Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon
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TK
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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by TK » Mon Aug 23, 2010 10:09 pm

Steve wrote:
Does anyone really wish to have their earthly sojourn prolonged, if by their premature deaths they might bring more glory to God?
I can honestly say " I certainly don't."

But then I read steve7150's 10:51 pm post and now i am more confused than ever.

No one said being a believer was easy. Nonetheless, we must believe.

TK

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steve
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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by steve » Tue Aug 24, 2010 3:18 am

If i had any common sense i would keep quiet because i will get sliced and diced...Perhaps i will be labeled by Steve as a WOF follower since he seems to leave no room for anything other then believing God tortured a blameless man and murdered his family for God's glory or if you think otherwise you simply must be a WOF follower.
I hope you shall not be torn to shreds by anyone at this forum. However, you asked a lot of questions. I hope you won't consider the presentation of sensible and true answers to be a destructive activity.

I have not said anything about whether you are a Word of Faith follower or not. You have sometimes claimed that you are not. I accept a man's testimony about his own beliefs. The only reason I am responding, here, to the Word of Faith teachings is that they are the best known source of the views represented in your posts. Perhaps you reached your conclusions entirely apart from any contact with the Word of Faith teachers. What matters is that we represent the truth, and correct error when it is presented.

In your statement above, you give the impression that I am the one who is guilty of writing the statements contained in the Book of Job, and you blame me for its teaching. I am simply a believer in the Bible (including the Book of Job), and consider it my responsibility to exegete the scriptures honestly—rather than letting my emotions decide in advance what I will and what I will not allow them to teach. I have simply pointed out what the book actually teaches, and its agreement with the rest of scripture. If anyone has a quarrel with scripture, there is not much I can do about that. If someone can find a flaw in my exegesis, I am always eager to see it, since I actually have no emotional stake in making it teach one thing or another.
All the earmarks of what happened to Job is exactly what Satan is described as doing in the NT, exactly. Torture,killing,persecution and deception are all attributed to Satan in the NT yet we read Job as if the NT does'nt exist.
We must not read Job, nor any part of scripture, as if the New Testament did not exist. In my previous posts, I have quoted from and alluded to numerous New Testament passages which confirm the teaching of Job. What Word of Faith teachers do is interpret a few verses of scripture as if the bulk of the Bible did not exist.

Of course the things that happened to Job are the very things that the New Testament attributes to Satan's activity. Perhaps you didn't notice...the Book of Job also attributes them to Satan's activity. In that, you should find sympathy with the Book of Job. However, that sympathy cannot be selective. If we allow the book to speak to us about the devil, we must also let it speak to us about the other characters it describes—including God and Job. This is what you do not seem to be comfortable with.

As I said, the Word of Faith exalts the power of Satan, and earthly well-being (health, prosperity, and longevity). Once you have these things elevated to the level to which they are exalted in the Word of Faith, then about 80% of the Bible stops making any sense. On the other hand, when you place these things in their proper biblical perspective, alongside the rest of the biblical teachings, the whole picture makes very good sense.

There is an irony in the comment about interpreting Job as if the New Testament does not exist, because the experience of the New Testament's central figures (especially Jesus and Paul) present very much a counterpart of Job's experience—and they also teach the same doctrine. It is the Word of Faith that treats Old Testament passages (e.g., on the topic of health, wealth and longevity) as if the New Testament did not exist. The many examples and teachings in the New Testament that present sickness, poverty and early demise* as the common experiences of faithful men are entirely lost on Word of Faith people. Ironically, in the New Testament, it is Satan who urges Christ to seek food, wealth, miraculous deliverance and long life (Luke 4:3, 7, 9-11; Matt.16:22-23).
In Judaism they look at Satan as God's servant and that God is the cause of everything which is why so many jews became atheists after the holocaust. I looked up Job in my Tanach and at the commentary and it mirrored Steve's explanation
Why do you suppose that would be? The concept is very counter-intuitive, so you would not expect it to arise from anyone's sentiments. I believe that the Jews (and I) have reached that opinion out of reverence to the plain teachings of scripture.
if we are tortured by God, if our family is killed by God we must rejoice because we know that torture and killing by God will glorify God, it must be his plan.
Of course. How would you prefer to see Christians act when they are tortured and killed? Doesn't the New Testament repeatedly command us to react in just this manner? (Luke 6:22-23/ Rom.5:3ff/ Phil.1:12, 18, 23/ Heb.12:5-11/ James 1:2-3/ 1 Pet.1:6-7; 4:12-14) I gave some of these scriptures in a previous post. It would be well for you to read them before deciding I am wrong. They are, after all, the Word of God.
i thought Jesus came to reveal God to us and Satan to us and i thought he called Satan the thief,destroyer,sinner from the beginning,murderer,liar and deceiver.
Jesus did indeed reveal these things. This agrees completely with my theology (see my above posts) and with the teaching of the Book of Job. It does not conflict with anything I have suggested here.
If Satan is only a puppet of God , why warn us, why even bother with him after all Satan is little more then a flea.
God must warn us because He does not want us to be deceived or fail the tests that Satan is there to provide. If a professor says, "You had better learn this material, because there will be a test," would we assume that the professor is opposed to the students being tested?
If God wants to torture us, apparently we should rejoice because it's God's will.


