Thursday, March 30, 2017

Daily reading assignment: Job 25-26

Today’s Bible reading offers an incredible insight into God’s revelation of Himself and His creation.

“Bildad the Shuhite”, one of Job’s “friends” whose role has been more of an accuser than a comforter, pretends to speak words of wisdom concerning the person and nature of God in Job 25.  Only six verses in length, the first three verses are devoted to God’s dominion and power (25:1-3), followed by verses 4-6 that focus on God’s justice and man’s natural, wretched state (25:4-6),

Job 26 records Job’s response to Bildad the Shuhite’s empty counsel.   After answering his accuser (26:1-4), Job began a discourse declaring not only the nature of God as Creator, but stating facts about creation that were not fully understood or proved until the emergence of modern science. Consider the following revelations found in Job 26:

• God is omniscient: He knows even the abode of the dead. (26:5-6)
• The earth hangs on nothing. (26:7)
• God is omnipotent:
  1. He gives or withholds the water in the clouds as it pleases Him. (26:8-9)
  2. He has determined the boundaries of the oceans. (26:10, 12a; Proverbs 8:29)

The Book of Job, regarded as one of the oldest, if not the oldest, book in the Bible; reveals God “hangeth the earth upon nothing” (26:7)!  “Scientific opinions” expressed as late as the Middle Ages were debating a flat earth and wondering on what the earth was resting.   Job had the answer to that question, perhaps as early as 4,000 years ago!  Who has not looked at photos of the earth taken from outer space and marveled that this beautiful sphere we call home is, like the sun, moon, stars, and planets..hanging on nothing!

God is not only the Creator of all things; He is the Sustainer of all He has created.

Colossians 1:16-17 – “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: ¹⁷  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

Copyright 2017 – Travis D. Smith