When you find the pattern, you will know what it means.
The number one thing any believer can do to advance their maturity in faith is to read their Bible. In 2025 I’m doing the Chronological Bible again. The book itself looks a little worse for wear after being used for over a year. But the contents are pure gold.
One of the interesting things about the Chronological Bible is that it doesn’t just read the books in their traditional table-of-contents order. But arranges them by the timing of when the events happened.
That means than on January 19 I started reading Job. I think it’s my favorite book in the Old Testament. Not sure I can explain why, but it really speaks to me.
The structure of Job is pretty simple:
- We get introduced to Job and his circumstances (happy)
- Satan and God have a discussion about Job resulting in calamity coming to him. (not happy)
- Job’s friends come over and exchange a series of speeches with him about what he should do with his circumstances.
- God shows up and puts everyone in their place.
- Epilogue – we see how things ultimately end up for Job (happy)
I’ve long been thinking about writing a book on Job. It’s definitely on my “future books list.” I was thinking about that as I started into Eliphaz’s first speechmaking response to Job and his situation.
The lecture is very formulaic – and not at all like how you or I would talk today. It could be hard to know what he’s really saying.
Then I spotted it.
As a Bible Student, I’m always looking for patterns in the text. Complementary patterns. Contrasting patterns. Repeating patterns. Patterns give me a structure around which meaning can be determined and clarified.
As I was reading Eliphaz’s first speech, I saw a pattern that suddenly gave me a ton of insight into how Jobs friends were arguing with him.
As I read on through all the subsequent speeches and Job’s answers, every single one of them followed this pattern.
That moment of discovery was SO delicious, I want you to have the same experience. So I’m going to point you at the passage, offer some infuriatingly vague hints but I’ll put the actual answer on a blog post so as to not spoil it in this email. I encourage you to open your Bible and see if you can spot it too.
My Bible Reading for January 19 was Job 1-4.
Eliphaz the Temanite offers his first speech in chapters 4 and 5. I only got half of it on the first day, I had to finish it up the next. But by the time I finished reading chapter 5 I think I had spotted the pattern.
Hints:
- The number 2 definitely has something to do with it.
- It’s certainly grammatical (the rules/definitions of grammar have something to do with it)
- Every time it occurs the words are different, but there is something identical related to them.
The answer is literally hidden in plan sight.
If you want to know the answer, you can read the post I wrote to explain it.
If learning about the Bible doesn’t interest you, I would encourage you NOT to click the link. You won’t find anything I have to say there interesting.
Sadly, I’m past Job now. Into Exodus and a lot of the law-giving. Can be a little more dry (rules about making sacrifices). But it’s all God’s Word and worth reading.
Until I find the next nugget to share…
Dennis
