The GOSPEL - on video

Do you know the gospel? According to the Bible, the gospel is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16). To believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ is to know salvation from God's fury for your sin. But how can you believe in the gospel if you don't know what the gospel message actually is? 

PLEASE watch some (if not all) of these videos that present the gospel. Let me know if I can help to clarify anything.


Video gospel presentations:

My Top 5:

Paul Washer gives the gospel

What is the Gospel? Southern Seminary

Shai Linne gives the gospel

Paul Washer gives the gospel
All I Have Is Christ - Animated Video

More:

Lecrae gives the gospel

John Piper gives the gospel

John MacArthur on the gospel
C.J. Mahaney Interlude 
Propaganda gives the gospel

Are You a Good Person?

Matt Chandler on justification

Matt Chandler De-churched
Matt Chandler on Galatians 2:20

John Piper – The gospel saves from morality

Tim Keller gives the gospel

Mark Dever gives the gospel
C.J. Maheney on Preaching the Gospel to Yourself

Poem: Baby Jaharri

Feels like: "Ljósið" by Ólafur Arnalds

"For you formed my inward parts;
   you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works;
   my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret,
   intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;in your book were written, every one of them,
   the days that were formed for me,
   when as yet there was none of them."

-Psalm 139:13-16

Baby Jaharri

By: Tita Quina

I miss you,

sweet niece,

I never got to hold

or see grow old.

I lack certainty

of when

it became real for me

but your picture,

            when
            at 7 months

            you came with

            your beautiful brown skin

            tiny body

            precious eyes

remains in my mind

And I love you

more than I

know how to express

Psalm 139:13-16

my rest. 

Poem: Drink

My Father,

here do I find

my mind

ready to drink

from the wells

of Your grace

if only You’ll

take

away these impurities

sprinkle me again

blood more effective

than

10,000 bulls or rams

Circumcise my heart

You have.

fleshy, pulsating now

sensitive

to piercing truth

free from sin

yet remaining

there is

and I need You

again

and again

to

remind me of

how it all

began…

even before it began

predestined to be

Your beloved

purchased at

the cross

justified that Sunday dawn

irresistibly drawn

to find

Your Son’s glory

transferring me

to the kingdom of light

I need purging again

to have You in my sight

completion of this process

secured at, “It is finished.”

Finish, finish

soon I often hope

but hope is no wish

I’m secured

Your Son’s work

my anchor

and rock

hope for the soul

unseen reality

adoption

redemption of my body

I long for it

groan within

take these groans

and make them

comprehensible

articulate

searcher of hearts

Abba,

fill me again

as You cleanse me within

Amen.

Poem: Loved

Your love for
Your glory
has resulted in
my being
     greatly
     infinitely
     perfectly
     eternally
     unconditionally
     unchangeably
     unfathomably
loved.

(Ephesians 1:3-14)

God and Suffering (2): Historical Context of Job

Historical Context of Job

In this section, I will consider the authorship and dating of the happenings and composition of Job, arguing for a dating in the second millennium B.C. patriarchal age. I will also explain the place of the events of Job as stated within the text, and consider the theological implications of the historical context of Job.

Authorship and Dating of Job

There have been various suggestions as to the authorship and dating of the events and recording of the book of Job. Jewish tradition holds Moses as Job’s author, which could date the happenings and/or the composition of Job to the post-patriarchal time of Moses around 1400 B.C. (Harris 152). An anonymous author wrote the book of Job, butthe author’s diction seems to indicate that an Israelite penned the book. The anonymous author uses the Israelite covenant name of God, “Yahweh,” in the beginning and ending prose narratives of the book (see Job 1.6,7,8,9,12,21; 2.1,2,3,4,7; 38.1; 40.1,3,6; 42.1,7,9,10,11,12), while Job and his friends use the more general terms for God, such as “Elohym,” which can mean “God,” and “Shaddai,” which means “the Almighty.”14 The author’s intimate knowledge of Job’s sufferings and the dialogue seems to suggest that the author was a contemporary of Job.

Estimations concerning Job’s composition date range from the patriarchal age of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the second millennium B.C. (Harris 154), to the Solomonic era in the first millennium B.C. (Keil and Delitzsch 18),15 to a postexilic date near 400 B.C. (Gaebelein 851). The possibility of the story of Job being orally transmitted from the second millennium B.C. until a later composition in the first millennium has been considered, but this possibility is not a certainty (Gaebelein 853). According to the NET translators, “We have no way of knowing when the book [of Job] was written, or when its revision was completed,” (The NET Bible (NET) 794). R. Laird Harris, professor emeritus of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary, states, “Probably the most common view of the date of Job in conservative circles has been that the book is very old,” probably occurring and written in the patriarchal age of the Israelite fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the second millennium B.C. (152; Gaebelein 852; NET 794). The patriarchal dating of the book of Job is taken in this analysis because Biblical references to the characters and places within Job seem to indicate this dating, as does notable literature of the second millennium B.C.

