Job

Dear Trinity Family, 

I love a good courtroom drama. Nothing gets better than Law and Order and the iconic bum bum sound. Law and Order gives you a prologue, the events leading up to the trial, it gives you an investigation, the searching for evidence, and lastly it gives you the trial itself.

The book of Job feels like Law and Order. It begins with the prologue and the Accuser, Satan, questioning the faith of Job in God. Job lives too good of a life, of course he won't curse you. But remove your favor from him and he'll surprise you. This leads to the suffering Job is afflicted with. He loses everything. He suffers.

From then on it's a courtroom trial. Job is suing God. But the three friends who show up — Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar — along with one whippersnapper named Elihu, don't argue Job's case. They argue against him. Each has his own incomplete reason for why this has happened, and every one of them circles back to the same verdict: Job must have done something to deserve this. Job's own friends turn out to be witnesses for the other side.

The tension throughout the book of Job is why this is happening to Job. Is Job wrong in pursuing answers? As David Clines observes, asking why unmerited suffering happens isn't wrong — demanding that God justify everything he does is. God's ways are beyond our comprehension, and it stands to reason that we will struggle to understand God's plan. But in all this, Job never once doubts God is just. Job is allowed to pour out his complaint to God, and this isn't Job venting into an unknowable void. What we find in Job is that we are allowed to pour out our complaint to God. What we find there is not a God who explains himself, but rather a God who loves us.

But the surprise witness that steps forward (not in Job, but in redemptive history) is Jesus. He is the definitive witness. He's kept the law perfectly and he's truly righteous, yet he has truly suffered unjustly — but for us! He's the perfect advocate: he knows what it means to hurt and suffer, but he can also stand in places Job can't stand. God asks Job questions he can't answer, like "Have you commanded the morning?" Jesus the advocate answers, "Yes." And he's the better redeemer. Job says "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25), trusting that God in his grace and mercy would provide what he needed. Christ is the redeemer Job needed and the redeemer that was provided. By faith in Christ we are given righteousness that doesn't belong to us and yet can never be taken away from us.

Though Job never gets the answers he's looking for at the end of the trial, what he does receive is God himself. A God who invites us to draw near to him. We are allowed to enter into honest dispute with God, and what we find is the assurance of Christ, who promises never to leave us or forsake us, even in times of trial.

Peace, Ben

JOB LISTENING GUIDE

Revelation

Our church-wide reading plan is going to dropping us into the strangest, most vivid book in the whole Bible: Revelation. Our first association with this book is dragons, bowls, and arguments about timelines, and I want to help us read it differently. Because underneath all that strange imagery is something we desperately need: a vision of who's actually in control.

Who Wrote It, and Why It Matters

Revelation was written by the apostle John, from a place called Patmos — a Roman prison island where the empire sent people it wanted silenced for political offenses. John, the last living apostle, was writing from exile to churches he knew and loved, churches facing a question that was becoming impossible to avoid: could they keep following Jesus as King while living under an empire that demanded the same allegiance?

He wrote to seven real churches in Asia Minor, each with its own struggles — some tired, some compromised, some faithful under pressure. Revelation was given, John tells us, to show God's servants "what must soon take place" (1:1). Whatever else that means, it means this book was written for people in a specific moment, wrestling with real fear and real temptation. That's us too.

How to Read a Book Like This

The word "Revelation" — apocalypsis — literally means an unveiling. John isn't handing us a script for the future so much as pulling back a curtain on what's already true about the world right now, seen from heaven's vantage point.

A few things that have helped me read it well:

• Don't read it for a timeline. The visions aren't sequential events on a calendar — they're cyclical pictures of judgment and salvation, told and retold with rising intensity. Revelation isn't trying to satisfy our curiosity about the future; it's trying to reorient our hearts in the present.

• Watch for the Old Testament. Almost every image in Revelation is drawn from Israel's prophets. John expects us to bring that whole story with us into the text.

