One way to describe the book of Job is as an extended argument between the book of Proverbs and the book of Ecclesiastes. Proverbs generalizes about the way the world works: fools are like this, wise people are like this, you do this and you’ll get blessed; you do that and you’ll get in big trouble. Ecclesiastes says that the world doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes you do what’s right, and you still get in trouble. Sometimes that other fellow does what is wrong, and he keeps getting blessed anyway. That’s in a nutshell a small version of those books, and much of the arguments in Job are concerned with these seemingly contradictory visions of life.

The three friends of Job seem to be reading their cues with mathematical precision from the book of Proverbs. They have logical proofs and diagrams, and their conclusions are something reminiscent of the disciples’ question to Jesus. “So who sinned, this man or his parents?” In this tidy-minded world there are only two options, and we might as well get down to brass tacks. However, Job sees through the veneer of piety in the so-called friends, sees their evil intentions, how they twist the principles of Scripture to their purposes, and at the same time he insists that the world is more complicated and challenging than they are willing to admit. In one sense, we can see Job as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes arrayed for battle…

…in the end we must insist that Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are actually very good friends. These books complement and explain each other. If Proverbs generally explores wisdom as a skill, Ecclesiastes explores wisdom as a very unique sort of skill. Wisdom is a skill, but it is both like and unlike many other skills… If the skills needed to live and build in God’s world are crucially centered on people, an entirely different sort of skill is needed than a simple, straightforward following of directions. People are messy, complicated, confusing, and frustrating. They have cultural differences, personality quirks, gifts, weaknesses, health problems, sin, and they frequently fail and let us down… In many ways it’s far easier to build a house out of bricks, wood, or stone, than to build a house out of people.

Available here.

or Mr White and the Black Hat

“There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

King David committed far worse sins than did King Saul. Saul was not an evil man, yet his judgments caused the deaths of many people, including Jonathan, his other sons and even the priests of God. Why did a reign that began so well end in such tragedy?

David, for all his sins (adultery, murder, trusting in armies), was not disqualified, yet Saul was rejected by God for lesser sins. What was the difference between them? Besides the fact that David owned his sin and Saul blamed everybody else, the difference was that David understood that his rule as a king over God’s Covenant people would only ever be on God’s terms. He could never be a king like those of the Gentiles.

Although his power was sourced in Israel’s priesthood, David was to embody the Covenant in a greater way than the priesthood. He was to be “Pentecostal” in the sense that he was to be not only under the Law, he was to embody, open and expound upon the Law for his people. He was to be the Law of Moses incarnate, and from David’s anointing by Samuel we see his soul broken as a priestly sacrifice, exalted in kingly fire, and finally taking on a prophetic nature. The fundamental point here is that the Law was a light to David’s path. He saw the future through God’s eyes, which means he could see a lot further ahead, by faith. He had a wisdom beyond his years.

“I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts.” (Psalms 119:100)

Saul’s victories led to a misguided belief in his own divinity, which is possibly why he honoured Agag by sparing his life. As kings, they had something in common. They trusted their own judgment. Saul’s “Pentecost” became instead the ministry of an evil spirit, and the anointing of David by the Holy Spirit. Saul was a wily warrior king, but his was not the serpentine wisdom that is harmless as a dove. His judgments were based on the pragmatism of the flesh, which can only see so far. Guided by his own wisdom, rather than becoming a “Covenant shelter” for his people, Saul’s manipulation of and meddling in the Covenant processes of God put at risk those in his care. Like Walter White, those for whom he fought were the very ones he put at risk, alienated, grievously harmed and eventually lost.

David’s various sins still brought tragic consequences, but when challenged he crossed the courtroom floor to stand with God against himself and received mercy. He listened to God. Saul refused to listen, and when God stopped speaking to him he sought guidance through witchcraft. God simply repeated, through Samuel, what He had said before. The voice of Samuel was “deuteronomic” but not in a good sense. It was a legal witness against Saul from the courts of God and would end his tyranny. Saul’s own blood atoned for his kingly sins. Obedience (prevention) would have been better than sacrifice (cure).

