In His first speech responding to Job, God bombards Job with questions with the intent of humbling Job, reminding him of the Creator-creature distinction. In the first stanza of God’s speech (38:4-7), the Lord asks Job if he was either present or a participant in the building project of creation. At the laying of the cornerstone, God states in verse seven that “ the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” The morning stars and the sons of God are presented in...

After Job has finished lamenting the suffering he has endured, his friends who were sitting quietly to comfort him (2:13), now begin to respond and converse with Job. The first friend to offer a word to Job is Eliphaz the Temanite. The other two friends, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, will add their two cents shortly. This speech and response cycle will occur three times before the young Elihu adds his commentary (32:1ff) and God steps in to give the final word (38:1ff)....

John Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion that the heart is a “perpetual forge of idols” [1] or colloquially stated that “the heart is an idol factory.” This is a reality we experientially know is true through our own struggles, but a concept that isn’t always clearly defined. In our narrative this morning, Exodus 32, we are given a picture of an idol, and that picture will help us define what an idol is, particularly for us as we live in a different culture and time...