Controversial Questions

[evenifigoalone]

Some do think that Job might have been an allegory rather than a real person. And if that is the case, well... It doesn't affect the truth of scripture, so it wouldn't be wrong to consider that it may be such so far as I can tell.

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[ntchristian]

Some do think that Job might have been an allegory rather than a real person. And if that is the case, well... It doesn't affect the truth of scripture, so it wouldn't be wrong to consider that it may be such so far as I can tell.

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I can agree with that. Thanks.

 

[Steven Yeadon]

People seem to take the point of Job as being that if you remain faithful to God, no matter how much the enemy takes from you, God will restore and replenish many times over. I say that doesn't do anything for the actual people whom Job lost. In other words, the end justifies the means. Not to me. That's why I have a hard time taking Job as literal, as it seems to me not to be an accurate picture of God's true nature.

People seem to take the point of Job as being that if you remain faithful to God, no matter how much the enemy takes from you, God will restore and replenish many times over. I say that doesn't do anything for the actual people whom Job lost. In other words, the end justifies the means. Not to me. That's why I have a hard time taking Job as literal, as it seems to me not to be an accurate picture of God's true nature.

As someone who has prayed the prayer of Job 3 and meant every word due to being in torment for months on end. That perspective you explained is a terrible way of looking at Job and his plight.

First off, there are plenty of examples of people, present and historical, not just myself, who have been baptized in hellfire like Job. At the very least, the Holocaust should remind us all of the problem of pain.

Thus, the lessons of Job are a present issue for many people, it is not limited to Job.

Now, not everyone in such torment gets a happy ending. Jesus Christ tells us to take up our Cross and follow Him to a reward in eternity, after death. He may well have meant taking up our Cross literally to His audience at the time.

To me, Job is a man who gets a reward in this world and the next. That is not the NT standard we are called to as those greater than Job.

Jesus Christ is a model Job, Who suffers horrifically with no reward till after death. We follow Jesus, knowing it is an honor to suffer for and like Him.

Look at the martyrs, such as those Christians who opposed Hitler and wound up in concentration camps. Not all go home after their torment, many die amidst impossible suffering. God has prepared a city for them that is everlasting. Those like Corrie ten Boom who do go home aren't going to tell you a happy life on earth afterwards made their torment worth it. A greater reward than that is required.

No, Job's interaction with God out of the whirlwind is more central. God rules and reigns and our opinions on the matter are not what matters. He knows how to run the universe, we don't. Job was humble enough to accept he isn't God after God explodes at him for his lack of understanding. Job was sincere enough to wrestle with God, and God praises Job for it. It is the pious friends that God is angry at.

The NT makes clear that while it looks like God is aloof and doesn't care. God in fact loves us more than we can imagine. This will become plain as day after death. For now we go forward with faith and hope.

I hope this explains things. If you have more questions, please ask. You can even IM me if you want to talk things you deem impious enough not to post.

 

[Scarlett O.]

The point I was trying to make is indeed we can get the wrong impression. Lets vilify our interpretation before we vilify God.

I whole-heartedly agree. I have had to squash my own interpretations a time or two.

 

[church mouse guy]

xD i double the species of animals googled. Not to be taken seriously.

OK. AiG & others have done a lot of research on the number of animals. There was room for more people but no one else repented. Must be a terrible death to drown.

 

[ntchristian]

As someone who has prayed the prayer of Job 3 and meant every word due to being in torment for months on end. That perspective you explained is a terrible way of looking at Job and his plight.

First off, there are plenty of examples of people, present and historical, not just myself, who have been baptized in hellfire like Job. At the very least, the Holocaust should remind us all of the problem of pain.

Thus, the lessons of Job are a present issue for many people, it is not limited to Job.

Now, not everyone in such torment gets a happy ending. Jesus Christ tells us to take up our Cross and follow Him to a reward in eternity, after death. He may well have meant taking up our Cross literally to His audience at the time.

To me, Job is a man who gets a reward in this world and the next. That is not the NT standard we are called to as those greater than Job.

Jesus Christ is a model Job, Who suffers horrifically with no reward till after death. We follow Jesus, knowing it is an honor to suffer for and like Him.