In hindsight, Saul’s unwillingness to be a living sacrifice and place himself in the hands of a faithful, just and merciful God, is easy for us to condemn. But in so many ways this is exactly how we live our lives. Saul loved the gifts of God more than God Himself, which is an incredibly subtle form of idolatry when it is the good things that we love. If we attempt to preserve the mind of the flesh (false Altar), we will then turn to a false spirit (false Lampstand) and the spirit of prophecy, the legal witness, will not be for us but against us. The outcome of our “Covenant” missions will be plagues instead of plunder.

This Saul versus David, first Adam versus last Adam pattern was replayed in the first century. Saul’s sins were lesser than those of David, but we must remember that the anointing of David is what put the brakes on Saul’s reign. It was the Ascension of Christ and the Day of Pentecost which empowered those Jews and Gentiles who were “after God’s heart.” But the events of Pentecost also “enlightened the eyes” of many who saw Jesus for who He is and yet rejected Him, blaspheming His Spirit. From that day on, the Rabbinic Judaism of the rulers of Jerusalem, with its pragmatic compromises and manipulation of the priesthood and Temple, became entirely demonic. The persecution of the saints by the Jewish leaders was inspired by the same jealousy that filled Saul. As Saul employed Doeg the Edomite to slay the priests who had fed the Showbread to David and his followers, so the Edomite Herods slew Christ and then set about wiping out the New Covenant priesthood.

The Herodian “voice of God” which they listened to (Acts 12:22) was Covenantal sorcery, and it was the prophetic witness of the apostles which condemned them to the great Day of Coverings. Unwittingly, the Herods had offered Christ as the Head of the sacrifice and His Church as the Body, making their own Temple redundant. Like Saul and his sons, Jews attempting to escape the Roman armies were “lifted up” for the birds and the beasts in mass crucifixions. Like David, Christ became a Covenant shelter and an eternal table for the remaining sons of Saul. [1]

The Jewish compromise was born of earthly pragmatism, a short-sighted wisdom. They sat in the seat of Moses but they trusted in their own wisdom. Their “Pentecostal” Lampstand eyes were filled with darkness. God’s ways are not our ways, and they are most often veiled to us, but we can trust Him, and walk in His ways, in the knowledge that He knows the end, and our end will not be the end of Saul.

[1] Walter White has a crippled son. And his lawyer’s name is Saul Goodman.

See also Spiritual Power.

James Jordan has a great little commentary on Proverbs 30, the words of Agur (“sojourner”). Some believe the author of this chapter is Jacob. Jordan runs with this possibility and makes some wonderful observations.

The true son of God – or daughter of God – is a sojourner. That was true of Christ Jesus, and it is also true of us. For this reason, the proverbs of Agur the Sojourner are most relevant to us. These Sojourning Proverbs have a common theme, and that theme, announced in the opening paragraph, is humility. These are the proverbs of a man who learned wisdom by practicing humility…

The words of the Sojourner (Jacob?) the son of Yahweh,
blessed is He, the burden:
The man declares, “I have wearied myself, O God!
I have wearied myself, O God, and I have come to an end!
For I am more stupid than any man,
And I do not have the understanding of a man.”

Compare this with what Jacob said to Pharaoh: “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, nor have they reached the days of the years of the life of my fathers during the days of their sojourning” (Gen. 47:9).

I’m going to assume in these studies that these proverbs were written by Jacob. They were written at the end of his life, when he had “come to an end.” It is possible that there is a better solution to the puzzle of the opening verses of Proverbs 30, and if that is indeed the case, it will not change very much of what we shall find in the rest of the chapter. Whether Jacob wrote this chapter or not, it is certainly the case that Jacob’s life illustrates what we find here. The applications to us today will be the same in any event.

Notice Jacob’s [or Agur's] remarkable humility at the end of his life. Age and experience have not made him arrogant and proud. Rather, as Jacob considers things, he says that he is stupider than anyone he knows. He does not have the understanding that we can expect of any ordinary person. He has not learned wisdom (v. 3).

