Category: Old Testament

Genesis – Malachi (or Genesis – 2 Chronicles in the Tanakh)

Job and the justice of God

Divine justice and human justice are different. This free course follows Job and his friends as they discuss the disconnect between what God is doing and what we expect. What can we learn from this ancient wisdom?

UPDATE 2026-10-13: Notes for Week 1 added.

How can what happened to Job be just? From the start, the heavenly court ruled he was “blameless and upright” (Job 1:8), so how is this book about justice?

We expect God to reward those who do right, and punish those who do evil. God seems to be doing something else. The Book of Job explores the disconnect between our view of justice and God’s.

Job says God has denied him justice (27:1). His friends say that’s unthinkable (8:3; 34:12). God says, “You say you don’t understand how I’m running the world? You’re right: you don’t understand how I’m running the world.”

So what is God doing if it’s not retribution?

The book ends with God reconciling with Job. Then God and Job reconcile with the others, not treating them according to their folly (42:8). Is divine justice about restoration rather than retribution?

Over six Wednesday evenings in October/November 2026, we’ll read the drama of Job to understand how God’s justice differs from ours. If you live in Perth (Western Australia), register and we’ll save you a seat. If not, you’re welcome to download the notes (provided ahead of time) and podcasts (provided after each event). Either way, there’s no charge.

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Postcard from the Psalms

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! (Psalm 84:1). What did that mean when they penned those words in Old Testament times? What does it mean for us as we receive their words today?

This podcast demonstrates how to hear the Psalms as inspired Scripture, first in their setting, then in ours. Apply this example to the other 149 Psalms, and see the whole book come alive in its original setting and in light of Christ.

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Abram and this world’s rulers (Genesis 12:10-20)

What happens to God’s plans to save the world if we’re unfaithful? Abram’s encounter with Pharaoh has the answers.

God partners with Abraham to save the world. The flaw in God’s plan is God’s determination to partner with us. Haven’t we already seen that the world is unsustainable when humans are unfaithful to God? (Genesis 6:5-13)

What if Abraham is unfaithful? Won’t our unfaithfulness destroy what God is building through us? Won’t our unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? (Romans 3:3)

God’s whole kingdom project seems unstable:

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Kingdom: partnership with God (Genesis 12:1-9)

In calling Abraham, God begins the mission of restoring heaven’s reign to the nations of the earth.

The whole earth belongs under God’s sovereign authority, but the nations went their own way (Genesis 10) and the kingdoms tried to take over God’s world (Genesis 11). God responds by calling Abraham into partnership with himself.

God launches a different kind of kingdom. Genesis 12 is the bridge from the nations to God’s nation. Abraham is the bridge to a new world in partnership with divine leadership:

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The nations (Genesis 10)

What’s the point of listing the nations in Genesis 10? It’s a big deal in the big story.

Chapter 10 is a new family story. We heard the tô·lē·ḏôṯ of Noah (6:9). Now it’s the tôlēḏôṯ of Noah’s sons (10:1, 32).

It’s about the nations descended from Noah’s sons. The nations go their own way, so God will call Abraham to establish a nation — a nation to restore the blessing that the nations are missing (Genesis 12:1-3).

Naturally, the list of nations only covers the nations Israel knew. There’s nothing about the cultures of ancient China or south America, nothing on the first nations of Australia. But don’t let that dimmish your appreciation for what Israel was doing by recognizing the other nations:

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The drunken leader (Genesis 9:18-29)

What should we make of Noah’s indiscretion?

How does Noah handle the additional responsibility God gave humans after the flood? Remember God gave us authority over the lives of others for the first time (9:6), while enshrining his own responsibility over us with a covenant (9:8).

Noah doesn’t handle it well:

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God’s covenant with earth (Genesis 9:8-17)

What’s the significance of the Noah covenant?

God’s world has been ruined (Genesis 7), rescued (Genesis 8), and reconfigured (Genesis 9). After the flood, God addressed the matter of violence by giving humans authority over each other’s lives for the first time. If God handed over authority like that, has he abdicated?

Absolutely not! The heavenly sovereign clarifies that point by making a covenant with his earthly realm. God commits to keep reigning over us forever, regardless of how difficult we are to manage. That’s the point of the first covenant in Scripture.

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God reconfigures the world (Genesis 9:1-7)

Genesis 9 is effectively a new creation. As Noah emerges from his little preservation box after a year, he offers gifts in recognition of the Lord’s authority, and God affirms the order of creation (8:22).

So, what’s the same in this new creation, and what’s different? That’s what Genesis 9 is all about.

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Ruined (Genesis 7)

God’s partnership with humans broke down. Cain went out from God’s presence (4:16) to build a city that trusted violence for justice (4:23). The rest of Adam’s family (Genesis 5) exchanged God’s values for what seemed “good” to them (6:2), lauding the strong fighters, the heroes of old, the men of renown (6:4). They only thought about doing evil to each other (6:5). God grieved he had made humans (6:7), for the earth God entrusted to us was now corrupt, filled with violence (6:11).

For God’s partnership with us to work requires at least one person. In Noah, God finds a way to rescue the earth. God saves Noah by teaching him to build a preservation box (ark), and Noah saves the creatures entrusted to human care (6:19) because Noah did everything just as God commanded him (6:22).

Genesis 7 then recounts the destruction of the world that God’s partners had already destroyed, and Genesis 8 describes the rescue of the earth.

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Judging and saving a corrupted creation (Genesis 6:9-22)

Here’s the start of a new family story:

Genesis 6:9-10 (NIV)
9 This is the account [tôlēḏôṯ] of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Christian readers have problems here. How can Noah be a righteous man? We know the verses that say no one is righteous (Psalm 143:2), and all our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). How can Noah be a righteous man? Was Noah blameless (without fault)?

More problematically, what kind of God kills all those people? If we think this is a children’s story, we haven’t understood the horror. This should be R-rated.

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Losing our identity (Genesis 6:1-8)

Why was there a flood in Noah’s day? Genesis introduces the story like this:

Genesis 6:1-2 (NIV)
1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

Who does sons of God refer to? It is the human descendants in the image of God, as in the previous chapter? Or is it angels?

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