Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Job

[Junior]

I tried to read the book, but only got about to where the young men were talking to him; after this it was just hard to follow. As far as I know, God allowed the devil to take everything that belonged to Job. I know the beginning okay, but a summary would help me in the long run.

[jimwalton]

Dr. John Walton, in his commentary on Job, says, "The book wants to transform how we think about God’s work in the world and about our responses in times of suffering. Most people look at it and think it’s about why righteous people suffer. Instead, the book sets out the question as, 'Is there such a thing as disinterested righteousness?' In this sense the book is about the nature of righteousness, not the nature of suffering."

The book is trying to shift our attention from justice to wisdom. God's lecture in chapters 40-41 is more about the certainty of God's righteousness. God is not to be judged by us as seeming unfair, because that's not how the world works. In many ways, when it comes right down to it, the life on earth is outrageously unfair. God didn't set up the world to be a fair place. Disorder and unfairness exist right alongside order and fairness. Wisdom, instead, is the foundation of how God has set up the world. Purpose, not circumstances, should be the focus of our attention when we face difficulties. Again, Walton says, "We must not underestimate God by imagining that we could do things better. Concluding that God is incompetent or less than what Scripture presents him as being is the first step to setting ourselves up as God—a transaction doomed to miserable failure."

It's perfectly OK to question God, but concurrent with the questioning must also live faith. The point of God's lecture is not "don't ask questions" but "it's beyond your understanding." We have to relate to Him honestly, and not on a "just shut up and trust with blind faith" basis. The book of Job is not about Job's suffering or the reasons for suffering. It's about how God runs the world, and what kind of God He is. For instance, the book of Job asks the question most people ask: Does the world run according to the retribution principle (good people get blessed, and people who do wrong get punished)? We all expect the world to run that way. God says it doesn't. Justice is not the foundation of how the world operates. We can't explain our circumstances by thinking about good or bad behavior. (That means about 90-100% of what people say about their circumstances is misguided, because we think in terms of "fairness", justice, and retribution.) God is just, but he's not accountable to our standards or perceptions, and that's not the way He runs the world. God is just, but we can't expect life to work that way. It doesn't, and it won't, and God is not to be blamed when it doesn't. He tell us that's not how he does things here and now. Justice will out in the end, but it's eschatological, not of this world.

I can't explicate all of Job here, but hopefully I'm pointing you in the right direction.