Job has the kind of drama that Hollywood makes its bread and butter on. A good man is attacked by an evil villain, leaving his life in ruins. He claws back against the overwhelming darkness and finally reaches the climactic scene. Only, in this drama, the triumph isn't about the man taking vengeance on his oppressor. It's about the man coming to grips with the Source of real life. That said, the whole book has been leading to this encounter with God. Now Job (as well as you and I) must face his weakness, his smallness, his ineptitude, his failings and his inability to understand. He must face them in front of the mirror of the greatness of God Himself.
As you hear God describe His splendor, take a moment to reflect on some of the times you have tried to be in charge of your own world. Imagine then how ill-prepared you are for the task. Only God...can be God.
So are the friends right then in what they're telling Job all along? For some reason I thought Job was going to end up being the one who was right since at the beginning God says Job is righteous. I knew Job was a little off when he was saying he was without sin but thought that for some reason he was right in not accepting that this was punishment, since it wasn't set up that way at the beginning of the book when God was talking to Satan.
ReplyDeleteMeg, I wrote my take in the post for January 12. In part, I said that Elihu indicted "Job for his sin. The three accusers tried to say that Job must have some hidden sin. He had failed to care for the poor, or been immoral, or had failed to pay his workers. Elihu cuts to the heart by exposing Job's real sin of arrogantly putting God on trial and finding Him guilty. You and I may think this a small sin compared to murder or adultery. However, such arrogance is at the root of all sin. In fact it was just such arrogance that rotted the heart of Lucifer and caused him to rebel against God."
ReplyDeleteOK, but for some reason as I was reading I thought that Job wasn't actually guilty of any of the sins they were accusing him of since it says in chapter 1 that he is blameless. I thought that in the end somehow the truth of where this sickness/misfortune/torment was coming from would be revealed. -That Job would find out that it was Satan and not God at all and that God had just allowed it to prove Satan wrong when Satan said Job would curse God if he was allowed to suffer.
ReplyDeleteSo if the suffering really is a result of his sin, why isn't it set up that way from the beginning? As I started the book I thought to myself "OK, so Job is a VERY good man and God is going to prove Satan wrong here when Job passes the test and never curses Him even through the suffering God allows Satan to inflict". God must have known that Job wasn't blameless, so why would he take on this challenge from Satan?
Whew, you like to pose hard questions! I miss seeing you every day in the office.
ReplyDeleteI may have misstated. Job's torment wasn't because of his sin. However, Job had some sinful attitudes God wanted to deal with and God allowed the pain so he could do a deep work in Job's heart. "Blameless" didn't mean sinlessly perfect. It meant that Job took sin seriously and confessed/repented regularly. (That's a good lesson for me!)
"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away," Job said. One problem many Christians have is that we want God to give us good things, but we just can't believe that He would allow anything bad to happen to us. He does and He wants to use it for our good and His glory...just like with Job.
Meg, I don't think this was about God "proving" anything to Satan. It was about truth and hope and forgiveness and growing through adversity. Jesus learned obedience through suffering (says so twice in Hebrews) so we must, too.
Does that help?
Yes, it does. I get the main message of the story but I guess I don't yet understand Satan and God's relationship/conversation at the beginning. I'm content to keep studying till I learn a little more about how that relationship works, though. -Thanks!
ReplyDeleteSorry, last thing. Do you know what God means when he asks Satan if he has "CONSIDERED" Job after roaming the earth? "Considered" in what way? Considered torturing him?