Devotion for February 20 in Epiphany/Ordinary Time (LCMS Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Christ Pantocrator

Job and John, Part XIII:  Certainty, Orthodoxy, and Orthopraxy

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Job 15:1-23, 30-35

Psalm 65 (Morning)

Psalms 125 and 91 (Evening)

John 6:60-71

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There is a certain redundancy to the speeches of Job’s alleged friends.  Chapter 15, an address by Eliphaz the Temanite, exemplifies this rule.  The main feature of it which I notice is its certainty–of a set of false propositions, according to the resolution of the Book of Job.

Without trying to explain everything–while affirming the reality that I do not know most things and never will–I hold that Jesus is the soundest basis of proper certainty.

Lord, to whom shall we go?

–Simon Peter in verse 68, The New Jerusalem Bible

It is in the example, life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus that I find the personification of goodness and grace.  The art of proper Christian living is to approach more nearly that role model, to become a means by which the love of God is incarnate in one.  This level of dedication moves beyond intellectual assent to a certain definition of orthodoxy and makes orthodoxy and orthodoxy more similar to one another.  The ultimate goal is for them to be identical, but more similar than before is perhaps the best a flawed being can accomplish by grace.  (I reject moral perfectionism as unrealistic.)

As Job’s alleged friends lectured and insulted him they spoke piously about the goodness of God.  Yet they did not embody it.  That was a grave error, one many people repeat today.

Until the next segment of our journey….

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

APRIL 26, 2012 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINTS REMACLUS OF MAASTRICHT, THEODORE OF MAASTRICHT, LAMBERT OF MAASTRICHT, HUBERT OF MAASTRICHT AND LIEGE, AND FLORIBERT OF LIEGE, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS; LANDRADA OF MUNSTERBILSEN, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBESS; AND OTGER OF UTRECHT, PLECHELM OF GUELDERLAND, AND WIRO, ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES

THE FEAST OF CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, POET

THE FEAST OF SAINT PASCHASIUS RADBERTUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT

THE FEAST OF ROBERT HUNT, FIRST ANGLICAN CHAPLAIN AT JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/job-and-john-part-xiii-certainty-orthodoxy-and-orthopraxy/

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