Job 6-7 and Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 13-15

Job 6 – The misery Job feels is heavier than the sands of the seas. It is no wonder then that he speaks a little wildly – carelessly. “Don’t I have a right to complain? Don’t wild donkeys bray when they find no grass, and oxen below when they have no food?” (5:5)

“”Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant my desire. I wish he would crush me. I wish he would reach out his hand and kill me. At least I can take comfort in this: Despite the pain, I have not denied the words of the Holy One, but I don’t have the strength to endure” (5:10-11).

The pain God has permitted him to suffer has taken away Job’s desire to live but not his desire to be faithful to his God.

His friends have accused him “without any fear of the Almighty,” without any regard for the truthfulness of what they say. “Stop assuming my guilt, for I have done no wrong. Do you think I am lying? Don’t I know the difference between right and wrong?” (5:29-30).

Job 7 – “Is not all human life a struggle? Our lives are like that of a hired hand, like a worker who longs for the shade, like a servant waiting to be paid. I, too, have been assigned months of futility, long and weary nights of misery. Lying in bed, I think, ‘When will it be morning?’ But the night drags on, and I toss till dawn” (7:1-4).

He feels that his life is “but a breath” and that he will “never again feel happiness” (7:7).

And Job is a man who cannot stop talking about and reflecting on his misfortune. “’I cannot keep from speaking. I must express my anguish. My bitter soul must complain . . . I would rather be strangled—rather die than suffer like this. I hate my life and don’t want to go on living” (7:11-15).

And then, turning the words of a well-known psalm [Psalm 8] a little on its head, Job says, “’What are people, that you should make so much of us, that you should think of us so often? For you examine us every morning and test us every moment’” (7:17-18).

“If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of all humanity? Why make me your target? Am I a burden to you?” (7:20).

Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians

13 – Stand firm “in the precepts of the Lord and the Apostles, so that everything you do, worldly or spiritual, may go prosperously from beginning to end in faith and love, in the Son and the Father and the Spirit, together with your most reverend bishop and that beautifully woven spiritual chaplet, your clergy and godly minded deacons. Be as submissive to the bishop and to one another as Jesus Christ was to His Father, and as the Apostles were to Christ and the Father; so that there may be complete unity, in the flesh as well as in the spirit” (74).

14 – “Remember me in your prayers, so that I may win my way to God; and remember the church in Syria too, of which I am an unworthy member. I beg for your united prayers and love in God, so that our Syrian church may be refreshed with a sprinkling of dew from yours” (74).

15 – Ignatius conveys greetings from those with him from Ephesus, where he is writing this letter. “Like yourselves, they are here for the glory of God, and they have been a comfort to me in every way. So too has Polycarp, the Smyrnaean bishop . . . Farewell. See that there is a godly unity among you, and a spirit that is above all divisions; for this is Jesus Christ” (74).

Job 4-5 and Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 10-12

Job 4 – Eliphaz of Teman is the first “friend” to address Job’s woes. He speaks of Job as a man who used to give support and words of advice to others. Now it is his turn to be advised. Should his piety not give him strength? “Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence? Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope?” (4:6)

His advice is to recognize that God brings the unjust to destruction. “My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil will harvest the same” (4:8).

“This truth was given to me in secret, as though whispered in my ear. It came to me in a disturbing vision at night, when people are in a deep sleep. Fear gripped me, and my bones trembled. A spirit swept past my face, and my hair stood on end. The spirit stopped, but I couldn’t see its shape. There was a form before my eyes. In the silence I heard a voice say, ‘Can a mortal be innocent before God? Can anyone be pure before the Creator?’” (4:12-17)

I quote this at some length because it intrigues me. It seems that the inner voice of God has come to him with all the “trembling” and “quaking” early Quakers described as a way of discerning God’s presence in the “opening”, and what God has opened to Eliphaz is that no one on the earth or in the heavens is guiltless before God.

Eliphaz seems to equate “integrity” with “innocence.” The idea that Job might STILL have integrity even though he’s been treated as the guilty would be treated by God seems impossible for Eliphaz to accept.

Job 5 – Eliphaz suggests perhaps appealing to one of God’s angels (5:1). The anger Job is entertaining will only bring death:

“Grief does not grow out of the earth,

   nor sorrow spring from the ground.

It is man who breeds trouble for himself

   as surely as eagles fly to the height” (5:6-7).

He suggests Job appeal to God and lay his case before him (5:8).

                  “If his will is to rescue the downcast,

                     Or raise the afflicted to the heights of joy

                  He wrecks the plans of the artful,

                     And brings to naught their intrigues” (5:11-12).

Eliphaz encourages Job not to reject the “discipline of the Almighty [El Shaddai in the Jerusalem Bible) when you sin” (5:17). “For though he wounds, he also bandages. He strikes, but his hands also heal” (5:18).