Since you object to what the Bible instructs on this very point, I am wondering what alternative attitudes you would recommend for Christians when they are tortured?
If God makes us sick we should'nt go to doctors because we are fighting God's will. If God kills our family we should be grateful. That's what Calvinists say and that's what Steve said.
As for doctors, one might as soon say that when we get a flat tire we should not fix it, since God's will was for us to get the flat. I would think it more sensible to say that, though God may have permitted the flat tire (and may even have willed it), yet He probably did so in order to get me to repair it. To recognize God's hand in every event of life does not mean that He has nothing that He wishes for us to do about those events. I am pretty sure that it is God who made the grass to grow in my lawn, but I do not see it as a violation of His will for me to mow it. There is a certain stewardship that God has given mankind to manage and order the world—but it is not we who make the world spin. What we can and should do to improve things, God wishes for us to do. For the things over which we have no control, and which cannot be changed by our best efforts, He expects us to trust Him.

As for God killing our family, one should realize that God will eventually kill all of our families and ourselves as well. It is the wages of sin. Of course, it is Satan who has been made the executioner, but we are very unfaithful to the teaching of scripture if we consider that Satan can kill a person whom God has not delivered into his hand (Ex.21:13/ 1 Kings 13:26/ Acts 2:23). We might as well, then, worship Satan, rather than God, since Satan is, on that view, more powerful to destroy than God is to deliver. I would say (along with the Word of God) that, when Job responded with the words, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord", he spoke rightly of God, and provided a model for all believers.
God never explained anything to Job, God could have simply said "all this was for my glory" but he did'nt so we assume it's for his glory.
It is true that God didn't give Job any explanation of why these things happened to him, which makes it not surprising that He did not explain that it was for God's glory. However, He did tell us this, by providing chapters one and two. The challenge posed by Satan was essentially that God could not be loved for Himself, apart from His blessings of health and prosperity (it seems that the Word of Faith teachers actually agree with Satan on this libel), but God allowed Job to prove Satan wrong. That is for the glory of God.
One of the things that touched me so much when i became a believer was how much God loved us that he sacrificed his Son for us while we were yet sinners...and i for one can not reconcile Jesus the exact image of God with what God supposedly did to Job a blameless man.
Why the disconnect? The two things are the same in principle. God allowed His blameless Son to suffer immeasurably for the glory of God and for a blessed outcome; He also did so with Joseph, Job, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Stephen, the apostles and later martyrs, etc. These things are not in tension with each other. They are all of a piece.

Shall we think that God's dealings with Jesus are unlike His dealings in general? Was it good that Jesus be sacrificed, but not good that His followers should be sacrificed like Him (see 1 John 3:16/ Col.1:24)? Can we possibly think that Jesus should be crowned with thorns, and that His followers should be crowned with roses—that Jesus cannot be made perfect or learn obedience without suffering (Heb.2:10; 5:8), but that we can be made perfect and learn obedience more easily and without suffering?

I know that some teachers feel that Jesus suffered for us, in order that we would not have to suffer. However, the Bible tells us the opposite. Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow in His footsteps [of suffering] (1 Peter 2:21). It should have been obvious that the God who would sacrifice His Son for the world might see a good reason to make additional sacrifices for His purposes, as well. Job was such a sacrifice. So am I. So are you (Romans 12:1).

-------------------------------
* e.g., Gal.4:13-15; Phil.2:26-27; 1 Tim.5:23; 2 Tim.4:20; Luke 6:20; Mark 10:25; 1 Cor.4:11-13; James 2:5; Matt.16:25; 2 Cor.4:16-18; Rev.12:11; etc.

askmatt
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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by askmatt » Tue Aug 24, 2010 6:09 pm

I have been reading this thread with much interest. In no way am I even going to think about debating anyone at this point. Just about everything has been talked about in one place or another, including how we view or react to sickness and death. I keep thinking about T.K.’s original questions or comments though, regarding the whole set up to the story and whether it coincides with God’s character and I have decided to share my thoughts. My thoughts however may come across as a copout, but they are not intended to be that way at all.

