Job

The Book of Job is one of the most profound books in the Bible, and is a literary masterpiece. While Job was a real person, a non-Israelite who lived in BC 2000-1000, the book is written not as a biography of Job’s suffering, but something much more like a courtroom play, where God is on trial. Early in the story,  “The accuser,” Satan, claims that people who are righteous are only so because it pays. He simultaneously accuses the righteous of being unrighteous, as he accuses God himself of unrighteousness, because his policy of prospering the righteous is counter-productive to true righteousness. This is a question that cannot be ignored, and so God gives the accuser limited power to bring calamity to Job. Now in the other corner of the courtroom, Job claims that allowing the righteous to suffer is contrary to justice. God appears to be trapped between a rock and a hard place.

God allows all accusations to be made before he comes to his own defense late in the book. But as the story unfolds, we see that the best arguments the world has to offer (represented by Job’s friends) are in the end very unsatisfying. Must God’s justice be reduced to a formula, where he only prospers the righteous and doesn’t ever allow them to suffer? This is much too simplistic. How should we think about God when life goes desperately wrong? In the end, the book of Job teaches that we should not expect all of the answers or to live in a world that is not plagued by injustice. Instead, we should trust in God’s wisdom. And if we have good reason to believe God is wise, then we have good reason to believe He is just.

Listen as John brings this story to life once again and helps us consider how the wisdom of this book is relevant for us today, and how the wisdom of the world fails in comparison.