#9 Why Does Job Suffer? Reflections on the Key Ideas of the Book of Job

 

Remember the Structure

  • The Setting (Job 1-2): mostly prose
  • The Dialogues (Job 3-41): almost entirely poetry

First Dramatic Dialogue (Job 3-31)

      • Three rounds of conversation with three friends

Second Dramatic Dialogue (Job 32-37)

      • Elihu takes on everyone

Third Dramatic Dialogue (Job 38-41)

      • God speaks without answering
  • The Conclusion (Job 42): mostly prose

 

Why Does Job Suffer? An analysis of the dramatic responses

Dramatis Personae

From whom?

Why?

Toward what end?

Narrator

Satan

Spiritual test

Show faithfulness

Job’s Wife

Satan

Job’s god was bettered

“Curse God and die!” (2:4)

Three Friends

God (4:9)

Job has sinned

Repentance

Job

God (6:4; 12:9; 16:11-14)

“I don’t know!”

“I don’t know!”

Elihu

God (33:29)

Sometimes sin (34:11);
humanity’s lot (33:19-34)

Guidance (33:29);

Dependence

God

(not answered)

Confirm relationship with God

Surrender

Conclusion

God

Punishment (friends); Chastisement (Job)

Surrender

 

 

The Message of Job

1. Ours is not an entirely mechanistic universe:

There are spiritual powers that influence our daily lives

Not all pain and problems are the direct result of our sinfulness

2. The normal or natural human identity involves acknowledging and worshiping God

3. But the worship of God cannot be coerced

4. The fundamental challenge to human living is that of continuing to be our truest God-worshiping selves even when the limited evidence of daily experience seems to speak to the contrary

 

How Do We Respond to Pain & Suffering?

Option 1accuse & placate (Job’s friends: religious mechanism—cause/effect)

Option 2change “gods” (Satan: find another higher power when yours fails you)

Option 3give up in the face of the absurd (Job’s wife: fatalism)

Option 4live with existential boldness (Job: I don’t know but I won’t give in)

Option 5wrestle and worship (Narrator: ultimate to our existence is the Creator/Creature relationship; it is the only norming value that endorses our truest human identity, no matter what happens)

Modifié le: jeudi 9 août 2018, 08:42