I have thought several times about this interaction between God and satan, also, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never fully understand why things happened the way they did. While I think it is important to research and study even the more difficult to understand passages in the Bible, there are times when I have come to be o.k. with knowing that I cannot fully understand God, because He is, well, God and I am only a man. How many times did I tell my kids when they were growing up, “You’ll just have to trust me about this.” I probably used that line as an easy way out more than I should have, but often there were situations where, at their age of understanding, they couldn’t see the entire picture, or even come close to fully understanding a situation no matter how hard they tried. They also didn’t have my experiences. I especially remember one time, however, that was very special to me where my oldest son looked at me and said, “Dad, I’m glad you raised me like you did. I didn’t always agree or understand, but when I see how some of my friends live, I’m glad you did things different.” That meant the world to me.

That’s why when I can’t come to grips with the stuff of God, (again, I believe we should try and even wrestle with trying to understand) that I bring myself to realizing that I just have to trust Him on this, or whatever the situation is. Was it out of God’s character to give satan permission to go after Job? In my eyes, it sure seems to be, but God doesn’t look through my eyes. In fact God says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” On that verse alone I have to have faith that God was not out of character in the story of Job. That He could see a bigger picture than I can see.

Just a couple of other random thoughts. I think there are several times in the O.T. when God seems to act or react in a strange way. I’m sure we can all think of some other situations besides Job. That was under the time of the law, though and before Jesus. God almost had to look at situations involving creation, man and even sin differently at that time. For example God couldn’t stand to gaze directly at sin, (I’m not saying in anyway that Job was in sin, I don’t believe he was. I’m just using it as an example) so He seemed to be more of a God of wrath and anger at times. Jesus comes on the scene and pays the ultimate price and now under the new covenant we don’t see the same wrath and anger of God being played out. It doesn’t mean that God is, or was out of character. He still hates sin as much as He did before. Now, though when God looks at creation, man and sin there is also the buffer of Christ’s blood that He sees. God’s character hasn’t changed, but it sure seems that the way He acts or reacts to certain situations surely does.

So, my opinion is that God was not out of character and we need to trust God by faith on this one. Also, if we could understand everything about God, I bet we wouldn’t look at Him as God, anymore, but would suddenly think that we were elevated to His level. Again, though, I think we need to ask questions like that and wrestle with the scriptures. We will surely grow and mature.

Just my thoughts, though which aren’t always right either!

Now as Gomer Pyle would say, “The best to you and yours!”

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Jason
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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by Jason » Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:07 pm

I agree with Steve Gregg on this particular issue, though I have difficulty with something else in the book - the poetic dialog between Job and his friends. It's almost unbelievable that people would actually talk like that, unless Job found good company among poets and erudite philosophers. This, more than the opening chapters, might be a good argument against the book being entirely literal in the historical sense. The conversations read very much like poetry. Any thoughts on this?

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steve
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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by steve » Tue Aug 24, 2010 7:58 pm

Yes, the speeches are given in poetry, which, at one time seemed very unlikely, to me, to be their original form. It seemed as if some poet, having the essence of their conversation in his possession, put it into a poetic form—as Shakespeare did in his historical plays. If this had happened, and explains the present literary form of the dialogue, I have no problems with it. I recognize that the words of Jesus have, at places, been paraphrased by the Gospel writers, and most scholars feel that Acts presents a "faithful digest" of the sermons of the apostles. These possibilities do not bother me either. I am satisfied to have the germ of their thought preserved in the form of a profoundly moving poem.

On the other hand, I am not as sure as I used to be that the present form of the speeches could not be their original spoken form. This is because I have heard freestyle rappers. I would not have thought the human mind capable of creating poetry on the fly, but some very talented people can do it. Likewise, there are highly quotable people, like Benjamin Franklin, G.K. Chesterton and Mark Twain, whose normal way of speaking—seemingly extemporaneously—is so profound that most of us would have to labor hard in order to craft a single sentence containing as much wit in so few words. If the ancient Middle Eastern wise men/gurus valued the sound of Semitic poetry, they may well have trained their minds to think and express themselves spontaneously in such parallelisms. After all, they all sat speechless for seven days before speaking. We don't know how long they may have sat silently between speeches, as well, in order to craft their responses in a literarily impressive manner.

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TK
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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by TK » Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:35 am

I came across this on Bill Johnson's website. For what it's worth:
The Old Testament is filled with questions that the cross has answered. Who did Jesus not heal when they came to Him for healing? When did He ever say that the Father had given them a sickness so they would become more holy or humble? Never. A question cannot cancel a revelation, which means that any question I may have has no power to cancel what God has shown me. Jesus is the perfect revelation of the Father. As such, Jesus Christ is perfect theology.

