Job’s Faith Grew Through Suffering

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Job was extremely religious, extremely pious, and extremely good. Even God said,  “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” (Job 1:8). But being blameless and upright doesn’t mean you know all there is to know about God and the world.
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Suffering Opened Job’s Eyes

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Job’s three friends had a very legalistic view of the world and of God. They thought everything worked according to a clear and simple law of moral cause and effect—of reward and punishment—in which good people are blessed, and bad people suffer. So when they saw Job suffering, the only explanation for it, given their theology, was that Job and his
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Three Ways to Comfort Your Suffering Friend (Job 2:11-13)

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I was reading an article by a woman who lost her brother, sister, and her sister’s children in a car crash. Horrific. She was stunned. She walked around as if in a fog, unable to think clearly. Of course, friends offered to help. Several said, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.” She found that well-meaning, but unhelpful. The bereaved don’t want to impose
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Dramatic Irony in Job

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Have you ever seen a performance of Romeo and Juliet? Near the end of the play, Juliet takes a drug that induces a temporary, but deathlike, sleep, to avoid marrying a man she does not love. To add to the drama, her body is placed in a tomb. To all appearance she seems dead. But the audience knows better. 
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Update on Sharon’s Battle with Cancer

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On December 19, 2018, Sharon, my wife of 42 years, went in for a fairly routine surgery to remove a football-size benign ovarian cyst. It turns out that the cyst was filled with cancer. And then the cyst burst and spread the cancer.  Since then Sharon has had five chemo treatments. The first four lasted over five hours.   The doctors
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For the Sake of His Name

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originally published in the July/August 2015 edition of Grace in Focus The expression “for My [or His] name’s sake” occurs eleven times in the New Testament, in all four Gospels (seven times), Acts (once), John’s first and third epistles (once each), and Revelation (once).1 It is not found at all in the epistles of Paul,
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