Many people have difficulties with how God treats Job in the opening chapters of the book of Job. I raised some of these questions is my opening post of of this series, and then last time, explained why I was asking these questions in the first place. Now I want to begin to propose a solution to this dilemma. This post contains some background premises that form the basis to my tentative solution. I will post the conclusion tomorrow.

The Background Premises

First, I do believe that the events described in the book of Job truly did happen in history. However, if you believe Job is simply a parable, a story of fiction to make a point, I won’t argue with you. However, since I also believe the Bible is inspired by God, even if Job is just a story, I still have to ask why God inspired the author to write the story in the first place. We still have to ask ourselves what the story says about how God deals with humans, and what is going on behind the scenes in some (but not all) of the tragedies and difficulties of human life. In a way, the author is trying to answer the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Second, I do believe (as some of the comments noted) that the book of Job is the earliest book of the Bible. It was probably written during the reign of King David or King Solomon, but had an oral tradition that went way back to before the time of Abraham. This is important because I believe (as I think Flo pointed out), that in a way, the entire rest of the Bible was written to provide an answer for the questions raised by the book of Job. This means that if you have problems with how God treats Job, you are reading the book correctly! If you don’t have problems with how God treats Job, let me suggest you have a poor view of what kind of a God we worship! I believe the book is supposed raise questions about God and His dealings with His creation. And the answers to these questions are found in the rest of Scripture.

Third, one my favorite things to study is the historical/cultural background of the books of the Bible.  Reading Job from this perspective, it seems that the opening chapters of Job are like a call for champions from two warring tribes. In the Ancient Near East (ANE), sometimes battles could be fought and won simply by sending out a single champion from each opposing side to engage in mortal combat (remember David and Goliath?). Satan chooses the circumstances of life as his champion, and God chooses Job. The goal is to get Job to curse God. However, unlike such contests in the ANE, the victor of this battle does not gain mastery over the other (that contest comes later during the Satan vs. Jesus battle).

This battle theme permeates the entire Bible (e.g., see Eph 6:10-20). God is a God at War. This earth is the war zone. We are not here on planet earth as part of a vacation cruise through a cosmic wonderland, but instead find ourselves in the middle of a battle between two powerful enemies: God, the Creator of all, and Satan, who wants to be God. This is part of the reason we find so much wrong with our world.

Fourth, this war is not about us. Too much of our theology is man-centered. I sometimes hear it taught that since God is love, and He is a relational God, He created us because He wanted to have a relationship with part of His creation. How egotistical and self-centered of us! I’m not saying God doesn’t want to have a relationship with us, but that is not the primary reason He created us. I’m sure I’ll get some people calling me a heretic for saying such a thing, but the fact of the matter is that as humans, we always want to put ourselves at the center of everything. Remember when the church taught that the earth was the center of the universe and the sun, moon and stars all orbited around us? Guess what? God does not orbit around us either.

I do not think God created us so that He could battle Satan for our souls. That just seems foolish and petty. This battle is not about our souls, as if whoever gathers the most souls wins. Instead, I believe this war is about God trying to teach something to Satan and his angels. Satan, of course, is trying to prove God wrong. (By the way, isn’t it interesting that the created being in the universe who knows the most about God believes that God can be wrong and that God can be defeated? What does that say about Satan’s theology? What does it say about ours?) There are hints throughout Scripture that God created us to teach the angels (cf. 1 Pet 1:12). What are we teaching them? I have some speculative ideas, but I’m not getting into them here.

These four things are some preliminary ideas that helped form my tentative solution to the Job Problem, which I will post for your consideration tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion from the previous post. These comments, along with several email comments I received, have helped form my tentative solution over the next few days. This first post will simply provide some personal background for why I am asking these questions in the first place.

Autobiography

As you have probably guessed, my questions about the book of Job are not purely academic. Many times during the past year, my wife and I have literally yelled to God, saying “We are not Job!” I dread waking up in the morning, because it seems the first question that pops into my mind is “How is my life going to get shredded today?”

Some people say, “Well, God must be disciplining you for something. Fix it, and life will get better.” Such people need to read the book of Job a little closer and see what God had to say about Job’s friends. Furthermore, people who believe that if you just “get right with God” then everything will be “peachy keen” are living in a fairytale land. In fact, if someones life is full of ease and comfort, I’d suggest that they are the ones who might need to “get right with God.” But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Not everyone is like Job’s friends. Many people have been telling us to “just focus on the positive things.” We tried that, but it seemed that just when we started focusing on something positive in our lives, it got taken away from us too. I also noticed that whenever I prayed for something, exactly the opposite happened. If I didn’t pray for something, but just hoped, things turned out as I hoped. It seemed that praying for something or focusing on something positive caused these things to become targets for God’s heavenly pea-shooter.

I know that lots of people have gone through far worse than I have. And lots of well-meaning individuals tried to remind me of that not-so-encouraging fact. To the contrary, becoming aware of how terrible some people’s lives have turned only tends to surface the question, “What in the world is God doing?”

This question brought me back to the book of Job. As stated in my previous post, I have always had issues with God’s treatment of Job in the book. The opening chapters of the book of Job remind me of the movie Trading Spaces where two rich, old men, in an attempt to answer the “nature vs. nurture” debate, decide to gamble with the lives of two hapless victims for $1.

So in an attempt to figure out what God might be trying to do in my own life, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the book of Job, and the events it describes. In my last post, I raised the issue. I want to propose a possible solution, but as I wrote it, it became too long to publish in one blog post, so I will spread it out over the next couple days.