First, Job’s content seems to indicate that Job was practicing sacrificial rituals that reflect those of the patriarchs (Job 1.4-5; 42.8-9, cf. Gen. 13.18; 26.25; 33.20; 35.2,7). As did Abraham and seemingly Melchizedek, Job acted as his family’s priest through his sacrificial rituals (Job 1.4-5, cf. Gen. 14.17-24). Harris adds that Job’s sacrificial ritual “bears no relation to the tabernacle ritual of Moses’ day and later” (154). Job’s living 140 years after his trial seems to also reflect the longevity of the patriarchs (Job 42.16, cf. Gen. 25.7-8; 35.28-29; 47.28; 49.33). Frank E. Gaebelein, General Editor of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, also comments, “the picture of roving Sabean and Chaldean tribesmen fit the second millennium better than the first” (853, cf. Job 1.15,17; 6.19). The Bible references Job’s residence in the land of Uz, which could have come from the name of Aram’s son (Gen. 10.23), Nahor’s son, which was Abraham’s nephew (Gen. 22.21), or a descendant of Seir (Gen. 36.28). Elihu the Buzite may have been a part of the clan headed by Buz, Uz’s brother (Gen. 22.21). Bildad the Shuhite may have belonged to the clan that descended from Shuah, Abraham’s son by Keturah (Gen. 25.1- 2). Bildad may have also been the descendent of Shua, Judah’s wife (Gen. 38.2). Eliphaz the Temanite would have probably come from the lineage of Esau (Gen. 36.2,15). Job and his friends, then, were probably distant relatives of the Israelites during the patriarchal age.

Second, the literature of the second millennium B.C. in Mesopotamia and Egypt included various writings on suffering that were similar to the book of Job. Gaebelein makes note of a Sumerian document that has been called “The First Job,” which is about an afflicted man who complains to his god (843). A Babylonian poetic monologue called “I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom” is also of a “righteous sufferer” (Gaebelein 843), while the Babylonian “Dialogue about Human Misery” covers a similar topic (Harris 155). “A Dispute Over Suicide” and “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant” are similar documents from ancient Egypt (Harris 155). The book of Job considers the issue of suffering, as did many ancient documents of the second millennium B.C.; Job’s monotheistic standard, however, causes it to stand out as a theologically counter-cultural document of its time.

Historical Setting of Job

The book of Job does not focus much attention on the setting of Job; instead, the most space is given to the poetic dialogue between Job and his three friends who argue concerning the nature and purposes of God in suffering. Still, the setting of the events as explained by the book of Job, coupled with the aforementioned awareness of the historical and cultural background of this setting, can assist the reader of Job in understanding certain theological implications in the book of Job.

Job 1:1 reveals that the place of the events of Job is in the land of Uz. The NET translators suppose that the location of Uz was “north of Syria or south near Edom,” and more specifically “east of Israel and northeast of Edom, in what is now North Arabia” (NET 794).16 As previously mentioned, Job’s location and possible lineage indicates that he was not of the immediate family of Abraham, the father of the Israelites. Abraham was the recipient of God’s covenantal promises of a land, descendants and blessings that applied to him and his descendants (Gen. 12.1-3; 13.14-17; 15.1-21; 17.1-27; 22.15-18).17 Job, probably a non-Israelite, was a worshipper of the Israelite God (Job 1.1-22). Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, were also estranged from the promises of the Israelite God due to their lineage, but would be reconciled to God near the end of Job’s trial (Job 2.11; 42.7-9). This rather shocking detail that Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, had a covenant relationship with a non-Israelite, Job, and would reconcile three non- Israelite men—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—to Himself gives reference to the merciful and redeeming purposes of God in suffering.

Conclusion

It therefore seems likely that an anonymous, Israelite contemporary of Job penned the book of Job, in the patriarchal age of the second millennium B.C. Set in the land of Uz and concerning non-Israelite characters, the book of Job, in part, reveals Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, as the sovereign ruler over the whole earth—Israelites and non- Israelites—as well as the mercifully redeeming God of non-Israelites.