The Epistles of Ignatius [Letter to the Magnesians]

10 – “Now that we have become pupils of His, let us learn to live like Christians. To profess any other name but that is to be lost to God; so lay aside the old good-for-nothing leaven, now grown stale and sour, and change to the new, which is Jesus Christ. Have yourselves salted in Him, and then there will be no scent of corruption about any of you. . . . To profess Jesus Christ while continuing to follow Jewish customs in an absurdity. The Christian faith does not look to Judaism, but Judaism looks to Christianity, in which every other race and tongue that confesses a belief in God has not been comprehended” (73).

Note here indicates that Ignatius’ use of the term “Christian” is the FIRST time it was used.

11 – Referring yet again to Docetist notions, Ignatius admits that he is “anxious” about the “pitfalls of this shallow teaching” (73). Jesus Christ, “our Hope”, was born, suffered death and rose again “in the days of Pontius Pilate’s governorship” (73). It is important that we never “turn aside” from the Hope that is embodied in these realities.

12 – Ignatius praises his addressees completely. “[Y]ou . . . I know so well, are wholly free from pride, having Jesus Christ within you” (73). His praise of them should not worry them, making them feel uncomfortable – those most worthy of praise are often the ones most uncomfortable with it. 

Job 2-3 and Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 7-9

Job 2 – Again the Sons of God [and Satan] assemble, and again God praises Job. This time Satan asks to be given power to afflict Job’s “person,” or his personal “health” (2:4). Job is smitten with boils from head to foot. His wife seems annoyed at his patience with God. “’Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.’ (2:9)

Job responds to her with these words: “’You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?’” (2:10)

Three “friends” of Job learn of his trouble and come to “give him sympathy and comfort” (2:11). They sit with him seven days and nights in silence. “No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words” (2:13).

Job 3 – Then Job speaks. He curses the day of his birth:

“May the day perish when I was born

and the night that told of a boy conceived.

May that day be darkness

may God on high have no thought for it,

may no light shine on it (3:3-4).

. . .

Yes, let the dark lay hold of it,

to the days of the year let it not be joined,

into the reckoning of months not find its way” (3:6).

He sees death as a place of peace. All the unbearables of life are absent from Shoal –the torments life brings, the inequalities of human society:
“Oh, why give light to those in misery, and life to those who are bitter? They long for death, and it won’t come. They search for death more eagerly than for hidden treasure” (3:20-21).

The Epistles of Ignatius [Letter to the Magnesians]

7 – Just as Jesus acted in accord with his Father, so you “must never act independently of your bishop and clergy. On no account persuade yourselves that it is right and proper to follow your own private judgment; have a single service of prayer which everybody attends; one united supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and innocent joyfulness, which is Jesus Christ, than who nothing is better” (72).

8 – “Never allow yourselves to be led astray by false teachings and antiquated and useless fables” (72). Footnote here indicates the reference is the “heretical forms of Christianity which combined Judaistic with docetic elements” (74-75).

“If we are still living in the practice of Judaism, it is an admission that we have failed to receive the gift of grace” (72). The prophets did not simply accept Jewish rites. The reason they were “persecuted is because they were inspired by His grace, so that they might convince future unbelievers of the existence of the one sole God, who has revealed Himself in His Son Jesus Christ, Word of His own from silence proceeding, who in all that He was and did gladdened the heart of the One who sent Him” (73).

This reference to Christ’s “own silence” is very interesting and apparently a common reference in Ignatius’ writings. LOOK INTO.

9 – “We have seen how former adherents of the ancient customs have since attained to a new hope; so that they have given up keeping the sabbath, and now order their lives by the Lord’s Day instead (the Day when life first dawned for us, thanks to Him and His death. That death, though some deny it, is the very mystery which has moved us to become believers, and endure tribulation to prove ourselves pupils of Jesus Christ, our sole Teacher)” (73). Docetists denied the “outward” (material) aspects of Christ’s nature. The term dokein means “to seem”. Docetists encouraged believers to dismiss the material realities of Christ’s life and the Judaists encouraged continued reliance on traditional “forms and rules.”

But “even the prophets of old were themselves pupils of His in spirit, and looked forward to Him as their Teacher” (73). It is for this reason that Christ descended into Hell to raise them to life. This is apparently referred to also in 1 Peter 3:19.

Genesis 48-50 Letters of Ignatius [Magnesians 1-3]

Genesis 48 – Soon after promising his father that he will return his body to their lands in Canaan, Joseph visits his dying father. Jacob tells his son about the promise God made to him at Luz; and he says “’I am claiming as my own sons these two boys of yours, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born here in the land of Egypt before I arrived. They will be my sons, just as Reuben and Simeon are. But any children born to you in the future will be your own, and they will inherit land within the territories of their brothers Ephraim and Manasseh” (48:5-6).