• Expect mystery, and let it stay a little mysterious. We're not meant to "solve" this book like a puzzle. We're meant to be comforted, challenged, and given hope.

• Don't get lost counting things. The numbers are symbolic. Zoom out and look at the whole picture instead.

The Big Idea

Despite every appearance to the contrary, Jesus has already won the decisive victory over evil, the church is called to bear witness to that victory now, and one day it will be visible to everyone when God makes all things new.

That's the tension we live in. Evil still looks powerful. Suffering is still real. And yet the war is already over — it was won by a slain Lamb, not a conquering army. As one writer puts it, nothing good in this world will be lost moving into the new creation; it will only be more delightful than what we already know.

What to Listen For

A few things I hope you'll pay attention to as we read together:

Worship is the real battleground. Revelation keeps pulling us back into heaven's throne room, where worship is happening constantly. Watch for how evil is always trying to counterfeit that worship — pulling our attention, our allegiance, our awe toward something other than God. Ask where that's happening in your own life, not just "out there" in culture.

Jesus is pictured as a slain Lamb. Except for one battle scene near the end, Jesus doesn't reign in Revelation as a warrior-king — he reigns as the Lamb who was slain. That's the shape of his power, and it's meant to reshape ours.

Things are not what they seem. Revelation unmasks the political, economic, and social forces that look unstoppable and shows us their true nature underneath.

It's a love story, in a way. Revelation is framed around two women — the Bride and Babylon — and it's ultimately an invitation to stay faithful to our first love.

We're called to witness, not retreat. In the middle of pressure and suffering, Revelation never tells the church to disappear or wait it out quietly. We're called to endurance and holiness as our form of witness.

Read It With Us

Revelation can feel intimidating from a distance. But I don't think it was written to confuse us — I think it was written to steady us, the same way it steadied those seven churches under real pressure nearly two thousand years ago. My hope is that as we read it together this year, we'll come away not with a chart of the end times, but with a clearer picture of the King we already follow, and the courage to keep following him.

REVELATION LISTENING GUIDE

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Chronicles

Who wrote it?

We don't know. Ezra has been suggested, given how prominent his leadership was in this period, but since we can't be certain most scholars simply call the author "the Chronicler."

Who was listening?

Chronicles was written to the restoration community during the days of Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra, and Nehemiah — sometime between 520 and 400 BC. These were the Israelites who had returned from exile after Babylon fell to the Persian Empire. Cyrus, the Persian king, took a different approach than the Babylonian emperors before him: rather than stamping out the religious convictions of the peoples he conquered, he encouraged religious freedom and sent the exiles back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

The initial excitement didn't last. Opposition from outside and conflict from within stalled the project and divided the people. Apathy, discouragement, and hopelessness settled in. What they had managed to build came nowhere close to the glorious restoration the prophets had painted. And so they began to wonder: Is this worth it? Are we kidding ourselves? Did we really think our little community and our little project was THE new beginning? Who are we, really? How can we keep going?

Chronicles was written to answer those questions.

Where Chronicles fits in the big story

A retelling of redemptive history. Chronicles is the last book in the traditional ordering of the Hebrew Bible, written as a kind of open-ended conclusion to the Old Testament story — look at how it ends, in 2 Chronicles 36:23. By retelling Israel's history from Adam (1:1) all the way to the return from exile, the author calls his people to renewed hope: God has not forgotten his promise, and his gracious plan of redemption is not lost. Jerome called Chronicles a chronicle of all sacred history, which is where our present-day title comes from. That God inspired a retelling of his story for the needs of a new generation reminds us that we are constantly in need of telling and re-telling the one true Story, and its call to faithfulness and mission, to every generation.

The centrality of worship. "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." Chronicles' central theme is that life's central matter is worship, and it makes that case through its focus on the temple. Before the real economic, military, and social concerns of the community, the theological must take priority. Chronicles reminds us that all matters of life revolve around what we place at the center of our lives together.

