Above: Icon of Job
Image in the Public Domain
Free to Act Faithfully and Compassionately
FEBRUARY 1 and 2, 2024
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Collect:
Everlasting God, you give strength to the weak and power to the faint.
Make us agents of your healing and wholeness,
that your good may be made known to the ends your creation,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 24
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Assigned Readings:
Proverbs 12:10-21 (Thursday)
Job 36:1-23 (Friday)
Psalm 147:1-11, 20 (Both Days)
Galatians 5:2-15 (Thursday)
1 Corinthians 9:1-16 (Friday)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
–Psalm 147:3, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One important task to perform while reading and inwardly digesting the Book of Job is to remember who is speaking at a given point. Consider, O reader, Elihu. He was an original part of the poem, and he rehashed arguments of the three main alleged friends, who also blamed the victim. These four characters could not accept that the titular character had done nothing to deserve his circumstances of suffering. They were correct some of the time regarding aspects of their cases, but they proceeded from a false assumption.
One is repaid in kind for one’s sinful deeds.
–Proverbs 12:14b, TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (1985)
Yet the Book of Job tells us that Job did not suffer because of any sin. No, the narrative tells us, God permitted the suffering as a test of loyalty.
Sometimes circumstances challenge our preconceptions and theological soundbites. May we recall that we are free in God to love God and to care for each other, not to win theological arguments. Alleged orthodoxy means far less than sound orthopraxy.
Here ends the lesson, O reader. Go forth to love your neighbor as yourself, bearing his or her burdens, weeping with those who weep, and rejoicing with those who rejoice. Be agents of divine grace to those to whom God sends you and whom God sends to you.
DECEMBER 1, 2014 COMMON ERA
THE SECOND DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR B
THE FEAST OF NICHOLAS FERRAR, ANGLICAN DEACON
THE FEAST OF SAINT CHARLES DE FOUCAULD, ROMAN CATHOLIC HERMIT
THE FEAST OF SAINT EDMUND CAMPION, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR
THE FEAST OF SAINT ELIGIUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/12/06/free-to-act-faithfully-and-compassionately/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
Pingback: Free to Act Faithfully and Compassionately | BLOGA THEOLOGICA