This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s
happening in a Biblical text,

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

Job and his friends have been wrestling
with how God and the world work.

They’re looking for a coherent way to understand
God’s justice, our suffering, and our innocence.

In short, they’re looking for wisdom.

They’re looking for a reasonable answer
to why the world is the way that it is.

And that quest for wisdom is made explicit with
a song about the source of wisdom.

In Job’s day, human technology allowed people to plunge
deep into the heart of the earth and pull up precious gems.

The act of mining represents for Job the farthest
frontier of human ingenuity and possibility.

And in particular, mining
brings hidden things to light.

But for all the mines humans have
dug, wisdom has never been excavated.

Job imagines the depths of the earth,
knowing wisdom can’t be mined for.

He imagines the ocean floor
telling us to look somewhere else.

And for all that money can do,
money knows that it can’t buy wisdom.

On the earth, wisdom is
perpetually elusive.

But God knows where wisdom is hidden.

He sees the whole earth—and
not just from a high vantage point.

God sees the earth as
its Creator and Founder.

He determined the weight of wind and established laws
and forces governing raindrops and lightning bolts.

God knows the way the world works perfectly, and
understands the coherent way all the parts of
his universe fit together.

The song ends by telling us that if we want to
know wisdom, we must obey, trust, and fear God.

Chapter 28 marks a turning
point in the book of Job.

The Accuser's challenge has been proved wrong,
but Job’s challenge remains unanswered—

namely, that it’s bad policy for the righteous
to suffer because it undermines God’s justice.

This wisdom song’s placement at the end of Job’s arguments
makes it clear wisdom has not yet been heard in the book of Job.

But more importantly this song signals
that the answer to how the world works

is not found in God’s justice,
but in God’s wisdom.

Rigid heavenly policies will not answer Job’s
questions about justice, innocence, and
suffering. But God’s wisdom will.

The book of Job will continue to develop wisdom’s
answer to our suffering, but for now we can

rejoice that the wisdom the greatest acts of
human ingenuity cannot find, is found in Jesus.

Since a coherent answer to our suffering can't
be found on or under the earth, God’s wisdom
descends to the earth in the person of Jesus.

In him we begin to understand how innocence,
suffering, and justice come together.

The Apostle Paul says the cross, where Jesus
suffers as an innocent man for the justice

we deserved, is actually the
epitome of God’s wisdom.

In other words, the world
works by the wisdom of Jesus.

The coherent answers to our questions about why we
suffer, who gets rewarded, and why some are punished

are found in trusting Jesus’ willingness to suffer for
sins not his fault, and give us rewards we don’t deserve.

This isn’t the clear answer we normally want
for why we suffer. But it should be enough
to trust that God isn’t out to get us.

God’s world is run by a strange wisdom that
allows guilty people to be forgiven and rewarded,

based on the innocent suffering
of the person who created the world.

So, may the Holy Spirit open your eyes to
see the God who rules the world with wisdom.

And may you see Jesus
as God’s wisdom in the flesh.