No
one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. (Job 2:12)Why do bad things happen to good people? That's the basic question in Job. Theodicy is a defense of God's justice in spite of life’s onslaught of overwhelming evil. This question has plagued mankind since... well, since the time of Job.
Retribution theology can be summed up in the phrase: What goes around comes around. We read this thinking in the book of Deuteronomy: Love the Lord your God . . . then you will live and increase... But if your heart turns away . . . you will certainly be destroyed. (Deuteronomy 30:16-18) We get the same kind of thinking in the book of Proverbs: Whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm. (Proverbs 1:32)
When Job lost everything he had, he must have thought: Wait! This isn't supposed to happen to me - I read Proverbs. I signed up for the extended warranty!
But we all know bad things do happen to good people, don't we?
That's why, even though Job can at times get tedious, there's something about these writings that keep bringing us back, as if we can identify with Job, unlike some of those Bible characters who are a little too good to be true.
So you had a bad day...
I have lots of questions about Job. :)
ReplyDeleteI've heard before that some things in the Bible, like the passages you mentioned from Deuteronomy and Proverbs, are principles, while there are other more direct promises from God that we can really hang our hat on. How do we know what is a principle vs. a promise? And, to be honest, how can we take comfort in principles like those when we know that they aren't always reliable descriptions of life?
Tauna, Even as I begin to write this, I know my answer is going to be insufficient, but I'm willing to give an incomplete answer today rather than wait till I have a perfect answer, which may never come.
DeleteWhen God says something that is wholly reliant on God and God alone, like, "I will do this and you can count on it," then you probably can.
Principles are things like Proverbs' declaration that when a child is raised right, he won't depart from how he's been brought up. I've actually been told calling that a principle is too strong. It's more like a "more often than not" kind of wisdom promise. Job and Proverbs are both part of the Old Testament's wisdom literature - a poetic kind of writing.
Proverbs is written from the Deuteronomist viewpoint that says, "Do right and you'll be blessed; do wrong and you'll be cursed." It's very cause and effect oriented. We know that life's effects don't always logically spring from easily identifiable causes.
I can hear Job shouting,"Hey! This isn't supposed to happen to me; I read Proverbs!"
And then there's Ecclesiastes that pretty much says, "Good, bad, everyone dies."
This is a good lesson in that we cannot take one verse, chapter or book out of the Bible and build our rule for living from just that. We've got to take the whole Bible context, balancing what is said in one place, with what is said in another, and doing our best to understand the historical context behind the writings.
The conversation between Satan and God bugs me. A lot. I have to wonder if it's really meant to be read as a literal conversation that occurred. But even if it isn't, what are we supposed to learn from it?
ReplyDeleteI can understand, at least to some extent, that bad things happen to good people because we live in a fallen world, but God can use all things for His glory. But the story here seems to be that bad things sometimes happen to good people because God heeds the accusations of the enemy and allows Satan to inflict evil on them for some purpose - perhaps the testing of their character.
I guess my issue here is that, in this story, God seems to be in collusion with Satan instead of actively opposing him. I hope I'm reading it wrong, because I don't like that.
Tauna, the genre of Job has been debated with no resolution as of yet. Keep in mind it is not considered a historical book or a prophetic book, but a poetic book (wisdom literature). There are many different opinions about when it was written, whether or not it was written as is or if an ancient story was appended with wisdom writings during the time of Solomon or even on into the exile.
DeleteKeep in mind this is not a story about Satan. The writer's disclosure about Satan is incomplete at best. He appears once in verse 1 and once in verse 2 and then never again.
Consider how limited is the Old Testament information on the Messiah. Similarly, its information on Satan is limited too. We must take what we learn in both testaments (whole Bible context) and apply it to what we read in Job.
It would take a book (a book I'm not qualified to write) to explain all the intricacies of the Job story. I highly recommend C. Hassell Bullock's "An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books."
On another day the angels[d] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him.
ReplyDeleteBecause God is holy, how could Satan come into his prescence with the other angels? And why would Satan even want to present himself to God? Almost the same verse is repeated in Chapter 2:1. It sounds like this is something Satan might have done regularly. I have heard before that the book of Job is not really to be taken literally, but that it is more of an anology of what God is like. Can you clear any of this up for me?
Merry, I'm going to ask you to read the answer I gave to Tauna. It's a start. The part of my response that applies best to your question is the part about Job not being a historical or prophetic work, but being a poetic work - part of the rich Hebrew tradition of wisdom literature.
DeleteI started that out really badly. Instead of saying, "When God says something that is wholly reliant on God and God alone, like, 'I will do this and you can count on it,' then you probably can." I should never have put the word "probably" there. Please attribute that to a mental hiccup.
ReplyDelete