer like Job and grow more intent upon knowing
God, running towards God, even in our pain, even in our tears? Or have we allowed our suffering to push us further away from God?
That's a very important question. And with that, read your Bible carefully, devotionally, and joyfully today.
And may the Lord use His Word to sanctify you completely. And we will continue our journey tomorrow.