Taking a Different Look at the Book of Job
Going through life and its experiences, I have found that we can see something with a different set of eyes than we used to. I am reading through the Bible in a year this year, and this week finds me in the book of Job. I find myself going back through my days and the times of life I have considered this book, and I found myself wanting to take a different look at the book of Job.
The book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible, written even before Moses wrote Genesis. Job was a pretty incredible man, wise, successful, a great dad. He was someone sought out by others for advice, and was quick to help others in need. He was a man of deep faith in God, with very little revelation to go on in his time. God himself said, “There is no one like him on earth, a blameless man and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil” (Job 1:8).
Job Endured Terrible Suffering
Job endured terrible suffering and loss. His livestock was stolen, his crops were burned, and all of his children died. His health was broken, and his wife even lost her faith and told him “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die” (Job 2:10). The disturbing part was God allowed it. Why God allows suffering is a question for the ages. The scripture gives a number of reasons, but not all of them, it is something that can be hard to come to grips with. That is the usual tack a study of Job with take.
The Patience of Job
A trite expression that was around me all my life was “he has the patience of Job”. He did have great integrity, but I don’t see him as being all that patient, any more than anyone hit with this kind of gale-force suffering would be. He said, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways with Him” (Job 13:15). This was not a man to sit stoically, never bothered by anything. Job was a real man, and these things hurt.
A Positive Spin
When I was a kid, well meaning Sunday School teachers did the best they could to put a positive spin on the story. They pointed out that God restored Job’s fortune and position, which He did. They pointed out that Job had more children, even more than he had at first, which to this little guy made me breathe a sigh of relief. But as an adult, a parent, and a grandparent, if we’d lose a child, that would be with me for life, regardless of how many more I had. Thanks to those cheerful ladies who taught Sunday School anyway!
A Different Look
And so I take a different look at the book of Job at my age. It is important to know that through this book, large amounts of it are speeches from his three friends which he responded to at length. We must exercise care as we read those; because they are all full of bad advice.
In Job’s words, “Is there no limit to windy words” (Job 16:3) and “But you smear with lies; you are all worthless physicians. O that you would be completely silent, and that it would become your wisdom!” (Job 13:4,5).
In God’s words, “My wrath is kindled against you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right” (Job 42:7). Job himself got it the best of all, but he didn’t get it either. That turns out to be the message of the book, what God taught him. But this is not where I am going today.
Job’s Friends Started Out Right
The first insight I would share as God has spoken to me this week, was Job’s three friends started out right! They came to sympathize and comfort him. They cried with him, and “then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great” (Job 2:13). If they had stopped with this, as well as listening to him in chapter three, they would have really ministered to him. But they didn’t.
They each, one at a time launched into speeches about what Job must have done wrong. They grabbed onto the wrong thought that if someone suffers, they must have sinned to deserve it. This has been a universal thought throughout the centuries. But suffering is no respecter of persons, good, evil, faith or no faith, suffering is everywhere. I would rather face it with God than without Him. And I think Job gets this part of it, it was what helped him hold on.
Just Plain Wrong
These three men were just plain wrong, but they made it sound spiritual, which is more dangerous. There is a hint of people who might have dealt with some envy of him in the other part of his life. I don’t know if I can know their motives. I do know that making a speech full of vague insights and wrong platitudes makes it hurt worse instead of better. We need to sit and listen, not sit, and talk.
Job Got To Vent and Share His Pain
The second insight I got was that Job never told them to “get lost”. Even though they were giving him all manner of poor advice, when he answered them, he got to vent and share his pain. I think he needed someone there so badly that he was willing to put up with all the wrong-headed platitudes just to have company.
It Has To Come From God
The third and last insight I got was when I read the bad advice, I was shocked that I was tempted to go there. A lot of wrong concepts sound right to us, especially when we couch it in spiritual terms. Job did have a lot of lessons to learn, just not these things that simply were not true. But I have thought a lot of these things when I was going through suffering myself. If I was to sum up this lesson in revisiting the book of Job, it would be that when we have a major life lesson to learn, like Job in the end, it has to come from God, and none of us who would help, can decide or express what that lesson is supposed to be.
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God alone is our great teacher. His plans is bigger , more selfless than ours . Job story is something that resonates in today’s pandemic . Patience will save many lives . God bless .