People ask, “What about Job?” I tell them, “I’m not a disciple of Job; I’m a disciple of Jesus.” Job was the question; Jesus is the answer. If I read Job and it doesn't lead me to Jesus, then I never understood the question. All the law and the prophets were to create an awareness of need. That awareness prepared Israel for a savior. To return to the standards of the law and the prophets at the expense of ignoring the perfect revelation of the Father given to us in the person of Jesus Christ is to fall to the ultimate expression of arrogance. It puts us back in the place of control where we do what is humanly possible—and call it ministry.

The life that Jesus led was not an aberration or a temporary statement of God's solution for humanity. He started something that we are to complete. Jesus said, "As the Father sent Me, I send you” (John 20:21). It's not complicated; it's just expensive. It costs us everything.

It is now up to us to follow His example without excuses, rejecting all distractions. This is our destiny.
TK

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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by DanielGracely » Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:11 am

Hi TK,

Some years ago I wrote about Job chapters 1—2. It can be found at

http://www.xcalvinist.com/category/chapter-9/

My own view is that Job, not just God, was slandered by Satan’s accusation. That therefore God’s motive in allowing Job’s trial—something God didn’t really want to happen but did permit (being incited into granting permission) was not merely to prove before all the angels the accuracy of His own assessment of Job, but also to prove that Job, a man of integrity, wasn’t being bribed into worshiping Him. God decided in Job's case to defend the believer's integrity, not just His own, even if at so great a cost to his servant.

A few other points. I don’t agree that Job’s statement, “The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away,” was accurate in the sense that God was active in taking away all that Job had, in the same sense in which God had been active in giving Job all that he had been given. Job’s statement must be understood in light of the entire narrative, which certainly shows that God was not active in bringing about Job’s ruin, though He speaks as though he were. This is because God, of necessity, still must, if He would allow the effects of free will acts against Himself in this world, continue to uphold the forms of creation and the breath of life in which reprehensible acts take place.

Someone might object to this view (of Job not being accurate in saying “the Lord hath taken away”) by pointing out that “in all this Job sinned not…” and that therefore everything Job stated must have been true. But I don’t think that follows, anymore than that God’s later statement that Job uttered knowledge without words should be taken to mean everything in Job’s statements up to that point, including that Job would trust in God though He slay him. Again, the immediate context is still subject to the near context of Job, and the far context of all the Bible, which precludes any idea that God is behind everything in this life. (i.e., Did God suggest to Joseph's brothers that Joseph be sold into slavery? No doubt. Was God behind the jealousy of Joseph's brothers? Not at all. Did God suggest to the Assyrian king that he destroy Israel because of their sin? No doubt. Was God behind the pride of the Assyrian king who thought to similarly plunder other nations as one who reaches in for eggs under a hen, for his own selfish benefit? Not at all.)

And so, I think the point of Job 1—2 is merely to show that Job didn’t curse God when he lost his possessions and family, and that all these succeeding circumstances of loss, one on top of another, is that which is referred to in the phrase “in all this Job sinned not, and did not charge Elohim with impropriety” (Heb. interlinear).

Finally, I disagree with some commentators here that Job was never given an answer for his suffering. In my view God’s questions at the end are designed to ask the overall rhetorical question:

“Job, if I am a God of such order as demonstrated throughout creation, why would you suppose I was the guiding hand behind the chaos of what you have been experiencing?”

To me, God’s rebuke here is toward the one who assumes, or who is tempted to assume, that God is behind every experience in life. This was the ongoing view of Job’s three older friends, against whom God’s anger was kindled because of it. Even Job was sucked into this view to some extent, though his assumption is somewhat understandable to us, since (it appears) nothing had been revealed to men up to this point about Satan’s capacity to perform such disasters under God’s reluctant permission. But even though men of that time were ignorant about Satan’s possibilities, God, in the final chapters of Job, shows that creation itself demonstrates not merely His power but also His divine nature (see Rom. 1:20), and that therefore He can and ought to be trusted even when appearances would tempt one to believe otherwise.

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steve
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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by steve » Wed Aug 25, 2010 9:07 am

Who did Jesus not heal when they came to Him for healing? When did He ever say that the Father had given them a sickness so they would become more holy or humble? Never. A question cannot cancel a revelation, which means that any question I may have has no power to cancel what God has shown me. Jesus is the perfect revelation of the Father. As such, Jesus Christ is perfect theology.
It is interesting that this man says that a question cannot cancel a revelation, then he asks rhetorical questions in order to cancel out the revelation of Job 1 and 2. Of course, he gives an answer to his own rhetorical questions: "Never." Unfortunately, his answer is not a correct one, which only weakens his position.