Have you ever felt this way? I believe that “the more you know, the more you don’t know.” The word “sophomore” means “wise fool,” or “sophisticated moron.” It is used of young people who think they have learned wisdom, but who obviously have not. In fact, the wiser we become, the more aware we are of how little we know. The more we learn about God, the greater is our awareness of the tremendous depth of His infinity. The older we grow in Christ, the more child-like we become-not childish in the sense of irresponsibility, but child-like in the sense of wonder and humility. Remember, the book of Proverbs is addressed to children (Prov. 1: 8).

But Jacob the Sojourner knows one thing that changes everything: “But I have knowledge of the Holy One” (v. 3; compare the old man’s knowledge in 1 John). Jacob may be worn out with living. He may feel defeated in his attempts to “exercise dominion.” He may be overwhelmed by his lack of personal wisdom; but there is one thing he does know: He knows God. And he knows that knowing God is the beginning of true wisdom (Prov. 1:7).

Knowing God makes for humility. Job 38-42 expand on what we find in verse 4 here. The questions Agur asks, such as “Who has gathered the wind in His fist?” are just like the questions God asks Job. As God humbled Job by revealing Himself, so Agur expresses humility before the knowledge of the God who created and reigns in heaven and earth.

What Job realized and what Agur realized, and what we must realize, is that we don’t need to understand everything. We don’t need to understand everything because we have God as our Father and He understands everything. Moreover, we don’t have to do everything. If we are tired, and can’t go any farther, it’s all right, because God is our Father, and He can do everything. The tired Sojourner can rest in the comfort of God’s Omnipotence.

James B. Jordan, Advice From a Sojourner, Humility and Dominion in Proverbs 30. Available from www.biblicalhorizons.com

“Because of 18th century rationalism in our culture, we are the heirs of a tradition of thinking that downplays symbolism in communication. The assumption is that all truth comes in the categories of philosophical statements. We are very much at home reading St Paul because he uses abstract language: justification; sanctification; glorification; propitiation… We think that this is the best way to communicate and nail things down.

But this is not the way God communicates. God communicates in parables as well as abstract ideas. God communicates in architectural forms, in proverbs, in songs. God’s way of educating young people is the Proverbs. Our way is to make them memorise a list of abstract nouns. That’s what the Shorter Catechism is. The Proverbs have a different way of communicating, a way that is much more holistic. It strikes the human personality at a deeper level.”

–James B. Jordan, The Bible as Picture, Basilean Lectures 1990.

“Because of Christ we are thought of as fools, but Christ has made you wise. We are weak and hated, but you are powerful and respected. Even today we go hungry and thirsty and don’t have anything to wear except rags. We are mistreated and don’t have a place to live. We work hard with our own hands, and when people abuse us, we wish them well. When we suffer, we are patient. When someone curses us, we answer with kind words. Until now we are thought of as nothing more than the trash and garbage of this world.” 1 Corinthians 4:10-13

So, are God’s people to wear rags? Or should they be dressed well like Solomon or the woman in Proverbs 31? Or is that even the right question?

We need to get a handle on the biblical pattern. It is nakedness to glorious robes, childhood to maturity. From later patterns, I believe Adam and Eve would have received glorious robes if they had obeyed (Noah, Joseph, Daniel and Mordecai are some examples that spring to mind). If we are faithful, the robe of rule is GIVEN to us. Paul was writing to the Corinthians as children.

“What is so special about you? What do you have that you were not given? And if it was given to you, how can you brag? Are you already satisfied? Are you now rich? Have you become kings while we are still nobodies? I wish you were kings. Then we could have a share in your kingdom. It seems to me that God has put us apostles in the worst possible place. We are like prisoners on their way to death. Angels and the people of this world just laugh at us.” 1 Corinthians 4:7-9

Israel became a corrupt woman in her glorious robe, so God sent “naked” prophets to warn her. They began a new “poor” kingdom “outside the city” corrupted by the riches received from God. But the plan is always to glorify the new kingdom. The new worship founded under Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra and Nehemiah was glorified in Esther.

Paul, like John the baptist, was one such pioneer. The nakedness is never permanent, and the church will be eventually, rightfully “clothed.”

If the church is rich on the outside but inwardly naked, immature (like Laodicea), God will deal with it. But the aim is to be clothed both inwardly and outwardly, consistently glorious.