God's Boast

The Continued History of the New Testament among the Mesem People

I've been reading an excellent book called "The Gospel According to Job". The author has many wonderful lessons learned from Job but the one that struck me today was that Christ did not pay enough to outweigh our sins. It's not as though He paid just a bit more than our sins cost. He paid so our sins are forever eradicated. Job's point for all the pious platitudes of his friends was that he had a Redeemer. There are many chapters of the book of Job dedicated to religious people trying to justify Job's misery and suffering. If there was a reason he deserved the suffering he had, then they were a bit more righteous than he was, they were a bit more deserving of God's blessing and protection. As good at their reasoning sounds, defending God for being "fair", they did not understand that Job was the man of whom God boasted.

Ah..what does that have to do with the Mesem people? Why do the Mesem live with so little help, so distantly removed from medcine, roads, and the availablity of scripture? What have we done that we merit the blessing of having scripture in our languages, having trained pastors who can read, having the means to make decisions about how much effort will be put into reaching the lost? Is it because we are just a little better? I think not.

What amazes me still is the Mesem men and women who live every word of the Bible they understand and do so without hesistation. If they understand it, then they live it. I believe these are the ones of whom God boasts.