Job 1:1, 2:1-10

Job is one is of the most talked about books of the Bible, probably because it is so unusual. It does not paint a nice picture of God, standing by while Satan messes with Job. We get the setup for that in this the beginning. We also hear from Job's wife, who enters the story to tell Job to give up. This is not unusual, women often get these roles in the Bible. One wonders if women liked something about that and helped these stories persists. Is she just an aspect of the man, given a voice in the story? Or is she a voice of a cultural shift? We hear far less from God from here on out. Were people beginning to believe he wasn't there, that he set the world in motion, but then left us to suffer? Either way, we get a story with some strong doubts in it.

Genesis 2:18-24

This is the second creation story, the one with YHWH, or Yahweh. In the first story, God, usually referred to as El or Elohim created everything from nothing. Yahweh's story is more of a narrative, with God making man out of dirt and woman out of a rib. We also get the one line about a man and a woman being the basis for family. There are many other variations of how people get together and have babies, but those don't seem to overshadow this one when it comes to discussing marriage in the 21st century.

Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

Next Lectionary year, around the middle of summer, the latter part of Hebrews is covered. For the next couple months, we'll cover the beginning. As I noted we get two creation stories right off the bat in Genesis, but there are more. I don't have a count of how many, but here's another one. Not so much detail this time, but enough to tell us where Jesus fits in and how the whole story is going to wrap up. There is a hierarchy of humans, angels, and gods and Jesus is way up there, but "for a little while was made lower than the angels". That was done so his sacrifice can fix this situation where animal sacrifices are constantly needed. This will become more clear as we go on.

Mark 10:2-16

You may have heard that Jesus never talks about homosexuality. This is about as close as he gets, and he reiterates the Genesis passage. This is about love, not how they have sex or how babies are made. When it comes to sexual norms, Jesus showed tolerance (See John 7:53-8:11). What he is addressing here is keeping a promise. If you do marry, stick to it.