Look at the martyrs, such as those Christians who opposed Hitler and wound up in concentration camps. Not all go home after their torment, many die amidst impossible suffering. God has prepared a city for them that is everlasting. Those like Corrie ten Boom who do go home aren't going to tell you a happy life on earth afterwards made their torment worth it. A greater reward than that is required.

No, Job's interaction with God out of the whirlwind is more central. God rules and reigns and our opinions on the matter are not what matters. He knows how to run the universe, we don't. Job was humble enough to accept he isn't God after God explodes at him for his lack of understanding. Job was sincere enough to wrestle with God, and God praises Job for it. It is the pious friends that God is angry at.

The NT makes clear that while it looks like God is aloof and doesn't care. God in fact loves us more than we can imagine. This will become plain as day after death. For now we go forward with faith and hope.

I hope this explains things. If you have more questions, please ask. You can even IM me if you want to talk things you deem impious enough not to post.

Steven, thank you for that heartfelt and thoughtful post. I would never seek to diminish or demean what the Book of Job means to you. I intend to respect everyone's spiritual journey and try to sympathize with people in the struggles they go through. It's a tough life here on this earth.

For me, I have a hard time taking the positives that the Book of Job puts forth when I think about those that were lost to him. Seems to me that they were caught in a crossfire between Satan and God and got the worst of it, victims of a spiritual "wager". That seems perverse to me. That's why I have trouble taking the book literally. I know we are all imperfect, and it seems the ancients were sometimes that in trying to convey spiritual truth. It doesn't affect my spiritual condition, because I look at such things through Jesus, but I wonder how it might affect really sensitive non-believers or new believers. That's troublesome.

 

[Revmitchell]

Some do think that Job might have been an allegory rather than a real person. And if that is the case, well... It doesn't affect the truth of scripture, so it wouldn't be wrong to consider that it may be such so far as I can tell.

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Sigh there is no good reason to believe it is an allegory. Further, if nothing about it changes then why the need to deem it an allegory.

When we lose sight of the genre of parts of scripture it always changes truth to a lie.

 

[xlsdraw]

It seems that your focus is heavily weighted towards the human experience. My focus is on the eternal spiritual existence. I believe that the duration of our human experience is equivalent to only one grain of sand in an entire bucket of sand. With the bucket of sand being our eternal existence.

I do not consider Job's children as lost. I view them as eternally restored in perfection as the last chapter reveals.

Paul made reference to the suffering of the human experience to being incomparable to the glory of what awaits those whom believe.

 

[Rob_BW]

People seem to take the point of Job as being that if you remain faithful to God, no matter how much the enemy takes from you, God will restore and replenish many times over. I say that doesn't do anything for the actual people whom Job lost. In other words, the end justifies the means. Not to me. That's why I have a hard time taking Job as literal, as it seems to me not to be an accurate picture of God's true nature.

To me, the point is more to show the nature of this world. It is hard, and there will be hard times, and some of these hard times will come upon us "unfairly."

 

[ntchristian]

It seems that your focus is heavily weighted towards the human experience. My focus is on the eternal spiritual existence. I believe that the duration of our human experience is equivalent to only one grain of sand in an entire bucket of sand. With the bucket of sand being our eternal existence.

I do not consider Job's children as lost. I view them as eternally restored in perfection as the last chapter reveals.

Paul made reference to the suffering of the human experience to being incomparable to the glory of what awaits those whom believe.

My focus is on the nature of God. It's amazing to me how that can be perverted, even by writers of the sacred. Maybe even more bothersome is how easily people accept that, without questioning. Sometimes such things have troubled me to the point that it did affect me spiritually, and I am not a new believer. I can imagine how it might seriously adversely affect new believers or non-believers.

Also, what happens here does matter, and it obviously matters to God Who cared enough to send His Son to be a part of all this, and us, thus the Incarnation.

 

[ntchristian]

To me, the point is more to show the nature of this world. It is hard, and there will be hard times, and some of these hard times will come upon us "unfairly."

Yes, I can see that, and I agree with you.

 

[AustinC]

People seem to take the point of Job as being that if you remain faithful to God, no matter how much the enemy takes from you, God will restore and replenish many times over. I say that doesn't do anything for the actual people whom Job lost. In other words, the end justifies the means. Not to me. That's why I have a hard time taking Job as literal, as it seems to me not to be an accurate picture of God's true nature.

