AUTHOR

Author

In my interactions with others I’m often asked, ‘What do you do?’ Sometimes I reply that I’m an author. ‘What have you written?’ ‘Mostly theology’ is my measured response. At times that ends the conversation. However, sometimes people are brave enough to ask, ‘Theology, what is that?” Upon this invitation I excitedly tell them that theology is about God and the things of God. In conversations such as this I try to follow the words of Peter, ‘always be ready to give a defence to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear’ 1 Peter 3:15b. Then, if their eyes don’t start to glaze over, I try to tell them about the importance of the risen Jesus Christ.

Job lived around the time of Abraham and is best known as the man who trusted God even though he had lost just about everything. But as an author? Well, he wrote the following, “Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever!’ Job 19:23-24. The perishing pulp of a paperback was not good enough for Job. No! His story was so important that he wanted it chiseled in stone with the carved-out letters filled with lead. It sounds more like a monument than a book that Job wanted to write.

What subject matter was so important to Job, the man who sat on the trash heap of life, the man whose ‘comforters’ told him that he must have gravely sinned against God because of what happened to him, the man whose wife even said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!’ Job 2:9. What could Job possibly want to write about? What message did he want to last forever? Well, the thing that comforted him most as he sat there covered in painful boils amongst the collapsed rubble of his life receiving no sympathy whatsoever from humanity was the thesis for his book, ‘For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Job 19:23-27.

Job’s only comfort in life and death was that he belonged to his Redeemer, his Saviour. He says, ‘And though’, (as the KJV 19:26 puts it), ‘after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’ Job believes he will be resurrected bodily at the Last Day. How so? Well, let’s just say that a person would appear to be spiritually dead if they are not moved (even to tears) when listening to Job’s words as sung in Handel’s Messiah, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ Job wanted to tell the world about his Redeemer. And he wanted his words to last forever. God granted Job’s wish, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever’ Isaiah 40:8. But even better, his Redeemer, his Rock says, ‘See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands’ Isaiah 49:16a.

Heidelberg Catechism Question & Answer 1, ‘What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.’ 

Don’t you think that Job is a great author?