I'm still getting to know my bible. While this is true in a general sort of way, what I mean more precisely is that I've been using a new bible for the last 6 months much of it seems new and exciting to me.

Today during Sunday School, James (the youth minister) was talking about community and individualism from the first chapter of Philippians. Verse 19 in my NJB reads like this: " and I shall go on being happy, to, because I know that this is what will save me, (b) with your prayer and with the support of the Spirit of Jesus Christ;"

I turned my attention away from James for a minute to see what the footnote was and discovered a reference to Job 13:16. While I should have been paying attention, especially since I'm trying to be a good example for the kids, I felt compelled to look up the refernce. It just seemed lie a weird phrase to quote, plus the NJB edition I have is pretty spare on footnotes, and usually what they put there is interesting to me.

Of course Job is always interesting, and it came at me in a fresh way when I looked back there. Job apparently is speaking to one or all of his friends here:

Kindly listen to my accusation and give your attention to the way I shall plead.

Do you mean to defend God by prevarication
and by dishonest argument,
and, taking his side like this, apoint yourselves as his advocates?

How would you fare, if he were to scrutinize you?

. . .I am putting my flesh between my teeth,
I am taking my life in my hands;
let him kill me if he will; I have no other hope
than to justify my conduct in his eyes.

And this is what will save me,
for the wicked would not dare to appear before him.

I don't remember off the top of my head if this is one of the passages that Richard Hays talks about in Echoes of Scripture, but it sounds like it might be. Job's language here almost sounds like the reverse of the protestant doctrine of justification. I would previously have been tempted to think that Job was just not right on tis point, or at least that he was lacking sorely in the knowledge we now have from the NT. But I now have to think this is not the case.

Going back to Paul, in the passage he is talking about how his imprisonment has brought new confidence to the brothers, both those who loved him as well as those who despised him. Here is the obvious connection with Job. Paul endured his suffering with patience and with confidence that God would be the one to justify him in the end. Job's hope was the same. But both situations are not those of isolated individuals, but of people dealing with people trying to convince them they are idiots. I can only imagine that if Paul wrote a letter specifically to those who had "malice and rivalry", there would be quite a bit more of Job in it.

The lesson Paul picked up from Jesus and which becomes one of the themes of Philippians was that suffering and pain and death could be (and ARE, in Christ) not signs of God's disfavor, but quite the opposite.