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.