In fact, the questions raised in the above paragraph are answerable. Who did Jesus not heal who came with the request? Lazarus, for one. Paul would be another. Did not the Lord tell Paul that his infirmity was instrumental in making him humble, and deny his request for relief (2 Cor.12:7-9)? The lame man at the East Gate of the temple (who was later healed by Peter—Acts 3) could be regarded as another, though he technically did not ask for healing—but that did not prevent Peter from healing him. Why didn't Jesus do the same thing on one of the many times He passed through that gate in the previous weeks? It is frustrating when writers become so enamored with their rhetoric (and their opinions) that they fail to check them against the facts.

I would modify the writer's statement, and say "An anecdote cannot cancel a revelation." Stories of individual healings are anecdotes. The revelation of God's control over our circumstances is in both testaments, as I have pointed out with many references in earlier posts (more could be given, if we wished to comb the Psalms and the prophets).

We have about 39 days of Jesus' life on record, and, as John tells us, the things recorded were selected in order to inspire our belief that Jesus was the Son of God. No doubt the instances of remarkable healings dominate these pages because they serve to illustrate just this fact. They do not tell us what Jesus did during many of the other 1000 unrecorded days of His ministry. It is clear that Jesus could have healed anyone that His Father wished to heal through Him—even at a distance. I am sure they all would equally have appreciated being healed, yet Jesus left Israel with many still sick.

To say, "I am not a disciple of Job" is impertinent and a dodge. People who believe the story of Job do not claim to be disciples of Job. They claim to believe the same Bible that Jesus believed. We are disciples of Jesus, whose mind was revealed as much in His words (and those of His apostles) as in His actions—some of which cannot be regarded as universally mimicable by His disciples (e.g., walking on water, turning water to wine, being transfigured on a mountain, choosing twelve disciples, being crucified, etc.). Healings were certainly a part of Jesus' activities. They served, as He said, to illustrate many of the truths He was teaching—e.g., that He had authority on earth to forgive sins, that He was the Light of the World, the True Vine, the Bread of Life, etc. Some healings have continued to be wrought in the world by some of His disciples ever since, though Paul says that "gifts of healings" are not the only gifts among the many distributed to different members of the body. There are some who heal, while others perform other services. There is no "revelation" in scripture of universal healing—at least none that the apostles knew about or benefited from.

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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by Homer » Wed Aug 25, 2010 11:07 am

It seems to me that some folks here lose sight of the great cosmic implications of the book of Job.

Consider a wealthy young man who is of highest character. He meets and courts a beautiful girl. She has her choice of the young men, and one of them, handsome but a scoundrel, has been also pursuing her. She rejects him for the wealthy man whom she marries. One day, the scoundrel meets the girl's husband and, full of jealousy, tells the man "Better hang on to your money, that's all she married you for. You go broke and she will be mine." Imagine how insulting this would be! And this, in essence, is the challenge Satan confronts God with. "Nobody would love you except for what they get from you."

And this is a challege for us. We ought to grow to the place where we will love and bring glory to God no matter what befalls us. The young mother with terminal lung cancer Steve wrote about is bringing glory to God in a way most of us never will.

As to Job being correct when he said "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away", I think we lose sight of God's sovereignty and the concept of "divine permission". God is in control and although He may not actively cause a bad thing to happen, yet He always has a veto and He claims responsibility. When evil men carry out His will, while acting of their own free will, then they bear guilt for their own evil. We see how God, through the free actions of evil men, punished the Chaldeans for their attack on the Nortern Kingdom, which event was also in God's permissive will:

Jeremiah 51:20-24
20 “ You are My battle-ax and weapons of war:
For with you I will break the nation in pieces;
With you I will destroy kingdoms;
21 With you I will break in pieces the horse and its rider;
With you I will break in pieces the chariot and its rider;
22 With you also I will break in pieces man and woman;
With you I will break in pieces old and young;
With you I will break in pieces the young man and the maiden;
23 With you also I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock;
With you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen;
And with you I will break in pieces governors and rulers.
24 “ And I will repay Babylon
And all the inhabitants of Chaldea
For all the evil they have done
In Zion in your sight,” says the LORD.

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TK
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Re: Can Someone Explain Job to Me?

Post by TK » Wed Aug 25, 2010 11:16 am

This has all been a very good discussion, with a lot of good arguments that give plenty of food for thought.

I think this has been a good example of what makes this forum such a blessing, at least to me. I appreciate everyone's time who has responded.

TK

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