Welcome back to another edition of the daily Bible podcast. Today is January 9th, 2025. And today we're looking at Job 21 through 23. But before we do that, I want to go to another email. Actually, before I even do that, let me interrupt myself for something else. I want to give a quick shout out to a few people who recently cleaned up our storage unit. Now this thing really needed help. So quickly, I want to let them know. Let you all know who did this Abram, Ezekiel, Steven, Jordan, Louis, Shea, Allie, and Jared. Thank you so much guys for your help. Really appreciate that. It's a huge blessing and a benefit. If you see them, give them a high five. Okay, now back to our regular programming. I want to go back to an email and this next question is a doozy and maybe there's gonna be terms that you don't know yet, but it's worth at least starting the conversation. Here's what it says. Was listening to a podcast that talks about transhumanism. He asked the question, if we had the ability to increase our cognitive ability, enhance our life or extend our life through the advancement of some of the most recent technologies like he highlights here, CRISPR, which is a gene editing tool, a brain computing or anti aging gene editing. Let's back up a second here and let's define transhumanism. In fact, I'm going to suggest a resource to you. This is called transhumanism in the image of God by Jacob Schatzer. Transhumanism in the image of God, Jacob Schatzer. Here's what he says. Transhumanism and posthumanism are two related philosophical movements tied closely to the promises of technology. Posthumanism argues that there is a next stage in human evolution, which is to say that we are at the current stage of our evolution as humans. And obviously we're going to continue evolving if the Darwinian worldview is true. We should not expect that we're going to stay here. In fact, we're going to reach a new stage of development where we'll be beyond where we currently are as humans. We will be post human. And he says, Jacob Shatner says, humans will become post human because of our interaction with and connection to technology. So post humanism ideology says that we're going to find some way to wed to our technology. To such a degree that we will no longer be only human. We will be humans plus. We'll be human and technology together. Transhumanism, I'm continuing the quote here, on the other hand, promotes values that contribute to this change. Jacob clarifies, transhumanism leads to posthumanism. It's the foundational ideology that leads to a reality. Okay. If some of that went over your head, let me just cut to the quick for you here. Technology is increasing so quickly and so rapidly that we now have to start asking questions. What role should technology play in our lives? As Christians, we have to ask bigger questions. How does God intend for us to understand our technology? And to what degree does he want us to integrate it into our lives? Now, some technology we would be perfectly fine with. In fact, one of the things that I often hear. Is we should not be trying to play God and I get that's, man, that's a good instinct, but you could say that really about almost anything that we presently enjoy in our technology. For instance, if you have a car, maybe someone with a horse and buggy might say to you you're trying to play God by getting from this place to another place so much more quickly than if you just took a horse and buggy. Why can't you just be content to go at a human pace? Maybe not realizing that to have a horse and buggy is not a human pace. It's actually faster. If you want to do identify with your humanity, maybe you have no horse, no buggy, no car, no technology. Maybe you don't use shoes because shoes are a human technology that are meant to help us go further and to go faster in some cases. So technology is an interesting thing because we tend to only think of it as batteries and microprocessors and things like that, but we have to include a much wider definition of technology like glasses and shoes and sandals and. Plaster, and I don't know, all sorts of things that we use on a day to day basis, energy, electricity, gas to provide heating. These are all forms of technology. So the question for the Christian is how does God want us to use it? What is the best most stewardly use of the things that he gives us? And then this I guess that's a really good starting place to technology is a gift. It is something God designed us with the ability to produce and therefore on the whole we could say technology Generally speaking is a good thing. So technology is a gift, but I'm not saying that technology can't go wrong. So the question is, should Christians use this? And I guess the short answer is it depends. Christians really need to develop a theology of technology. In fact, one other book that I'll recommend to you is by Tony Reinke called God, Technology, and the Christian Life. It's a few years old now, so it might not actually cover AI quickly. Look at the date that this was written here. But it's a great book about how Christians should think about technology. I think it's really helpful. It was written in 2022. So maybe it's actually still quite relevant, but you need a theology of technology and this will help you guide your decision making in the future. So I would say, it depends. It depends on a lot of calculations. And when it comes to technology, I think Christians are a lot safer by playing it really conservatively. It's a lot like our fashion choices. Christians are never on the bleeding end of fashion. Most Christians. And that's probably a good thing. At one point, women wearing pants was looked down upon, wasn't considered feminine, wasn't considered conservative. And now it's not a big deal. Christians have become okay with that. We've changed