“The fear of the Lord”
Job…was perfect and upright. —Job 1:1
Read Job 1:1-5
The Book of Job begins with a description of Job’s faith. He was upright in his behaviour towards God and his fellow man, a pious man who did not stray in his thinking, neither to the left nor to the right. The fear of the Lord put a stamp on his life, making him avoid evil and keeping him far from the ways of sin. And it was God who said all this of him, not Job himself (v.8).
Job knew that he had no merits in himself, for he writes, “How should man be just with God?” (Job 9:2). In the keeping of God’s commandments is great gain, sometimes also in the literal sense. Job was abundantly blessed with earthly goods; no one in the Middle East was as great as he was. Serving the Lord in truth is not valueless. God’s temporal blessings did not cause Job to stray, because the fear of the Lord mattered most to him. This priority of his can be seen in his attitude towards his children, who feasted every day. Job knew what the world’s temptations could do, and therefore, as a priest, he brought sacrifices to redeem his children from the sins they committed consciously and unconsciously. In this way Job was a pre-figure of Christ who gave Himself for sinners.
Where do we see the fruits of Job’s faith?