Righteousness.

After a discussion about righteousness on Thursday, I felt the need to go look up the word to make sure I knew what I was talking about (actually a really good idea!).

Wikipedia was the first on the google search, and it came up with some interesting facts about the word. I learnt a few things, such as how righteousness is important to not only Christianity, but also to Judaism and Islam. “It is an attribute that implies that a person's actions are justified, and can have the connotation that the person has been "judged" or "reckoned" as leading a life that is pleasing to God.” I find it interesting that another god demands righteous living.

Also, there was a man called William Tyndale who came up with the word righteous from a previous, silly looking word that would take me forever to learn how to pronounce. In modern language it would mean something like, “rightwise” or “rightways”. I later looked up Tyndale on Wiki and he is pretty interesting himself. He came up with many “christianese” words and phrases such as: Jehovah (yes, I thought this was a Jewish word, but apparently not. Don’t tell the JWs...), atonement, scapegoat, passover, “let there be light”, “the powers that be”, “the salt of the earth” and my personal favorite; “the signs of the times” ( I have a thing for phrases that rhyme..) among others. In fact, check out his Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale.

Anyways, as I was reading along, this line really hit me. “In the Book of Job the title character is introduced to us as a person who is "perfect" in righteousness. This does not mean that he is sinless."Perfect" in this sense means that his righteousness permeates every relationship of his life as his working principle.” For some reason, this brings the word a little closer to earth, a little easier to attain. So what does it mean to let righteousness permeate every relationship?

According to some concordance that Wiki found, it means “’tzedek’ —righteous, integrity, equity, justice, straightness. The root of tseh'-dek is tsaw-dak', —upright, just, straight, innocent, true, sincere. It is best understood as the product of upright, moral action in accordance with some form of divine plan.” Notice that this is what G-d was trying to achieve out of His people when he gave His Law. How can we separate the Old Testament laws with the New Testament’s teachings? It’s all trying to attain the same thing: Righteous living. Imagine if everyone lived this way!

So, basically, taking all that upright, innocent, true and sincere living, focusing and purposing it towards being just and full of integrity while going after the heart of G-d and following His plan and ta-da! Righteousness.

Easier said than done.

So how did Job do it? I don’t know. So I’m gonna go through Job and look for it and get back to you, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have the magical formula written in chapter something, verse whatever.

From another, just as important perspective, G-d is talked about as being righteous. (Nehemiah 9:8b “And you have fulfilled Your promise, for You are righteous.”) There is no way that we can call Him our saviour without Him being righteous. There’s no way we could trust Him to be a holy G-d if He wasn’t righteous.

He stands for justice - He is our Judge - He must be righteous.
He was punished even though he was innocent - They couldn’t find fault with Him (Mark 14:55) - He must be righteous.
He was filled with purpose and was following a Divine Plan - He must be righteous.
He is sincere in His love for people - He came to redeem sinners - He must be righteous.

I don’t know. There is so much more to say and discover and go through, but this blog will get insanely long if I keep going. Keep the interest up by googling “Righteousness” yourself! It shows many verses and perspectives. Wiki, as usual, has probably the best grip on explanations; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Righteousness. Job is my next stop.