as a culture to the degree that it's no longer seen as strictly a masculine thing to wear pants. And maybe there's a time and place where gene editing and CRISPR tools and cognitive enhancement through technology That is modifying your brain physically with some form of device like Elon Musk and what he's working on. Maybe that will be appropriate. Maybe, I don't know. And I used to joke that I would be first in line if Apple developed something that would put something in my brain. I thought a lot more about that since the last time I've said it and I'm a lot more cautious now. And there's a lot of good reasons to be cautious. Ultimately, everything man designs is going to be flawed and it's going to have a bent towards sin. It's going to be cursed because all things that we experience and enjoy are tainted with the curse of sin. And that will include our technology. So plenty of reasons to play the slow game here and lots of reasons to also refine your theology of technology. Great question. I don't have enough time to say much more than that, but I can say it's worth your study. Okay. In Job chapter 21, he's responding now to Zophar. He says, look, your theory isn't true because there are exceptions that you just can't deal with. And so he says in verse 3, Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on. That's a very ugly word to use. He's saying, you guys are just mocking me this whole time. And you'll find out very soon, Eliphaz agrees with him. He says in verse seven, why do the wicked live? Why do they reach old age and grow mighty in powers as their offspring do they have safe houses, their bulls breed. Everything goes well for these people. And then he says, these people, these wicked people say to God, depart from us, get away from us. We don't desire the knowledge of your ways. What is the almighty that we should serve him? And so he says, look, the wicked reject God, and yet they live a really good life. In fact, this is one of the reasons why calling people to become a Christian because life will get better is not a winning tactic. Because it's not always true. In fact, when you call someone to be a Christian, you're inviting them into a life of warfare, spiritual warfare. You're inviting them into a life of struggle. Struggle against sin, struggle against the world, the flesh, the devil. It's a hard life. Jesus says so. This is not the way that we are to call people to become Christians. We need to be honest with the fact that if you become a Christian, life's going to be challenging. For Job, he doesn't know that. He doesn't know life as a Christian. He knows life as a God fearer. And here he acknowledges, look, even though I've done the right thing, I'm not going Life is still hard. And this doesn't make sense because for the wicked, their life is not hard. He continues on in verse 17. He says, look, they can live and party and their lamp is not put out. Their calamity doesn't come upon them. He says, you say to his friends in verse 19, God stores up their iniquity for their children. And then Job says why not do it now? Why wait until later? Why not just deal with him now? So Job's making a strong assertion here. He recognizes that in the world, there are times when the wicked are prosperous. In fact, you might want to jot in your Bible. If you're someone who's writing in your Bible, annotating, as we were talking about yesterday. Next to this chapter, you should write down Psalm 73. Psalm 73 is a Psalm of Asaph, and he deals with some of the same feelings here. He says, Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. And so Psalm 73 is Asaph dealing with this reality of saying the wicked do prosper. This is Job's contention. And then he says to Zophar, your theology cannot adequately deal with this reality. And then he says in verses 27 to 34, look, I know you're gonna ask me for proof. And he says, just ask anybody. Ask somebody if they know someone who is wicked, who is thriving. And of course, the answer is gonna be, oh yeah, sure. I know that one guy, Billy, who lives in my block. In chapter 22, Eliphaz steps in again. In fact, you should know, chapter 22 through 31 is the third round. The third and final round between Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and there's nothing from Zophar this time around. So this is round 3, Eliphaz kicks it off. He starts in chapter 22 saying, Can someone be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself, but is there any pleasure to the Almighty if you are in the right? Or is it gain to him if you make your ways blameless? He's saying, effectively, your life really doesn't matter to God. It's not going to affect him one way or the other, so why would you think that he's going to care about you in the way that you're suggesting? Eliphaz, again, calls into question Job's fear of God, in verse 4. You might remember that in chapter 4, he does this, and in chapter 15, he does this. So each time that he's spoken to Job, he's always addressed Job's supposed fear of God. And again, the irony here is that you and I know from Job chapter 1, God himself commends Job as one who feared God and turned away from evil. He's blameless. He's upright. This is the testimony of the Bible, the narrator who's conducting this book. And this is also a testimony of God. And so Eliphaz is questioning Job, and consequently, questioning God. And then he says, dude, you're so evil. It's abundant. There's no end to your iniquities. Remember, the gloves are coming off now. They're going as deep as they can to get to you. To get Job to respond to them. And then he goes through all of these supposed things that Job has done. It's not too unlike Zophar. You've exacted pledges from your brothers for nothing. You've stripped the naked of their clothing. You've given no water to the weary. And on he