Reading for August 21
Job 1:1-3:26
I gotta admit, I am really nervous about reading Job. With the way my faith has been challenged through reading the OT, I am afraid that this story of this poor guy - who is essentially tortured so God can prove a point - will severely damage my beliefs. I have read this whole book before just because I think it's one of the more interesting stories in the Bible, but I'm curious to see how my view of it changes in the context of the rest of it. Alright, enough hemming and hawing. Time to start reading this thing...
Damn - this is some heavy stuff. It's hard to read simply because of Job's suffering. OK let me recap first...
Job was a model Jew. He feared God, he followed all the commandments - the book says he was blameless. He even set up a burnt offering every morning in the off chance that one of his seven sons had sinned against God. This guy was into preventative repentance - he was that good.
And because of his strict obedience, God blessed him. He had many children, a large amount of land, a good wife and many servants. Now - during this time, Satan comes up to meet God in what I think is the first chronological mention of Satan in the Bible. I always pictured this meeting being like Jerry and Newman from Seinfeld...
"Helloooo...Satan..."
"Hello God!"
Anyway, God says "Hey check out Job. He is blameless and fears me and is totally awesome." Satan says, "Well you've given him a pretty cushy life - I would probably even praise you if I had his life." To which God replied, "Oh yeah? Do your worst - he will still praise me."
So the next day, Job was out in his field when one after another, servants came running up to tell him that all his animals were swept away, then another that all his animals were killed, then another that all his servants were killed, then another that all his children were killed. All within the span of what the text makes seem like five minutes, Job loses absolutely everything. His livelihood, his income, and his entire family - all at once. I think my brain would literally explode. Here is how Job reacted:
Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:Some time later, God and Satan met again because of one of Kramer's hairbrained schemes. God said, "Hey check it out. Job is still praising me even after you did all that crap to him." Satan said "Well, he's still got his health - let me at that." "Fine, do it." God said. So the next day Job woke up with boils and painful sores covering his whole body.
"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised."
9 His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"His wife reacted like any normal person would. Essentially saying - "Hey, even if God does exist, he's got it out for you. Just get it over with." But Job was very wise in his response, and I think this is an important but confusing piece of theology.
10 He replied, "You are talking like a foolish [e] woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"
Technically, God didn't do those things to Job. He authorized Satan to do them, which I suppose is just as bad, but I had always thought that Satan convinced God to do those things to him. So when he says "Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?" that trouble is technically Satan, not evilness from God.
The other thing that struck me while reading this again is something that I have been thinking about in my own life. When Satan challenges God by saying that Job is such a good Jew because his life is easy, I often feel that my faith in God springs from the same well. I haven't had a huge tragedy in my life or had to endure any long periods of hardship, and as weird as it sounds, I sometimes find myself wanting something terrible to happen to me so I can experience what it's like. I don't know what would happen to my faith, honestly. I can tell you right now that if all my friends and family died in one swoop and I lost my job and suddenly contracted a super painful cancer, I wouldn't have reacted in the way Job did. If Job is anything, he is admirable in the steadfastness of his faith.
It does bring up the question of motive though. God allowed this to happen for what greater purpose? To prove to Satan that he's awesome? That's sort of a dick move. We're always told that suffering happens for a greater purpose - "All things work together" and all that. What benefit came out of this story aside from us having an impossible role model to measure ourselves against?
Now, critical thinking cap on - Paul keeps saying that the OT is in place to help us grow and give us examples of times before Christ. Of the many stories in the Old Testament, this one is one of the harder ones to take as fact. How would the person who wrote this know what was happening between God and Satan? I mean, I'm down for divinely inspired work, but this is pretty specific. So it seems possible to me that this story didn't happen, or at least not the way its portrayed here. Maybe all those things did happen to Job and someone added in the God/Satan details afterwards to try and make sense of it.
So if we get past the why of this story and focus on the what - the direct cause and effect, I think we start to see a more purposeful image rise out of it.
1 Corinthians 14:1-17
OK - now we're talkin speaking in tongues. This is a strange subject in Christianity - I have never been one to explore it too deeply and have always found it a little frightening. I have no problem with people who do it, but it's just not for me. Paul is sort of emphasizing the importance of it here, though. Saying that speaking in tongues and prophesying are the two most important gifts one could hope to inherit. Now, this completely destroys his message of every gift is equally important. So the message should be "Everyone's gifts are equally important, except those who can speak in tongues and prophesy - those people are better than you."
Psalm 37:12-29
18 The days of the blameless are known to the LORD,
and their inheritance will endure forever.
Umm...no it won't. At least not for Job...
Proverbs 21:25-26
25 The sluggard's craving will be the death of him,
because his hands refuse to work.
26 All day long he craves for more,
but the righteous give without sparing.
Hey hey. Good night night.
At seminary, the best class by far that I have taken is my course on Job. I really feel for you trying to read the whole book however--in my ten weeks of class, we only read 1-12, 19, and 40-42.
ReplyDeleteI won't tell you how I read Job, but I'll point out a couple things in the first few chapters that caught my eye.
Job is not a Jew, nor is he an Israelite. Job is from the land of Uz, a place that might not even exist, but is used literately in a way that would translate in today's English as "in land far far away". Jewish and early Christian tradition make Job a contemporary of Abraham, so in a way Job can be seen to precede not only the Moses covenant, but also the Abrahamic. The whole point of me telling you this is to drive home the point that Job lives in a mythic time and place outside of any conception of Jewish law. The question that might follow from this is, what the heck is the book of Job doing in the Bible?
I think you let God off the hook. The character of Satan in the book of Job has no power of his own, only what God allows and actually makes happen. I could go through verse by verse and show this, but that would be too much for a blog comment. All I'll do is draw your attention to verse 2:3. " Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason."
God ruined Job without any reason at all. Wow.
The other bits that I think you might find interesting is that in Hebrew, the word "curse" as in "curse God and die" is actually the word for "bless". Jewish tradition has always insisted that it be translated as "curse" though.
My Job professor pointed out that chapter 3 is quite possible one of the most "blasphemous" parts of Scripture, outside a verse in Jeremiah where Jeremiah implies that God raped him.
But as you probably noticed, it is Job's friends who get condemned by God at the end, not Job himself. They're the ones who keep saying to Job, suffering happens for a reason, you must have done something wrong so God is punishing you, good things will come out of this suffering, etc etc etc. It is Job who says through out the entire story that such justifications for God's behavior are bullshit. Job cries out against God's injustice throughout the entire story, and insists that he will not be silenced.
If you can't tell, I love the book of Job, and I'm excited to follow you as you read through it. Good luck man.