If you have suffered loss and sorrow, you will be drawn to Job.
The entire dialogue is human beings wrestling with their theology and the problem of pain. Neither Job, nor his friends can make sense of a Sovereign God bringing pain and suffering on a man who was attempting to walk in integrity before God. Why would such a thing happen?
Not being able to answer the issue, and Job declaring he is righteous, Job begins to question God. It is at that point that God addresses Job, because now Job has called God's righteousness into question. God rebukes Job and then his friends who has added burden and guilt upon Job.
Why did this dialogue happen? Because, as humans, Job and his friends could not reconcile their theology with their circumstances.

 

[Scarlett O.]

Thank you, Scarlett. That was very helpful. Don't you think, though that the punishment of the "youths" was in excess of their "crimes"?

It all depends on how you perceive the wrong they did.

If you look at this as some small children teasing a man about having no hair, then I can see how someone would have doubts in their heart of the Bible and God.

Look at it like this.

No one questions David using a sling shot to kill Goliath. Goliath was massive, he was mocking the nation of Israel and mocking God, Himself, - when David came to "battle" him, Goliath was insulted and keep on taunting the Most High God.

No one but David is insulted on God's behalf FOR God. David, the boy, who spent his time with the sheep and songs understood the need to stand up for God against a blaspheming giant and the Philistine army who worshipped false gods.

No one questions that story.

The one we are discussing is no different. Defiance of God and his prophets are what these young men are about. No, they aren't giants - but they are a mob - only 42 were mauled. They come from a town that follows false prophets and they are mocking God. Who knows what EXACTLY what defiance was in their hearts? God knew.

I don't judge God's decision here. He knows the whole story.

 

[Walpole]

Unfortunately, it's as if the Bible has been taken captive by 19th century Protestant positivism / fundamentalism that is obsessed with material literalism. (e.g. “Exactly xxx number of David's soldiers died that day" etc.) In other words, it seems Protestants view the Bible as a blueprint of technical facts. And many even believe the Bible was merely dictated like a boss dictates a letter to his secretary.

This of course is not how the Church (or her Fathers and Doctors) ever viewed the Bible. The proper Christian understanding of the Bible is that it is revelation presented to us through the prism of history. God has not dictated the words of Scripture; rather the Scriptures bear the impression of a history that He has been guiding from the beginning. The Bible is not about discovering technical facts. Rather, the Bible is about finding out who God is: The Trinity wanting from all eternity to reveal Himself to man and to share His life with man. He made us to enter into the inheritance of His beatitude. Put another way, the Bible reveals why God chose to became man.

 

[ntchristian]

Unfortunately, it's as if the Bible has been taken captive by 19th century Protestant positivism / fundamentalism that is obsessed with material literalism. (e.g. “Exactly xxx number of David's soldiers died that day" etc.) In other words, it seems Protestants view the Bible as a blueprint of technical facts. And many even believe the Bible was merely dictated like a boss dictates a letter to his secretary.

This of course is not how the Church (or her Fathers and Doctors) ever viewed the Bible. The proper Christian understanding of the Bible is that it is revelation presented to us through the prism of history. God has not dictated the words of Scripture; rather the Scriptures bear the impression of a history that He has been guiding from the beginning. The Bible is not about discovering technical facts. Rather, the Bible is about finding out who God is: The Trinity wanting from all eternity to reveal Himself to man and to share His life with man. He made us to enter into the inheritance of His beatitude. Put another way, the Bible reveals why God chose to became man.

I like that, or most of it anyway. I think you over-generalize about Protestants, but not about fundamentalism.

 

[ntchristian]

If you have suffered loss and sorrow, you will be drawn to Job.
The entire dialogue is human beings wrestling with their theology and the problem of pain. Neither Job, nor his friends can make sense of a Sovereign God bringing pain and suffering on a man who was attempting to walk in integrity before God. Why would such a thing happen?
Not being able to answer the issue, and Job declaring he is righteous, Job begins to question God. It is at that point that God addresses Job, because now Job has called God's righteousness into question. God rebukes Job and then his friends who has added burden and guilt upon Job.
Why did this dialogue happen? Because, as humans, Job and his friends could not reconcile their theology with their circumstances.

