(remember, these are unedited/draft show notes, not a transcript — listening is always better…and if you listen AND follow along below, you’ll see why)
Focus Question:
Why know what a chiasm is?
Intro:
Confession time! For as much as I love Christmas, I’ve never figured out if 12 days of Christmas is a ‘thing’ beyond just a song (well, it is — and it’s day 10 or so I think). But it’s fitting because, as far as I’m concerned, we’re at the tail end of the the phasing-out-of-Christmas mode, and we’ll be reading Dr. Luke’s account of the Christmas narrative over the next few days.
Before we get started, welcome to those of you among us who are new to the program. Hope you’ve got your coffee or beverage of choice, because we just have a conversation around here.
NEW TESTAMENT SEGMENT:
For our NT segment we start into Luke today, and because Luke 1 is almost as long as three regular Bible chapters, we’ll won’t catch it all.
Passage: Luke 1:1-38
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 38
Words: ~812
Original TESTAMENT SEGMENT:
Now that we’re back into swing for the new year, it’s been a few days since we’ve been in Job, so we’re due for a quickie peek at the big story.
Job is as perfectly wise as humans get, but the Accuser tells God it’s just because God protects him. God gives the Satan permission to take everything but Job’s life.
Job’s friends show up and all four of them are convinced that the suffering came from God and that there’s a lesson to be learned — but this is only partially correct: there is something to be learned from suffering.
Job maintains that he’s not done something that deserves the magnitude of the troubles he has, but this dialogue with his “friends” explores a bunch of stuff, some of which is right, some of which wrong, and all of which is insightful because, spoiler alert, it’s a lot like our own whining when then the lesson is actually that a truly wise person submits to God’s will, doesn’t call His justice into question, and that we can’t always see whattup from our perspective.
And today we kick off the second cycle of back-and-forths.
Now there’s one other thing to cover…a super short answer to today’s focus question, “Why know what a chiasm is?”
A chiasm is a literary structure where parallel elements correspond in an inverted order — like ABCCBA. It’s found a lot in the Bible, particularly in poetry. The reason this is important is because most of the time the main, big idea is right in the middle. Ever wonder why Psalms seem to end in a weird spot? And today’s speech by Job is a chiasm. So…
Passage: Job 15-17
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 73
Words: ~1201
Wisdom SEGMENT:
Passage: Proverbs 12:11-15
Translation: CSB (Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 5
Words: ~79
THE BOTTOM LINE:
<short reflection ended up here>
I love you!
ForTheHope is a daily audio Bible + apologetics podcast and blog. We’ve got a passion for just keepin’ it real, having conversations like normal people, and living out the love of Jesus better every single day.
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
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