We also learn from Job how we should respond to suffering, should this be God’s purpose for us. When Job is called to suffer, he does not curse God, nor seek to take his own life. Because he is blameless, Job has every right to cry out for vindication–as do we if we have sown to the Spirit. Job is not suffering because he has done something wrong which angered God. Rather Job is suffering because God has a purpose for his ordeal–-as yet unknown to Job.

Who Was Job?
So, who was this man who God called to suffer great loss and play such an important role in redemptive history?
Job is introduced to the reader in the opening verses of the first chapter. “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (v. 1). The land of Uz is east of the River Jordan (Qedem–“the east”), likely in what is now the nation of Jordan. Uz could be anywhere between Edom on the south, Moab on the east, and the land of the Aram to the north. While Job was not an Israelite–since no tribal or family identification is given–he clearly worships Israel’s God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. [1] So, apparently, do his friends and family.
As the story opens and we meet the central character, what stands out is the assertion that Job was “blameless and upright” and that “he feared God and turned away evil.” What, exactly, does this mean? One thing it does not mean is that Job was sinless, or that he had attained a state of justifying righteousness because he lived a blameless and upright life. We must not confuse cause and effect. We know this to be the case because elsewhere in this book Job declares himself to be a sinner. In Job 7:20, Job laments, “If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you?” In Job 13:26, he laments “for you write bitter things against me and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth.” Finally, in Job 14:16 -17, Job confesses that “you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin; my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.”
Upright and Blameless: What Does that Mean?
If Job acknowledges himself to be a sinner, what does it mean when Job is described as being “blameless and upright?” The answer is simple. The text means exactly what it says–Job was blameless and upright. He feared God and shunned evil. Job was an honest and moral man, who avoided those things contrary to the law of God that had been written on his heart (cf. Romans 2:14). In chapters 29-31, Job can appeal to the public knowledge of his piety, which is the visible manifestation of his faith in YHWH. When we read that Job was blameless and upright, we should understand this to mean that Job believed YHWH’s promise to forgive his sins and, like Abraham, Job was justified through faith. Job believed and confessed that YHWH will cover his sins and through that act of faith, Christ’s righteousness was reckoned to Job, just as it was to Abraham.
Job’s faith in YHWH bore much fruit of the Spirit, fruit which was tangible to all who knew him and fruit which was especially pleasing to YHWH. As one writer puts it, “there was an honest harmony between Job’s profession and his life, quite the opposite of the hypocrisy of which he was presently accused by Satan and later by his friends.” [2] Having been justified by faith, Job lived in such a way that his conduct before men was blameless and upright, in contrast to someone who is indifferent to the things of God, or who hypocritically professes one thing, but lives like their personal profession makes no difference.
Job’s conduct was exemplary (some of it is described in the following verses in the way he served as priest of his family). In Job 4:3-6, one of Job’s friends can declare of Job, “Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed. Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?” In Job 42:8, when God rebukes one of Job’s friends, telling him “now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” In this, we see that Job is a righteous man, which is the outward manifestation of his faith in YHWH—not only by virtue of his justification before God through faith, but evident in his daily conduct. James 2:18 comes to mind. “But someone will say, `You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” When Job suffers, it is not because he has some secret sin, or because God is punishing Job because he has done something which provokes God to anger.
This is precisely why Satan sets out to expose Job’s obedience as phony (a quid pro quo) and why the Lord allows Job to be put to the test. Even if God turned Satan to an ash at that very moment, the question about human righteousness resulting from divine bribery would never be answered. Job was truly blameless and upright. Job had done nothing to bring about the trial that is about to befall him. He feared God and shunned evil. Hence God allows Satan to put Job to the test to vindicate God’s righteous dealing with his creatures. Satan will get his answer.
This also explains why Job has every right to cry out for God to vindicate his good name. After all, God has promised not to punish the blameless. But why then does Job suffer if he has done nothing wrong? That is the question which this remarkable book will seek to answer. And that answer is found in the wisdom and mysterious purposes of God.
In verses 2 and 3, we learn something of Job’s personal circumstances before his ordeal begins.
Read More

The church of centuries past had a far more robust and biblical understanding of the church’s corporate self-conception and the need for corporate discipleship and gathering. We can and ought to recapture and promote this past self-conception and ecclesiastically corporate mentality.

