The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11 by Thomas Watson. Excerpt 41

Watson continues discussing reasons to be contented, or "contentation," as he puts it.

7th. excellency. Contentment hath this excellency, it is the best commentator upon providence; it makes a fair interpretation of all God’s dealings. Let the providence of God be never so dark or bloody, contentment doth construe them ever in the best sense. I may say of it, as the apostle of charity, “it thinketh no evil.” (1 Cor. 13. 5) Sickness (saith contentment) is God’s furnace to refine his gold, and make it sparkle the more: the prison is an oratory, or house of prayer. What if God melts away the creature from it? he saw perhaps my heart grew so much in love with it; had I been long in that fat pasture I should have surfeited, and the better my estate had been, the worse my soul would have been. God is wise; he hath done this either to prevent some sin or to exercise some grace. What a blessed frame of heart is this! A contented Christian is an advocate for God against unbelief and impatience: whereas discontent takes every thing from God in the worst sense; it doth implead and censure God: this evil I feel is but a symptom of greater evil: God is about to undo me: the Lord hath brought us hither into the wilderness to slay us. The contented soul takes all well; and when his condition is ever so bad, he can say, “truly God is good.” (Ps. 73. 1)

Thomas Watson lived from 1620-1686, in England. He wrote several books which survive. This blog, God willing, will post excerpts from his The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11, over a number of weeks, on Sundays.

My source for the text is here, and I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this text (and many others) available. The previous excerpt is here.
  
Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. (World English Bible, public domain.)  

Snippets from the book of Job

9:10 He does great things past finding out;
    yes, marvelous things without number.

10:10 Haven’t you poured me out like milk,
    and curdled me like cheese?
11 You have clothed me with skin and flesh,
    and knit me together with bones and sinews.

12:13 With God is wisdom and might.
    He has counsel and understanding. 

Christians generally believe that Job's trials were so that God could show His greatness, and that He had a loyal servant, who was loyal in spite of circumstances. In other words, Job's trials were a great example to us. But, as far as we know, Job was never told that. He went through great trial, and had a revelation from God at the end of it, but he didn't know the reason for his trials.

Did Job re-marry, or did he have ten more children with his first wife, the one who told him to curse God and die?

How did Job make all the money it must have taken to build up his herds and flocks to twice their original numbers? Clearly, God blessed him.

Elihu spoke to Job, and to Job's friends. The last part of Elihu's speech was about how powerful and wise God is, based on observing nature. Then God spoke, and He followed the same theme -- "OK, Job, look at natural phenomena. Can you do that?"

It's not a parallel passage, but this section of the Faith Chapter of Hebrews seems instructive: 11:35b Others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned. They were sawn apart. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They went around in sheep skins and in goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated 11:38 (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, and the holes of the earth. 11:39 These all, having had testimony given to them through their faith, didn’t receive the promise
Following God is no guarantee of health or prosperity. It is a guarantee of God's love and care.

As Orual said in Till We Have Faces, by C. S. Lewis: "I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?"  

God's plan is more important than my comfort.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 402

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:  Fox News reports that there may be devastating solar storms this year.

The Arts: (Actually, education) Seattle teachers have refused to administer a state-mandated test to their students, according to NPR.

Politics: (or Christianity) Wired reports on a student who was told she had to cease attending a public high school because she wouldn't wear an RFID chip in her school lanyard (on the grounds that that is related to the mark of the beast. It's a complex story.

Computing: Gizmo's Freeware reports on nine free apps you should strongly consider installing on your Android device.

Freebook Sifter lists many free books available in Kindle format, complete with the number of reviews, and the average number of stars in the reviews for each book. It's not just a list. You can browse by topics and subtopics. Gizmo's Freeware, where I saw this listed, says that some of the books on the list are not free, presumably because Amazon or the publisher has changed the price.

Image source (public domain)

Tests and Temptations

Last Sunday, my pastor cleared up something for me. I have long wondered why the Bible distinguishes between being tested and being tempted, when, to someone who is going through either, they would seem to appear the same. The distinction given is that God doesn't tempt people, but the devil does. God tests.

My pastor said something like this: The devil tempts us because he wants us to fail. God tests us because He knows we'll succeed.

I will cite three well-known Biblical examples of tests briefly.

The first things we hear of Joseph are not promising. He was, apparently, a spoiled brat. But God must have seen something in him. Joseph was allowed to be tested by Potiphar's wife, and also by the actions of his brothers. He triumphed, even though he was put in jail as a result of the first test, and sold into slavery as a result of the second. God knew what Joseph would do, but Joseph didn't. The biggest triumph was not his ascension to high office in Egypt. It was that he was able to forgive his brothers.

God allowed Job to be tested by the devil. Job triumphed. He didn't lose his faith in God, even though he lost almost everything else, except his wife, who tried to get him to renounce God.

As far as I know, the Bible doesn't specifically say that God was testing Job, or Joseph.

The most famous case (except for Christ, Himself) is that of Abraham. God tested him. Would he be willing to kill and sacrifice his only son? God knew what Abraham would do, but Abraham didn't.

There's another case that I would like to consider. That is the case of Ruth. Ruth could have stayed in Moab, but chose to leave, going to a place she had never seen, where she probably wasn't expecting much of a welcome, or worse, and all because she wanted to stay with Naomi, and have Naomi's God as her own. Why? It wasn't because Naomi had prospered. It must have been because Naomi, herself, stood a test, staying true to her faith when her husband and sons died, in a foreign land, leaving her as a defenseless widow. Ruth must have seen something attractive in her mother-in-law's life.

Ruth stood the test. She followed Naomi. She did what Naomi said she should. She didn't flirt with the Jewish young men around her (Boaz said that). She just picked up the grain left behind. As a result, she became one of the ancestors of the Jewish kings, and of Christ, Himself. God knew all this, but Ruth certainly didn't, when she decided to leave her home and set off with her mother-in-law.

Thanks for reading.

Patents on human genes may be ruled against the law

National Public Radio (and others) recently reported that a judge in a US federal court has ruled that patenting particular human DNA sequences is against the law. (See here and here for NPR reports.)

The company with the patents is Myriad, which holds the patents to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene sequences. Both of these genes, in their normal state, lead to the production of a tumor suppressor, which prevents many potential breast cancers. Myriad does tests to determine the kind of BRCA genes that an individual has, then, depending on the results, a woman may choose to have a mastectomy.The tests cost over $3,000. Myriad is reported to have "made $222 million on tests that cost $32 million to run" in "a recent year."

The Judge, according to NPR, ruled that a gene sequence is a product of nature, and hence not patentable.

Many scientists, and others, have argued that human gene sequences should not be patentable. The ruling will most likely be appealed, and the case may go to the US Supreme Court. This Wikipedia article says that about 20% of yours and my genes are under patent, and that patents for about 3,000,000 genes, in all have been applied for. (Probably including non-human organisms.)

Thanks for reading.