Grace and Peace Be Unto You!

The Book of Job

Our Church theme for 2024 is  “Why?” 

Prayer: “O God, author of the world’s joy, bearer of the world’s pain, make us glad that we are men/persons, and that we have inherited the world’s burden; deliver us from the luxury of cheap melancholy; and at the heart of our trouble sorrow; let unconquerable gladness dwell; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Amen 
Henry S. Nash

A Riddle

If God is will
And will is well,
Then what is ill?
God still?
Dew tell?

“J.B.: A Play in Verse”
by Archibald MacLeish (p. 78-79)

Thank you for your faithfulness and generosity.  Please continue to stay connected with us each week.  May God Bless You, Pastor Jones

Monthly Emphasis: Holy Week, Easter Monday, & Lenten Ends

Monthly Scripture Readings:

Week of April 7th  (Holy Communion)

Weekly Readings, Job 7.1-21, esp. 1, 4, 7-21 Job continues

Scriptures: 
* Psalm 39.6-13, My hope is in you!
* St. John 1.29-34, Jesus, the lamb of God takes away the world’s sin.

Questions:
1. Do humans have limited days and hard labors?
2. Restlessness because – when shall I sleep?
3. Feeling like a watched target, burdened by God attention. Why?
4. What is human that you make so much of them? Yeah, My Hope…!

Thought:  The unexpectant, especially those that seem unfair, undeserved, and unchangeable daily, feel like eternity.

Week of April 14th

Bildad, the Shuhite; “beloved of the Lord” or the Lord has loved? One of the three friends of Job (Job 2.11 8.1, 18.1,42.9)…the Shuhite presumably makes him a member of a Aramean tribe – nomads – who roamed an area somewhere South East of Palestine ()Shuah, Genesis 25.1-6).

Weekly Readings, Job 8.1-7, 20-22 Bildad speaks, Job should repent

Scriptures: 
* Romans 3.1-8, advantages and disadvantages; God is fair?
* Psalm 132.13-18, esp. 18,

Questions:
1. Why does God allow injustice and the blatant prevision of evil, suffering and hatred.
2. What does shame look like?

Thought: At its longest tenure, human longevity is short.

Week of April 21st

Weekly Readings, Job 9.1-13, esp. 2.12 Job replies to Bildad

Scriptures: 
* Psalm 19.11-14, hoping for words and thoughts acceptable to God
* Isaiah 2.5-22, no place to hide when God is against you
* St. Matt.14.22-33, … in sinking situations call for help-it’s close at hand!

Questions:
1. Can a person be just before God?
2. Who can stop what God is against?
3. Who can ask God, “what are you doing and why?”

Thought: … humans are frail in comparison to the universe which subjected to God, ask before you
walk on the water.

Week of April 28th

Weekly Readings, Job 10.1-22, esp. 3-4, 9.20 Job continues

Scriptures: 
* Psalm 37.1-40, Though seemingly long, the days of the wicked are short.
* Psalm 90.2-6, Yesterday is passed, and you are still here.

Questions:
1. Looking from the outside, wickedness seems to flourish for generations – maybe?
2. Does God see what we see?
3. Our life span is short, and then what?

Thought:  Observing the lives of others doing …, wonder when God will say, “Enough is enough?”

*Books for the Month:  James and the Giant Peach by Ronald Dahl, The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis, The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi