What is the point of the story of Job?

[Humblesmith]

When I think of Job, I think of how in the beginning God approaches Satan and says "Have you considered my servant Job?" The fact that God broght up the subject of Job first is interesting to me.

Then Job spends a bunch of chapters saying, in effect, 'if only I could get God down here I know we could straighten this thing out.'

Then, in the end, God shows up and says, in effect, 'who do you think you are, questioning me?' The end.

God doesn't explain himself in the book. So to me, the book is about God having wisdom, and a purpose that he doesn't explain to us.

The book also shows that God is much more powerful than Satan, and more wise than any of us.

I think it's also very possible to get "why does bad things happen to good people" out of the book. That's a major theme. The book says that Job was upright. Yet he suffered. The reason was because God was working in the background, and often does not give us a reason why he allows us to suffer. But just because we're suffering doesn't mean our faith is lacking or there is sin in our lives. So the book of Job proves wrong the likes of Copeland, Capps, Hagin, and their followers.


So, yes, there is sovereignty here in Job. But there's much more here also: God's wisdom, purpose, power, etc. If I had to sum it up in one word, I'd use the one the theolgians use: Job expresses God's ineffability. He is beyond our abilty to understand completely.

 

[npetreley]

God doesn't explain himself in the book. So to me, the book is about God having wisdom, and a purpose that he doesn't explain to us.

I think this is an EXTREMELY important point. This is why a comment like "a righteous/loving/etc. God would never/always..." in order to justify a person's view really rubs me the wrong way. It reveals overconfidence in one's own limited opinion of God, and it also displays a lack of healthy fear of God and trust in God (or if you want to combine them, one could say a lack of reverence for God).

Look at what Job -- called blameless and upright -- says to God after God shouts His sovereignty to him. And note that God approves of what he says, and disapproves of all of what his friends said!

5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. 6 Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes."

That's why anyone who claims they know that "a righteous/loving/etc. God would never/always..." is speaking from the height of arrogance and lack of a healthy fear of God. I challenge those who use this argument - no, DARE them - to pray that that this very night God reveals Himself to them in ALL His Glory, complete with perfect righteousness, perfect goodness, perfect love, perfect wrath, perfect judgement, His inscrutability to the feeble mind of man, and so on.

Personally, I would not even whisper such a prayer until He has finished completely transforming me into the image of His Son, so that I totally no longer live, but He lives in me. I can imagine nothing more horrifying than to have God's Glory expose the REAL me to myself. I'm not sure I'd even have the courage to do what Job did and abhor myself and repent - I'd probablly die or kill myself.

It also shows a lack of trust because when anyone says "a righteous God would never/always...", he is REALLY saying, "If I were what I conceive of being perfectly righteous/loving/etc., I would never/always..." It presumes you know what God should do based on your limited perception of His total character. God's lecture to Job is all about "I made everything, it's all mine, and I will do with it as I please, and you are in no position to question my motives or presume that you know better."

That's where a lack of trust comes in. Saying "a righteous God would never/always..." presumes you know what God knows, and know how God should handle a given situation. For example, it's like when one doesn't trust God that it's right to send all unborn babies to hell if, indeed, that's what He does. I believe differently, and I think there is limited Biblical support for believing differently, but if I find out I'm wrong, then He is right and I am wrong. PERIOD.

Let me state this in the most personal way possible. If God chooses to glorify me in heaven, then praise God. If God chooses to obliterate me on earth and torture me for all eternity, I pray he'll leave at least enough spark of Himself in me to be able to say praise God, because, although I now probably fail more than I succeed, I want to trust that what He does is always right, no matter how it may seem to me.

 

[HankD]

Originally Posted by npetreley Lesson Learned
I'm curious as to the opinions of various BB participants as to what they think is the point of the book of Job. Yes, there are many things to learn from the book, but what do you think is the main point of the story, taken as a whole?

Lesson Learned:

...man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
​

 

[Joseph M. Smith]

In addition to the things said about the sovereignty of God and about His ineffability ... i.e., that He is ultimately mystery ... I think the message of Job is also that God is just, in God's own way, and that man is free to question, complain, doubt, and cry out, as well as to praise and pray. The go'el, Redeemer, is God Himself.