I have to say that I have suffered much sorrow and loss but am not drawn to Job.

 

[utilyan]

Steven, thank you for that heartfelt and thoughtful post. I would never seek to diminish or demean what the Book of Job means to you. I intend to respect everyone's spiritual journey and try to sympathize with people in the struggles they go through. It's a tough life here on this earth.

For me, I have a hard time taking the positives that the Book of Job puts forth when I think about those that were lost to him. Seems to me that they were caught in a crossfire between Satan and God and got the worst of it, victims of a spiritual "wager". That seems perverse to me. That's why I have trouble taking the book literally. I know we are all imperfect, and it seems the ancients were sometimes that in trying to convey spiritual truth. It doesn't affect my spiritual condition, because I look at such things through Jesus, but I wonder how it might affect really sensitive non-believers or new believers. That's troublesome.

First, consider REAL life situations may be absolutely worst then Job. Horrible things happen to Good people and even end tragically.

From your beginning existence you were pretty innocent, yet you were not born in heaven, you yourself experience suffering.

In a blink of an eye God can zap us all up in heaven right right now. He does not for our benefit.

Initially our attitude might be well you hear someone has a problem with God, if your doing fine how is that your problem?

God is teaching us to share in a universal responsibility.

Part of this is the Devil is being schooled by God. The devil is convinced the only reason Job likes God is because God forces Job or is bribed or bought into liking God.

If it was Jesus Christ in Job's shoes there would have prob been alot less whining about the whole thing cause he trusts God.

Same goes if Jesus Christ was in the shoes of the son's and daughters crushed by the roof.

Its pretty easy to be satisfied with God in heavenly conditions compared to hellish ones.

And this is not to be a megalomaniac we are still taking about God is love, where God is part of you and you "should" be satisfied all the time. We have trust issues, we make subtle accusations on God.

Like today can be the better day then the best day you had in your life, but because of our subtle accusations and mistrust of God we would hardly dare to expect it.

 

[Scarlett O.]

Unfortunately, it's as if the Bible has been taken captive by 19th century Protestant positivism / fundamentalism that is obsessed with material literalism. (e.g. “Exactly xxx number of David's soldiers died that day" etc.) In other words, it seems Protestants view the Bible as a blueprint of technical facts. And many even believe the Bible was merely dictated like a boss dictates a letter to his secretary.

This of course is not how the Church (or her Fathers and Doctors) ever viewed the Bible. The proper Christian understanding of the Bible is that it is revelation presented to us through the prism of history. God has not dictated the words of Scripture; rather the Scriptures bear the impression of a history that He has been guiding from the beginning. The Bible is not about discovering technical facts. Rather, the Bible is about finding out who God is: The Trinity wanting from all eternity to reveal Himself to man and to share His life with man. He made us to enter into the inheritance of His beatitude. Put another way, the Bible reveals why God chose to became man.

Help me here. Are you saying that you don't believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God given by the Holy Spirit? Did these men just write their own "impressions" of God and history?

The Bible is primarily literal. Yes, there is poetry and figurative language and proverbial wisdom.

We must be unbelievably cautious when others begin the notion that the Bible is just an "impression" and that the literal stories are just analogies.

I hear more and more DAILY [on social media, forums, and in real life] where people who claim to be Christians dismiss more and more of the Bible. And/or define it as figurative - or that only the words of Christ count, etc.

 

[Yeshua1]

Two places that concern me are these: Where God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. The other is the entire Book of Job. I'll explain further later.

God knew that he would spare the ;lifeof Isaac and would not reuire it, as he was testing the faith of Abraham to let Abraham really know who was most important to Him, and God also used that to show to us the HE would provide for us the lamb of God, and to not spare His own Son, even though He spared Isaac!

 

[Yeshua1]

God is omnipotent and all-knowing. So, why would he need to test Abraham if He knew beforehand what Abraham would do? The only thing that makes sense here to me is that either God does not know what free choice a person will make beforehand, or this story is not to be taken literally but attempts to teach a moral truth.

NOT Open theism there, so God knew what Abraham would do, but used it to teach to Him and us that God would one day supple the lamb of God for us!