He blesses the boys, apparently making some uncustomary switch of hands – blessing the younger boy Ephraim with his right hand and the older boy with his left. Once again, the “worldly” traditions are ignored by God and his agents.

Joseph is upset that the hands are not on the heads as custom dictates, but “his father refused. ‘I know, my son; I know,’ he replied. ‘Manasseh will also become a great people, but his younger brother will become even greater. And his descendants will become a multitude of nations’” (48:19).

Then Jacob reassures Joseph that one day they will return to Canaan and that he (through his sons) will be given “an extra portion” (48:22) of the land there.

Genesis 49 – Finally Jacobs calls all his sons together so he can bless them and prophesy about their futures:

Reuben the first-born is “first in rank and . . .power” but because he is “unruly as a flood” and has defiled Jacob’s “marriage couch” he will no longer be first (49:3-4).

Simeon and Levi, “two of a kind” whose “weapons are instruments of violence,” will have their anger cursed; they will be scattered among the descendants of Jacob, dispersed throughout Israel (49:5-7).

Judah, Jacob’s “young lion” will “grasp [his] enemies by the neck” will keep hold of the “ruler’s staff . . . until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will honor” (49:8-10).

Zebulun “will settle by the seashore and . . .be a harbor for ships” (49:13).

Issachar is a “sturdy donkey resting between two saddlepacks.” When he learns how good the countryside is, he’ll start to work very hard (49:14).

Dan will “govern his people, like any other tribe in Israel.” He will be a “snake beside the road” that bites horses’ hooves so their riders are thrown off (49:16-17).

Gad “will be attacked by marauding bands” but will attach them when they retreat (49:19).

Asher will “dine on rich foods and produce food fit for kings” (49:20).

Naphtali “is a doe set free that bears beautiful fawns” (49:21).

Joseph is “the foal of a wild donkey” – he was attacked savagely but “his bow remained taut, and his arms were strengthened by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, by the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel” (49:22-24). May all the blessings of God rest on his head (49:25-26).

Benjamin is “a ravenous wolf, devouring his enemies in the morning and dividing his plunder in the evening” (49:27).

After giving his blessings, Jacob “joined his ancestors in death” (49:33).

Genesis 50 – Joseph has his father’s body embalmed and he is mourned for seventy days. When the period of mourning is over, Joseph approaches Pharaoh to beg that he be permitted to take his father to Canaan to bury him. Pharaoh agrees.

Joseph goes with his whole family and many of Pharaoh’s officials. They hold a “great and solemn memorial service” (50:10) and bury him “in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre . .  the cave that Abraham had bought as a permanent burial city from Ephron the Hittite” (50:12).

Then they return to Egypt. Joseph’s brothers become worried that their brother will somehow now start to take revenge on them for their past sins. They send him a message saying “Before your father died, he instructed us to say to you: ‘Please forgive your brothers for the great wrong they did to you—for their sin in treating you so cruelly.’ So we, the servants of the God of your father, beg you to forgive our sin” (50:16-17).

Joseph breaks down and weeps when he reads their letter. Then they come and bow down again before him. He says, “’Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. No, don’t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children’” (50:19-21).

They all continue to live in Egypt. Joseph lives to be 110 years old. Before he dies, he reassures his brothers that God will come and lead them back, and he asks that they remember to bring his bones with them when they return. The Egyptians embalm him when he dies and place his body in a coffin.

The Epistles of Ignatius [Letter to the Magnesians]

Introduction: Magnesia-on-the-Maeander was 15 miles from Ephesus. The bishop of this church, Damas, along with several other people, also came to see Ignatius when he was in Smyrna. As in all of his letters, Ignatius focuses a lot of his attention on issues of authority in the early church, encouraging all Christians to obey their bishops. The bishop of Magnesia was apparently very young; Ignatius is concerned that some may try to justify NOT accepting his authority for this reason.

Page references are from Penguin Books’ Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers (1987).

1 – Ignatius praises the “disciplined way of life” the Magnesians are known for, and he prays “for their corporate as well as their spiritual unity—for both of these are the gifts of Jesus Christ, our never-failing Life. May they be one in their faith, and one in the love which transcends all other virtues; but chiefest of all may their be one with Jesus and the Father, since it is only by enduring in Him all the prince of this world’s indignities, . . . that we can come to the presence of God” (71).

2 – He notes the privilege he felt at the visit of their bishop Damas and two other “clergy” from the church and a deacon.

3 – He urges his readers not to take advantage of bishop Damas’ lack of years, but to show him every possible respect, having regard to the power God has conferred on him. He states that “propriety requires an obedience from you that is more than mere lip-service. It is not a question of imposing upon a particular bishop who is there before your eyes, but upon One who is unseen; and in such a case it is not flesh and blood we have to reckon with, but God, who is aware of all our secrets” (71).