#770: Job 15-19 || Objection: "But Job denies universal depravity"

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Lead: Today we launch into the second cycle of speeches and walk through Eliphaz and then Job responding, and then Bildad and Job responding.

Intro: Here’s a twister for you — in the prologue to Job it says that God calls Job “blameless” — but orthodox Christian teaching is that we are all sinful. What do you say to someone who says that the book of Job shows that not everyone is sinful? That in our apologetics segment today.

Sponsor: (none)

Bible segment:
Passage: Job 15-19
Translation: HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
Words: ~2024

Apologetic reflections segment:

So is it possible that some people are without sin? If this is true, then orthodox Christian teaching of original sin — that we have all inherited sinful natures from Adam — would be wrong. Here are two quick points.

One, that opening prologue where God calls Job blameless doesn’t say that Job never sinned — only that his suffering is not related to sin.

Two, yesterday we read Job himself “For then You would count my steps but would not take note of my sin. My rebellion would be sealed up in a bag, and You would cover over my iniquity” (Job 14:16-17, HCSB).

So if Job himself says he has sin, then simply saying that “God said…” is out of context. You have to look at the whole of the book if not the whole of the Bible — and what’s the whole book of Job about? It doesn’t answer the question about why sometimes good people suffer, but like we talked about in yesterday’ show, it invites us to trust God’s wisdom in light of the fact that we cannot know everything.

Wisdom segment:
Passage: none
Translation: HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
Words:

The bottom line:

  1. Watch The Bible Project’s video on Job (below) if you haven’t already.

Love you!

-R


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

Sources and resources

Free Kindle book (don’t know for how long): Prayer 101, Warren Wiersbe