As the old Lutheran chorale puts it, "Was mein Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan". (Whatever my God does, that is well-done).

 

[HankD]

Lesson Learned:

...man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.​

Everyone had the wrong take on Job, Satan, Job's wife, his 4 "friends", even Job.

Everyone but God that is.


HankD

 

[npetreley]

Lesson Learned:

...man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
​

That's not the lesson I get from Job, but whatever.

 

[ituttut]

I just assumed it was Job speaking because Calvin was using it. I think I assumed wrongly.

Lots of good opinions out there, and all look to be good points. But God had the writer put before us the Book of Job, in my opinion for a specific purpose, which brings about many other things. Therefore I believe the writer of the book, should be given a hearing, which looks to be what we are to carry away, with all the other information furnished. Elihu gives his viewpoint (notice the similarity with the Lord out of the whirlwind), and I believe young Elihu gives his opinion that God is Just, and it is He that justifies as He will, how, and when He will.

As before said, do we not all try to justify ourselves as Job was trying to do? Job's three friends condemned, or judged Job in their own righteousness, with no answers, and God's wrath was kindled against them, but not the young man. Only Elihu rightly understood answering his "elders".

 

[Timsings]

I was first made aware of Job during an adult VBS at my church by Dr. Donald Acklen, another church member, who worked at the Sunday School Board. He was British, so he was the first person I knew who didn't talk the same way I did. He made Job come alive, and I have enjoyed reading the book and studying it since. That doesn't mean I have it figured out, just that you can always learn something new. At the moment, this is my view of Job based on my reading.

It was probably written in two different periods. The basic story is contained in chapters 1-2 and 42.7-17. This story is much older than the whole book itself. The middle section composed of the comments of Job's three friends, Elihu, and God's response, were written down much later to flesh out the basic story. I think this part of the story is intended to challenge the idea that our station in life mirrors our relationship with God. If you are successful and prosperous, then God has blessed you for your righteousness. If you are not successful, then you have done something to offend God. That is the point of much of the dialogue between Job and his three friends. God finally steps in and lets Job know that the main difference between the Creator and the creature is that there is much that the creature does not know and will never kow, and that God is under no obligation to explain things to the creature.

The big question is always related to how to understand Satan in the context of the members of the court of heaven (1.6). Was he just there, or was he one of the members of the court of heaven? Some of the implications of the possible different answers to this question raise possibilities that we do not want to think about. We can consider these possibilities, but that is not the point. In any case, we come back to the basic point: God is the Creator, and we humans are God's creatures. Therefore, our knowledge is limited, and God is under no obligation to explain everything to us. But, it also means that we can derive no comfort and make no assumptions about our relationship to God from our situation.

Tim Reynolds

 

[HankD]

That's not the lesson I get from Job, but whatever.

Read my second response. Everyone (but God) judged Job wrongly.

In essence, everyone really blamed God.

Satan had made a judgment: He serves you because you have blessed him (in essence). Take it away and he'll curse you.

His wife: Give it up, curse God and die (He's not listening to you).

His friends : You must have done something wrong and you are getting what you deserve from Him.

God : "ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job"

​

 

[Humblesmith]

That's where a lack of trust comes in. Saying "a righteous God would never/always..." presumes you know what God knows, and know how God should handle a given situation. For example, it's like when one doesn't trust God that it's right to send all unborn babies to hell if, indeed, that's what He does. I believe differently, and I think there is limited Biblical support for believing differently, but if I find out I'm wrong, then He is right and I am wrong. PERIOD.

Well........yes, to a point.
We cannot take this to the extreme point of saying that God will contradict himself, or that God is unreasonable. We can indeed say that "God will never lie" and many other things that we can be sure about the nature of God, such as, concerning innocent babies, that "God is just" and we can know that "just" is in an analogous sense to what we know as "just."

