Job’s Prosperity

Tony Reinke Job, Suffering, Tragedy, Trials

What word comes to mind when you think of the life of Job? Trial. Affliction. Suffering. Endurance. Patience. But what about prosperity? The beginning and the conclusion of the book highlight Job’s prosperity. Note the chiastic structure that develops from the book’s introduction and conclusion:

A – Job’s prosperous life (1:1)
B – Job’s prosperous family (1:2)
C – Job’s prosperous wealth (1:3)
D – Job’s priestly mediation for his family (1:4–5)
D’ – Job’s priestly mediation for his friends (42:7–9)
C’ – Job’s abundantly prosperous wealth (42:10–12)
B’ – Job’s abundantly prosperous family (42:13–15)
A’ – Job’s abundantly prosperous life (42:16–17)

And notice the final verse of the book, this sort of epitaph etched on Job’s grave: “Then he died, an old man who had lived a long, full life” (42:17 NLT). Or as James says, “You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy” (James 5:11 NIV). Trials, affliction, suffering, endurance, and patience are all key themes in the book of Job. But we miss something when we fail to see “what the Lord finally brought about.” Which is the OT’s way of saying that God uses trials for our good. To those who love God, affliction is the pathway to blessing (but of course this is no promise of financial wealth).

Hunting Tiger Woods

Tony Reinke Sin, Sports

In case you haven’t read it, my friend C.J. Mahaney wrote an insightful blog post regarding Tiger Woods and the recent allegations of marital infidelity. C.J.’s biblical insight into the activity of sin in the heart illumines some valuable lessons for us all. You can read it here.

David Stein, a Christian and a writer and sports talk radio host for The Sporting News, recently commented on the Woods situation during his radio show (iTunes). You can listen to Stein on Woods here:

Holy Sonnet XIV

Tony Reinke Affections, John Donne, Prayer

Batter my heart, three person’d God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee,’and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to’another due,
Labour to’admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely’I love you,’and would be loved faine,
But am betroth’d unto your enemie:
Divorce mee,’untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you’enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

—John Donne, The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne (The Modern Library, 1952) p. 252.

“The sonnet does not build toward union with God, either bodily or spiritually. Instead, it builds toward personal regeneration. The demands to be taken, conquered, imprisoned, enthralled, and ravished are ultimately expressions of the fundamental desire that pulsates throughout these poems as a whole” [Ramie Targoff, John Donne: Body and Soul (University of Chicago, 2009) p. 123].

Loving with Constancy [marriage]

Tony Reinke Idolatry, Idols, Marriage, Wives

“After Lucas, the artist, had taken a wife and the wedding was over, he always desired to be next to his bride. He had a good friend who said to him, ‘Friend, don’t do that. Before a half-year is gone you will have had enough of that. There won’t be a maid in your house whom you won’t prefer to your wife.’ And so it is. We hate the things that are present and we love those that are absent. As Ovid wrote, ‘What we may have [does not please us]; it’s what we may not have that excites our passion.’ This is the weakness of our nature. Then the devil comes and introduces hatred, suspicion, and concupiscence on both sides, and these cause desertion. It’s easy enough to get a wife, but to love her with constancy is difficult. A man who can do this has reason to thank our Lord for it. Accordingly, if a man intends to take a wife, let him be serious about it and pray to God, ‘Dear Lord God, if it be thy divine will that I continue to live without a wife, help me to do so. If not, bestow upon me a good, pious girl with whom I may spend all my life, whom I hold dear, and who loves me.’”

—Martin Luther, Table Talk [WA TR V no. 5524] p. 214.

HT: T-Bomb

The Problem of Conversion in Parochial Christian Media [rile file]

Tony Reinke Fiction, Reading

“…the most extreme instances of contrivance, parochialism, and niceness may be seen in Christian stories that feature conversion experiences. There is often little discernible difference between a character before and after conversion. The criterion of ‘cleanliness’ demands that really bad aspects of character not be portrayed, although they may be mentioned in summary. So, there is likely to be little contrast communicated. This failing is seen in extreme form in the script for the evangelical film Born Again, based on Chuck Colson’s autobiographical account of his Watergate experiences. In the film, Colson is portrayed more or less as a basically good fellow who finds Christ. But, there is no convincing sense of the character’s radical transformation. The same might be said for a neo-Nazi youth portrayed by Clint Kelly in The Ayran. In contrast, the convert in John Grisham’s The Testament has strong credibility because the author has been frank about his character prior to his conversion to Christ.”

–Richard Terrell in his chapter “Christian Fiction: Piety Is Not Enough” in Leland Ryken, The Christian Imagination (Shaw Books, 2002) pp. 245–246.

The Word in the Church

Tony Reinke David F. Wells, Preaching, Scripture, Word of God

“…Without this transcendent Word in its life, the church has no rudder, no compass, no provisions. Without the Word, it has no capacity to stand outside its culture, to detect and wretch itself free from the seductions of modernity. Without the Word, the church has no meaning. It may seek substitutes for meaning in committee work, relief work, and various other church activities, but such things cannot fill the role for very long. Cut off from the meaning that God has given, faith cannot offer anything more by way of light in our dark world than what is offered by philosophy, psychology, or sociology. Cut off from God’s meaning, the church is cut off from God; it loses its identity as the people of God in belief, in practice, in hope. Cut off from God’s Word, the church is on its own, left to live for itself, by itself, upon itself.”

—David F. Wells, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Eerdmans, 1994) p. 150.