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Job’s Suffering (3) – Why Follow Jesus? Faith Beyond Reward and Retribution

Leave a Comment / Theological Reflections /

If faithfulness to God does not guarantee earthly prosperity, health, success, or comfort, then why should we believe in Him? Job challenges any faith built upon reward and repayment. The Christian follows Jesus not because Jesus guarantees earthly blessing, but because Jesus Himself is the way and the truth—and because the life He lived is the right way to live.

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Job’s Suffering (2) – When Theology Fails: God, Providence, and the “Manual” We Inherited

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When a righteous person suffers without apparent cause, we often question God, or we question the reality of God’s guidance and providence. But what if the problem lies somewhere else? The Book of Job invites us to examine the theological “manual” through which we have learned to understand God—a manual that may reduce divine providence to a simple formula of obedience, blessing, disobedience, and punishment.

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Job’s Suffering (1) – From Hearing to Seeing: Job and the Collapse of an Inherited Theology

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The Book of Job addresses the problem of human suffering, but the suffering at the center of Job is not merely physical, economic, or emotional hardship. It is the suffering of a righteous person who encounters a reality that cannot be explained by the theological framework he has inherited. Job’s journey therefore becomes a movement from what he has heard about God to what he comes to see of God.

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Blessed Is the One

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Psalm 1 does not merely contrast moral people with immoral people. It contrasts two fundamentally different ways of existence: life lived in relationship with God, and life lived apart from Him. This sermon explores “blessing” not as material prosperity, but as a life shaped by listening to, delighting in, and orienting oneself around the Word of God amid a world where unbelief often appears more successful and attractive.

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Psalm 1 – Why Did the Psalmist Say This? / part (4)

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Psalm 1 did not emerge from an ideal world where righteousness always prospered and wickedness always failed. It was written for believers struggling with a troubling question: Why do those who ignore God often seem to flourish? Read against that reality, Psalm 1 becomes not merely instruction, but encouragement for every generation of God’s people.

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Noblesse Oblige — Sophisticated Hypocrisy!

Leave a Comment / Theological Fragments /

Noblesse oblige is often presented as the moral responsibility of the privileged. But what if the very situations that call for such sacrifice are produced by the social structures those privileged elites have built, preserved, and continue to control? Perhaps true noblesse oblige is not about responding to the situation, but about transforming the structure that created it.

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Did Elisha Really Massacre Children? – part (4)

Leave a Comment / Scholarly Essays /

For centuries, Elisha has been remembered as the prophet who called bears to maul forty-two innocent children. But the Hebrew vocabulary, the historical significance of Bethel, and the military and political context of the Northern Kingdom point toward another possibility: the people who confronted Elisha may have been young men associated with the defense or security of Bethel. If so, the traditional accusation against Elisha rests on a profoundly misleading reading of the story.

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