More on the Book of Job

More on the book of Job.

• It is not the book that we think it is. It doesn’t contain answers or explanations for the existence of evil. It just says the evil happens. It happens to good people. God’s ways are beyond us. And we shouldn’t question him. And it all turns out right in the end. That’s it.
• Job questions the righteousness of what is being done to him for no good reason and God rebukes him personally in the poem or the play or whatever you would call t his book. But the friends also get rebuked. They were the ones who kept telling Job, how can you question God? He is so much more mighty and powerful and beyond your ability to comprehend. In fact, they say some of the same things that God says but they get rebuked for it–because they didn’t have the courage of the follow through their convictions. If God is so has so much more wisdom and understanding of mind than Job he also has that much more wisdom and understanding of mind than them. And their conclusion that Job must have sinned
• is trying to fit God into their box. Very beautiful book. I’m glad I spent a lot of time reading it. And it is satisfying, but not in a straightforward logical way. As a solution to the problem of evil.

• At the end, God condemns Job for Job questioning God’s justice, Job repents, and then God rewards Job and condemns Job’s friends for condemning Job but they are saved by making a sacrifice and having Job intercede on their behalf.

So the answer to the problem of evil is relationship with God and with each other, not a logical explanation at all but a solution, the sealing power.

Job’s suffering is a type of Christ, as a result of it he eventually is able to redeem his friends.

• And something I had not realized: part of what restores Job to his former blessed state is all his friends and family come to mourn with him and each donates money. It’s It’s A Wonderful Life.