The big theme

No matter what we've done or what obstacles we face, God's people can always find renewal through seeking God in wholehearted worship. When we are discouraged, we can remember that God's presence is always with us when we give ourselves to building his kingdom.

How the book is put together

Part One — Who are we? (1 Chronicles 1–9)

• We are still God's people: Adam to Israel (1–2)

• We are all Israel (2:3–9:1)

• We are called to carry on the mission: the restoration community (9:1–34)

Part Two — What should we do? (1 Chronicles 9:35 – 2 Chronicles 9:31)

• Saul (9:35–10)

• David's focus: preparing the temple (11–29)

• Solomon's focus: building the temple (2 Chronicles 1–9)

Part Three — How do we persevere? (2 Chronicles 10–28)

• The divided kingdom: dealing with failure and pursuing faithfulness

Part Four — How can we hold on to hope? (2 Chronicles 29–36)

• The reunited kingdom: the exile is not the end

What to listen for

• Listen for how the question of identity comes first. Chronicles reminds its readers who they are and where they came from — compare how the New Testament letters almost always open with a reminder of our identity in the gospel.

• Listen for how God's purpose for the world (Adam), his promise of blessing to and through Israel (Abraham and Jacob), and his plan to accomplish it through a faithful king like David have not been cancelled by the exile.

• Listen for how God addresses us in times of discouragement and doubt to remind us what matters most.

• Listen for the significance of every single person in the genealogies. Chronicles tells this small restoration community: the story has now come to you — the faltering restoration community of God. The mission is yours and the promises are yours, because you are God's people.

• Listen for how memory and story form identity and purpose. What this discouraged and apathetic community needed was not a new set of commands or more information. They needed to hear a fresh retelling of their story.

• Listen for the positive portraits of David and Solomon. No Bathsheba, no Absalom, none of Solomon's hundreds of wives, no mention of his later fall into idolatry. Why? Because there's a time to look back and ask "How did I get here?" (that's Kings) and a time to ask "How do I move forward?" (that's Chronicles).

• Listen for a picture of wholehearted worship — a life with God at the center. Chronicles gives us a vocabulary for it: seeking, humble repentance.

• Listen for how God responds to the repentant. Even Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33:10–16).

• Listen for the significance of Hezekiah, who reunited a divided people and reached out to the outcasts and exiles of the north (2 Chronicles 30:18–19).

• Listen for how God blesses our efforts to build his kingdom and honor his name.

• Listen for how God's fatherly discipline works. At the time it isn't pleasant but painful — yet when we are trained by it, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace (see Hebrews 12:11–14, and watch for this especially in parts three and four).

Before you start

Chronicles is Old Testament narrative, which rewards a particular kind of attention. Read How to listen to Old Testament narrative before you begin.

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Listening to Chronicles (PDF)

How to Listen to Old Testament Narratives

A large share of the Old Testament is story — Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and much of the Pentateuch. It isn't quite like anything else we read, and it rewards a particular kind of attention.

What to keep in mind

• Enter into the scene of each story. Pay attention to detail, repeated words, imagery, how characters are portrayed, and what the dialogue reveals.

• Enter into the situation of the original audience. What were they facing? What would they have heard in this?

• Remember the overall story each book is telling. Every story sits inside a larger story.

• Each book is meant to be read in the larger context of God's story as a whole.

• These stories usually teach truth indirectly, by showing us God acting in real history rather than by stating a principle.

• They are real, not fiction, and they are not G-rated. That realism is the point: it shows us how God works in the middle of human brokenness and messiness.

• What people do in these stories is not necessarily a good example. Frequently it's the opposite.

• Some stories are meant to provoke questions and raise tensions that get addressed more directly elsewhere in the Bible.

One thing to resist

The instinct with a story is to find the moral — to ask what this character did right so we can do it too. Sometimes that works. Often it doesn't, because the person in front of us is behaving badly and the text never says so out loud.

A better first question is: what is God doing here, and what does this show me about him? The application usually follows from that, and it follows more honestly.