Some scholars believe the Book of Job is the oldest book in the Old Testament. This is very interesting especially as we think about what the book is about. What is perhaps the first thing that God wanted everyone to know about Him?
The story of Job is about a man who believed in God and did what God told him to do. It is said that Job was a righteous man. He was a very blessed man with many possessions, businesses and a big family. Behind the scenes and unbeknownst to Job, Satan challenges God that Job only obeys Him because He blesses Job so much. God then allows Satan to take away his possessions, businesses and that big family. He is left with sorrowful, bitter wife and a diseased body. For the next many chapters, we see a conversation between Job and his three friends.
His friends try to help Job make sense of what just happened. Primarily, they believe that God blesses the good and punishes the bad. The three friends share a lot of Godly truth all the while maintaining the commitment to this theological understanding of God. Job primarily counters this understanding simply on the confidence that he has not done anything wrong. He gets so confident that He demands that God come down and tell his friends this truth.
God does show up! But He doesn’t tell Job or his friends the behind the scenes story. God simply asks questions after questions whether he knows everything that God does across the world. Almost in a state of humiliation, Job responds:
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
Job understood what God was articulating. Just as much as he doesn’t know how God makes the world work, Job doesn’t know why or how this happened to him. He really doesn’t need to know why or how, he just needs to know that God makes things happen. God is in charge.
What’s really interesting about all of this is how God finally responds to Job and his friends. God said that Job’s friends had not spoken the truth about Him as Job did. When we look closely at what his friends said, there’s no doubt that his friends did speak truths about how God could work or how God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. And when we look closely at what Job said, there’s no doubt that Job’s boldness and prideful stance of his godly living seems a little over the line.
I think the reason God backed up Job’s stance against his friends’ (even though their words were filled with good things about God) was that Job gave God the benefit of the doubt. He couldn’t explain the situation, but he knew his relationship with God was good. Having trust and faith in God in spite of the circumstances was the important thing. God will remain true to His word even when it doesn’t look like He is. Sometimes, we can’t explain it and we just don’t need to try. There are things that we do not understand, things too wonderful for us. But all in all, God’s still in control.
So, give God the benefit of the doubt…after all, He is God.
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Gosh, i really like this commentary. i was sitting at a 9/11 remembrance on Sunday and the convocation inspired me to drift to a place i had never gone before. A while back when i was considering the value of knowing it hadn't occurred to me that Jesus himself didn't know many key things. He didn't know the hour of his second coming, he didn't know who touched his cloak, he even professed to not know much of anything unless the Father had told him. At the end of his life there was even a great deal of uncertainty regarding the whole plan of salvation.
So we most certainly do have a Savior who is familiar with our suffering; the anxiety of ignorance and specter of the unknowable. i believe this is the lesson of Job which you've so aptly pointed out: purpose is not solved by knowledge and faith is the answer to uncertainty.
most excellent reply and finish to the truth. I hadn't connected those dots in my mind. That's a sermon that will preach!