[Reformation21] Editor’s Note : This post has been adapted from a longer article set to be published in a forthcoming edition of the Puritan Reformed Journal.
It will come as little surprise to many readers on this site that the state of theology in the contemporary North American church is fraught with weakness. This theological anemia is one that prompts serious concern and demands serious attention. In particular, the way in which the modern evangelical populace in North America regards the church and the church’s corporate identity and the necessity of corporate worship is one that is in dire need of correction.
The trend has been observed for some years that a growing number of self-professing evangelical Protestants have been embracing a lower and lower ecclesiology. The tendency to downplay the necessity for corporate worship and corporate discipleship as a covenanted, local community (local church) has increased, parallel with an accompanying tendency to emphasize personal or private prayer and Bible reading either over against corporate worship/gathering, or that such individual habits of piety are fundamentally more important than any such corporate practices of piety. While this social trend has been observed anecdotally for years and has been the subject of ire within many a sermon introduction or popular magazine article[1], in recent years, there has at last emerged empirical data to substantiate this observation.
In 2020, Ligonier Ministries, in partnership with Lifeway Research, commissioned and performed a survey[2] of three thousand Americans asking a variety of questions about key theological tenets and doctrines: about Jesus Christ, the Bible, truth, ethics, etc. The results are eye-opening. Particular to the concerns of this article, one of the statements to which survey participants were asked to respond was this, “Worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.” Amongst all respondents, 32% “Somewhat agree” with that statement, and 26% “Strongly agree”—thus, 58% of all respondents viewed that statement favorably.[3] Conversely, some 29% of all respondents disagreed with that statement either “strongly” or “somewhat.” Now, these data reflect the views of Americans writ large, not specifically the views espoused by evangelicals. However, the Ligonier Survey does provide a subset of data regarding evangelical responses to that statement—and it does not portend well for evangelicals’ ecclesiology. When faced with the statement “Worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church,” 20% of self-identified evangelical respondents strongly agreed with that statement—a full fifth!—and 19% agreed somewhat. Nearly 40% of all evangelical respondents viewed the aforementioned statement favorably. Conversely, some 55% of self-identified evangelicals disagreed with that statement—35% disagreeing strongly, and 20% disagreeing somewhat.[4]
While the higher statistic is heartening, it is at the same time disconcerting: barely over half of self-identified evangelicals take issue with an individualistic Christian mindset. Barely over half of self-identified evangelicals, presumably, object to this statement which downplays a corporate sensibility and obligation to the Christian life—and it is only just over a third which disagrees strongly! Meanwhile, a strong minority (39%) find that congregationally-reductionistic attitude regarding Christianity at least somewhat agreeable.
This is a growing trend in North American Christianity and it betrays the low ecclesiology which continues to plague the church. This is something that must be answered with a strong ecclesiology that recognizes and emphasizes the centrality of the corporate life and identity of the institutional church, her people, and their collective ministry. The current moment demands a resounding “Amen!” to Cyprian’s dictum (which sentiment has been perpetuated in Reformed circles by Calvin in Institutes IV.1.1.)[5] that “No one can have God for his Father, who does not have the Church for his mother.”[6]
Recent Scholarship
In recent years there has been something of a happy resurgence of both popular-level writings as well as more scholarly theological work relevant to ecclesiology, such as much of the fine work that has been produced by 9Marks ministries and other connected writers.[7] Much of this scholarship has come from a credobaptist viewpoint and assumes congregationalism as the standard for church governance. Though this factor is at odds with classically Reformed and Presbyterian ecclesiological commitments, these works are nonetheless useful in emphasizing the necessity for the corporate gathering and a corporate Christian self-conception.[8] While there has been useful ecclesiological work coming from Presbyterian and Reformed authors of late, these have tended to be more popular-level works that focus more narrowly on issues surrounding the sacraments or that of pastoral leadership/church officers.[9]
There are works that deserve frequent reference in ecclesiological studies such as the late Edmund Clowney’s work on the church[10] which, while Reformed in its theological orientation, is not exactly a work of recent scholarship, being published in 1995. Of course, the classic 19th-century ecclesiological tome by James Bannerman[11] is both Reformed and eminently worthy of consideration, but hardly recent. There is also the widely popular work by Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the communal/community aspect of the life of the church,[12] but this work is not recent (being published in 1939) and Bonhoeffer’s theological orientation is not of the classical Reformed sort.[13] One happy exception to this is Michael Horton’s People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology, which was published in 2008.[14] There are also forthcoming scholarly works that promise to contribute to a more robust ecclesiology in our day but, at the time of this article’s writing, have not yet been released and are thus unable to be considered.[15]
Read More
Related Posts:

Grief is the innate urge to go on loving someone who is no longer there, and to be loved back. And insofar as we hold ourselves back (or allow someone else to hold us back) from bringing this urge to expression, we will remain frustrated, and we will never heal. In other words, grief is the soul’s natural response to loss, and should not be repressed. 

No matter the circumstances when someone dies, we tend to haul out the same old clichés. Part of it is probably our fear of hurting someone by saying “the wrong thing.” Part of it is that we are so overwhelmed by emotions that we don’t know what we really think. But a good part of it is also our general discomfort with grief.
For most of us, the raw reality of losing someone (or seeing someone else suffer such a loss) is too much for us to address honestly and fully. It demands vulnerability – the admission of weakness, dependence, and the fear that we’ve come to the end of our rope – and because of this we try to brush it off, or skirt it by means of pat phrases. And when that doesn’t work we treat it like a speed bump: slowing down because we have to, but then hurrying on as quickly as possible.
Sometimes we do this for ourselves, in the hope that if we can pick ourselves up again and “move on,” we can limit our pain. Sometimes, worried what others will think about us if we don’t pull ourselves together soon, we mask our pain by bottling it up silently.
Common as it is to try to deal with grief in this way, it does not work. Hide it, talk around it, postpone it, pretend it isn’t there – in the long run, grief will never go away until it is met head on and allowed to run its course. Given the unique circumstances that shape every loss, the time this takes will vary with every person. Tragically, time isn’t always granted, as Gina, a young woman I know, found out.
When Tom, Gina’s sixteen-year-old brother, died of an overdose several years ago, she was devastated. “In a way, I’m still not through dealing with it,” she says. Friends and acquaintances were sympathetic at first, but after a while they grew tired of her inability to “move on” and made her feel guilty that she was still struggling:
I tried to explain, but they never really understood me. It seemed like they expected my life to be “normal” again. I often went through times of sadness, bitterness, and other painful emotions, but people were uncomfortable with this. I was so alone.
Read More
Related Posts: