Jan 6, 2022
GENESIS 11-12:
Yesterday in Genesis 9-10, we heard the story
of Noah's drunkenness and his curse on Canaan because of it (which
really wasn't very fair since it was his father Ham who actually
caused the offense to Noah while he was drunk, and because Ham also
had other sons). After that, however, we heard about Noah's
descendants.
JOB 6:
In
chapter 5 of Job, Eliphaz continued to imply that Job had
sinned:
Job 5:6 NLT Evil does not grow
in the soil,
nor does trouble
grow out of the ground.
7 No
indeed! We bring trouble on ourselves,
as surely as sparks fly up
from a fire.
Eliphaz’ main point in that chapter was that Job would be forgiven and blessed if he repented, as he said in v. 17-18:
17 Happy is the person whom God
corrects!
Do not resent it
when he rebukes you.
18
God bandages the wounds he makes;
his hand hurts you, and his
hand heals.
There is truth in what Eliphaz
says, and a similar statement to verse
17
is found in James 1.
MARK 4b:
Chapter 4 is the parable chapter of Mark, and today we read the second half. The Parable about the Different Kinds of Soil is in all three synoptic Gospels— which are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. That parable holds deep meaning that one never really grows out of. Each time you hear it, new facets come to light, and every believer should meditate on what kind of soil they are most like at the present time.
This is a good place to note this: Rhetorical questions were often used by Jesus to start a new topic in his teaching, and at the end of chapter 4, he used two rhetorical questions to give a mild rebuke to the disciples. In many of the world’s languages, people don’t use rhetorical questions for starting a new topic, but most languages seem to use questions for rebuking.