This year in the first part of the "Season of the Spirit," we look at how God's Spirit took an ancient man (and his friends!) on a journey into depth and maturity, growth, sanctification, and wisdom (all the work of the Spirit!)
This will be our approach to The Book of Job. It's NOT primarily a long lesson on how to endure suffering; it's a book about God and wisdom and incentives (WHY you do WHAT you do). It's about how God took Job on a journey so that Job could discover his own motives for serving God. It's a blown-up, larger-than-life portrayal of a pattern endured by virtually everyone whom God claims and to whom God commits Himself to parent, to train, school, and sanctify (or make like Jesus Christ)… AND… of course, this being a Christian Church, we expect to see the CHRIST – Jesus Christ – to see Him occupying the space between the lines of the book.
For the next nine weeks we plan to take a journey into our own motives to discover what kind of wisdom governs our own lives?
Are you UP for a wild ride?… It's a kind of thought experiment about reasons to be good, about rewards for doing the right thing, punishments for doing the wrong thing? It's about moving toward a worldview that's, on one hand, less black-and-white and less predictable but, on the other hand, richer, more filled with wonder, even more playful. Are ya ready?
Today we want to set up the book… so important that we get the original story that will be dissected and mused on and analyzed ad nauseum through-out the book by "the commentariat," the pundits, the "friends" of the suffering man.
So, let's set it up:
1. Set-Up for Wisdom
2. Set-Up of the Book
3. Set-Up for Our Own Journey |