goes. He's really trying to say, Job, look at all the evil things that you've done. You've been greedy and you've been oppressive. We've heard this before. But remember, these are guys who are supposed to be comforting Job and they're doing no such thing. In verses 12 through 20. He charges Job with continued wickedness. In fact, once one interesting note here is that he's using Job's words against him in verses 17 and 18. It looks like he's almost verbatim quoting Job from chapter 21. He says, they say to God, depart from us and what can the almighty do to us? Yet he filled their houses with good things, but the council of the wicked is far from me. And so he says, look, Joe, this is effectively you. You're talking about the evil, the wicked people. This is you're doing this. And then he says this is outrageous. He says, verse 19, the righteous see it. That is the destruction of the wicked and are glad the innocent one. Yeah. Mocks at them saying, surely our adversaries are cut off and what they left the fire has consumed. I think Eliphaz is agreeing with Job. We are mocking you. Remember chapter 21, Job says, look, Bear with me and I will speak and after I have spoken mock on. Eliphaz says, okay. Yes, we will because we are righteous. We see your destruction and we are glad for it because you're getting what you deserve. We are applauding the justice and the righteousness of God. This is so backward. So awful. Ah, it's so frustrating. I am frustrated on Job's behalf for Eliphaz's smug and self assured theology, which I guess is a good time for us to pause and say, man, there's something good about holding your theology with humility. So that we don't sound like Eliphaz beating people down. He says in verse 21, agree with God and be at peace, thereby good will come to you. Eliphaz is closing his argument by saying, do what I'm saying, Job. Respond, repent, trust God the way that I'm telling you to trust him and things are going to be better. This is the same old song sang to a slightly different tune, but it's mostly the same. In Job 23, he responds to Eliphaz, and it's a short response for Job. He's going to say a lot more in a couple chapters, but right now he doesn't have much more to say. He says, Today also my complaint is bitter. My hand is heavy on account of my groaning. Life is not good for me right now. And so he's asking God, pay attention to me, please. I would love for you to listen to my argument. Listen to me. I would want you to pay attention to my cries. In fact, I know that there are times and seasons in the Christian's life where it feels like we're calling out to God and he doesn't respond. Job would know what that feels like. Verse 10. But he knows the way that I take. When he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. This is Job's confidence that he stands righteous before God and even though he's stumbling and he's struggling. He still trusts that at the end of the day, he's going to be held righteous. He's going to be held blameless. Verse 12, he says, I have not departed from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food. And I think that's a really good place for us to stop. It's a great place for us to end. In fact, this has got to be your most basic. Commitment in the Christian life that you are treasuring the words of God because this is the anchor for our soul It leads us to Christ. It leads us to trust him. It leads us to follow him Such that when the tide comes up we have an anchor when the waves crash on us We are building our lives upon the rock. This has got to be our takeaway. I've got to be people of the word Man, I'm praying for you as you go through this, that you are like Job, that you could say when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold, that you're standing righteous in Christ and that I have treasured the words of his mouth more than any portion of my food. No. One thing that we don't talk about a lot as Christians is fasting. Maybe there's a time and a day this season in your Christian life where fasting to the Lord would be a good thing for you to do to put food aside. If you're able to medically, I understand that some people have health complications, but if you're able to, just to give the Lord your time and prayer. Give time to the word to build your life upon the rock. Why? That's the best place to be. That's the place of truth. That's the place of power. That is the place of progress in the Christian life. Okay. Please pray with me as we close out today's reading of the DBR. Lord, we thank you so much that you've given us your word. And like Job, God, we want to be able to say, I've treasured the words of your mouth. More. Then my portion of food, we want to have such an affection for your word. Not because we're biblicists. We're not trying to be bibliologists. Some people call us want to be people who love your word because we love the God of the word. And it's your word that reveals you. It's your word that sustains us. It is our bread. It is our drink. It is everything that we need to know you and love you the way that we want to. So please, God, use your word to strengthen us, to prepare us for anything that comes our way. For the good times, we want to have so much of your word in us that we are able to rejoice with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. For the bad times, we want to have so much of your word in us that it anchors us in the day of difficulty. And every day, Lord, in good times and bad, we want your word to be the very source of strength for us. So please, let us feed on it, let us grow in it. We ask all these things in Jesus name. Amen. Hey, thanks for joining me again today. It has been a pleasure and an honor to serve you I'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow for another edition of the daily bible podcast