Human Response 632: Ask to be Taught

Job 6:24 Teach me, and I will hold my tongue, cause me to understand wherein I have erred.

Job’s response to his suffering is still a good one: he asks the Lord to teach him and he will shut up and accept it; he asks the Lord to help him understand his sin. He and his friends are still under the false impression that he is being punished for some sin. He was a God-fearing man; what did he do wrong? Job is trying here to maintain his innocence.

At the end of the book God does show up and teach him: God is God and he is the creature, and God is just and good and he is the sinner. He wouldn’t understand God’s ways even if He told him. Just repent and believe. Admit your human condition and trust Me. I know what I am doing, and it is for your good.

God’s goodness, righteousness, and love is powerfully revealed and taught to us in the New Testament story of the Son of God. OT believers are told to trust God and wait. NT believers in Jesus are told the same thing: trust God and wait for His promise to be fulfilled. Jesus is coming again to put all things to rights for those who believe Him.

We too ask to be taught. We want to understand “Why.”. The truth is we have been taught in the Word all we need to know concerning God and His relationship to us. He loves us, and that is enough. “The Bible tells me so.”