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Welcome to 5 -Minute Bible, your daily guide for your daily reading. This is January the 9th and we'll be reading
Job 21 -23. Now today's reading continues the dialogue in Job as it moves towards theological exhaustion.
Job 21 -23 remains firmly set in the patriarchal world, without law and covenant institutions or sacrificial mediation.
The conversation has now shifted from Job defending his innocence before his friends to now exposing a very deep and disturbing reality that every single one of us have struggled with, and that is that the wicked often do flourish, evil often appears like it goes unjudged, and God even appears silent.
And in the midst of all of that, our categories of fairness begin to stretch and bend and even break under the weight of our real lived experiences.
In chapter 21, Job directly confronts his friends by pointing to what everybody knows but few ever want to talk about, and that is the wicked often live long, prosperous lives.
They raise families, they enjoy peace, they drink good wine, eat wonderful steaks, and then they die with what seems like no visible judgment.
And this observation shatters the comforting belief that God's justice is always immediate, always obvious, so that if you're being judged, you're a sinner, and if you get by scot -free, then you must have been righteous.
Chapter 22, Eliphaz brings his final speech where his frustration is now hardened into accusation.
He's unable to answer Job's arguments, but he charges Job with oppression and cruelty without any evidence.
Job 23, Job himself responds by turning away from his friends again.
He doesn't argue theology with them anymore, he longs to find God, this God who is absent from him and is suffering, and he wants to bring his case before the
Almighty because he knows instinctively that if he could just speak to God, God would listen, even though God feels so painfully absent from his experience.
As you read today, I want you to ask the following question. What do we do when evil prospers, when
God feels silent in the midst of that, and our sense of fairness is blurred by our human anger?
Job is no longer just wrestling with suffering. He's wrestling with the success of evil and the ache that it produces in the human soul when we watch someone who is wicked prosper.
His struggle is not abstract, it's concrete, it's deeply personal, emotional, and moral, and we've all felt it.
And that's the central tension of Job 21 -23, which is the offense that we feel when we see delayed justice.
We instinctively despise watching wicked people prosper. It feels wrong and it feels unfair, and it stirs resentment, envy, and even rage.
We watch Hollywood celebrities live in these gorgeous mansions and yet live debauched lives, and we become furious with why would
God allow these things to happen? It's not fair. Job in these chapters gives voice to that ache without sanitizing it or placating it, and yet Scripture refuses to let us stop with the question.
The problem is not that God is unjust, it's that our idea of what fairness is ignores a terrifying truth.
If God were strictly fair with humanity, then nobody would be surviving. Nobody would live.
Everybody would be under the wrath of God. Job acknowledges, rightly, that the delay of justice is a grace from God because everyone deserves
God's wrath for their sin. And Job learns to live under the tension of those thoughts, knowing that he's receiving grace even in his suffering, trusting that judgment is real, and that it will eventually visit the wicked even if he doesn't get to see it.
This tension finds its resolution most fully in Jesus Christ because we cry out for fairness when others' sin prosper, but the gospel reminds us that mercy, not fairness, is our only hope.
At the cross, God doesn't give us fairness, and He doesn't ignore evil. He judges it, and yet He does so by pouring out wrath unto
His own Son instead of on the sinners who rightly deserve it. Jesus bears the delayed justice of God so that God's abundant grace could be extended to sinners.
The wicked are not forgotten, judgment is not canceled, it's postponed, and Christ's resurrection guarantees that justice will come fully and finally.
It will either come on the sinner or it will be poured out on Christ who will be their representative.
Until then, even in our deepest pain, we can understand and know that we have received mercy from God, and the gospel teaches us to trust
God's timing for His justice and not to lean into our timelines and to demand our ideas of fairness and vengeance.
As you read Job 21 -23 today, notice how honest Job is about the pain of watching evil go unpunished.
He's not placating that. But also notice how careful Scripture is to guide that pain rather than glorify it.
The dialogue nears its breaking point here in the very middle of the book. Human wisdom is failing, but soon
God is going to come Himself and give the answer. And with that, read your
Bible carefully, devotionally, and joyfully, and may the Lord use His word to sanctify you completely, and we will continue our journey tomorrow.