Hi Tanya,There is quite a bit here and in due time think there will be some better response's to come along.It's a bit difficult to ascertain all this without knowing more about you, your background, what teaching you may have been under etc.I do feel for you as I struggled with many of the same questions at one point, certainly am a long way from having it all figured out. Do hope you are reading these things in their particular context because what we have in scripture is 'apparent' contradictions, not one contradicting the other as you suppose. Also be careful of the tense of the words used and the setting they are in. This may be old hat to you but the adage "what's the 'therefore, there for?"is a great reminder to backtrack and get the context of the verse as well as reading on past to find out where it is going.Do you have a good commentary? Have you ever heard of E-sword? It's free and you can download a number of excellent commentaries as well as different versions of the Bible, Strong's concordance, dictionary's etc.Briefly, the illustration of Job, don't know what version you are quoting from but in Job 27:5, Job is not claiming to be perfect, but appealing to his integrity;(From John Gill's commentary)Job 27:5 - God forbid that I should justify you,.... Not but that he counted them righteous and good men God-ward; he did not take upon him to judge their state, and to justify or condemn them with respect to their everlasting condition; but he could not justify them in their censures of him, and say they did a right thing in charging him with wickedness and hypocrisy; nor could he justify them in all their sentiments and doctrines which they had delivered concerning the punishment of the wicked in this life, and the happiness that attends all good men; and that a man by his outward circumstances may be known to be either a good man or a bad man; such things as these he could not say were right; for so to do would be to call evil good, and good evil; and therefore he expresses his utmost abhorrence and detestation of showing his approbation of such conduct as theirs towards him, and of such unbecoming sentiments of God, and of his dealings, they had entertained; and to join in with which would be a profanation and a pollution, as the word used by him signifies; he could not do it without defiling his conscience, and profaning truth: until I die one will not remove my integrity from me; Job was an upright man both in heart and life, through the grace of God bestowed on him; and he continued in his integrity, notwithstanding the temptations of Satan, and his attacks upon him, and the solicitations of his wife; and he determined through the grace of God to persist therein to the end of his life; though what he chiefly means here is, that he would not part with his character as an upright man, which he had always had, and God himself had bore testimony to; he would never give up this till he gave up the ghost; he would never suffer his integrity to be removed from him, nor remove it from himself by denying that it belonged to him, which his friends bore hard upon him to do. So Jarchi paraphrases it, "I will not confess (or agree) to your saying, that I am not upright;'' the phrase, "till I die", seems rather to belong to the first clause, though it is true of both, and may be repeated in this.-------------------------------Dear sister, hope you hang in there and keep on seeking the Lord. Hope you also will keep on with us here. There are some incredible brethren that can be of much help to all the questions you are asking. I will seriously keep you in prayer. That the Lord give you wisdom and the Holy Spirit, The Comforter, come and bring peace to your spirit.