So I fully agree with you that we cannot know what God knows, and we cannot know how God will handle every situation. And I agree that we should avoid trying to be so confident that we are presumptious about convincing ourselves that we know how God will act. But I think we can be sure of some things.

The reason that I make this point is that we have people running around the countryside saying that God is not logical or reasonable. So I think your position and mine are close.....I just wanted to make this distinction.

 

[HankD]

So I fully agree with you that we cannot know what God knows, and we cannot know how God will handle every situation. And I agree that we should avoid trying to be so confident that we are presumptious about convincing ourselves that we know how God will act. But I think we can be sure of some things

FWIW, I think you put it very well Humble. I like the way Abraham put it...

Genesis 18:25 That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?​

HankD​

 

[npetreley]

Well........yes, to a point.
We cannot take this to the extreme point of saying that God will contradict himself, or that God is unreasonable. We can indeed say that "God will never lie" and many other things that we can be sure about the nature of God, such as, concerning innocent babies, that "God is just" and we can know that "just" is in an analogous sense to what we know as "just."

I can't equate those two things. We know that God cannot lie because the Bible says so, plainly. We don't know that babies are innocent. In fact, there's much in the Bible that suggests they are not. Either way, we don't have a plain, clear verse that says one way or another. Therefore we don't really know for sure what God does with babies, or why.

I really don't want to spin this off into yet another thread about babies, though. I had as much as I could stand from the thread dedicated to the topic.

 

[npetreley]

The big question is always related to how to understand Satan in the context of the members of the court of heaven (1.6). Was he just there, or was he one of the members of the court of heaven?

That's a tough one, isn't it? Add to that the fact that satan feels free to ask Jesus for permission to sift Peter as wheat. I have a feeling we don't really understand satan's role or his purpose, and whether or not that role has been or will be reassigned.

Some Jewish tradition views satan as nothing more than another servant of God with a specific job to accuse and afflict. In other words, when he does what he does, he's just doing his duty. I don't know if I buy that totally, because he's called some nasty things, and is destined for the lake of fire. But there are parts of the Bible where it makes sense.

 

[ituttut]

It was probably written in two different periods. The basic story is contained in chapters 1-2 and 42.7-17. This story is much older than the whole book itself. The middle section composed of the comments of Job's three friends, Elihu, and God's response, were written down much later to flesh out the basic story. .

A good presentation, and you could very well be right. We'll never know for sure down here which man/men God used for the whole of the book. We don't know if Elihu is the first of the "poetic" writers, ahead of the time frame of the "poetic" books, or as you say, written in two different dispensations. Perhaps David, Solomon, or some other contemporary enclosed the writings of Elihu, as it is evident Elihu wrote much earlier. Scripture seems to indicate Elihu most likely lived in the time circa Jacob.

I think this part of the story is intended to challenge the idea that our station in life mirrors our relationship with God. If you are successful and prosperous, then God has blessed you for your righteousness. If you are not successful, then you have done something to offend God.

Not sure what you mean by, "successful". Must disagree here for none are righteous in themselves, not even Noah, Daniel, or Job, for by faith they lived and are made righteous. As we live we are made righteous through faith.

That is the point of much of the dialogue between Job and his three friends. God finally steps in and lets Job know that the main difference between the Creator and the creature is that there is much that the creature does not know and will never kow, and that God is under no obligation to explain things to the creature.

Amen! God is not obligated to explain things to us, but he obliges by explaining all about Himself, beginning in Genesis, then into eternity.

The big question is always related to how to understand Satan in the context of the members of the court of heaven (1.6). Was he just there, or was he one of the members of the court of heaven? Some of the implications of the possible different answers to this question raise possibilities that we do not want to think about. We can consider these possibilities, but that is not the point. In any case, we come back to the basic point: God is the Creator, and we humans are God's creatures. Therefore, our knowledge is limited, and God is under no obligation to explain everything to us. But, it also means that we can derive no comfort and make no assumptions about our relationship to God from our situation.

He allows us enough to know of His love for us, and gives comfort for those in the Body of Christ. Our standing with God the Father is through Jesus Christ by whom we are justified. He is righteous, which makes us righteous.