The Biblical Book of Job
Last Updated on Tuesday, 30 November 1999 08:00 Written by Ward Tipton Monday, 08 June 2009 17:08
Non Fiction Writing Samples - Religion and Philosophy
In this article, I am going to try to explain the Book of Job as a prophetic work. I believe that the Bible is prophetic in nature. I think that Job is symbolic of the world today. Job was not, in fact, taunted, abused or rejected by God. Satan and his minions beset Job. God allowed this to happen in order to prove his point. His point very simply was that no matter how hard Satan tried, he could not detract the true worshipers of God. I believe that is every bit as true today as it was for Job way back when.
We know that by Job’s day sin was prevalent in the world. We can trace that back to the days of the Garden of Eden even before Babel where the people of the world were dispersed and given separate languages. Job however, rejected the sinful manner in which many people lived and devoted his worship to God. God, in return had blessed Job with many possessions and a worthy family.
Satan approached God to challenge Him. The idea was to challenge God’s rule or his sovereignty. The challenge was substantially larger than any individual was. Satan (wrongly) believed that Job worshiped God only because of the physical possessions with which he was blessed. (An interesting note here is that Satan had been “Walking around the earth” beforehand Read “Is God Really In Charge?” for more information about that)
Per the Biblical account:
(Job 1:7-12) 7 Then The Lord said to Satan: “Where do you come from?” At that Satan answered The Lord and said: “From roving about in the earth and from walking about in it.” 8 And The Lord went on to say to Satan: “Have you set your heart upon my servant Job, that there is no one like him in the earth, a man blameless and upright, fearing God and turning aside from bad?” 9 At that Satan answered The Lord and said: “Is it for nothing that Job has feared God? 10 Have not you yourself put up a hedge about him and about his house and about everything that he has all around? The work of his hands you have blessed, and his livestock itself has spread abroad in the earth. 11 But, for a change, thrust out your hand, please, and touch everything he has [and see] whether he will not curse you to your very face.” 12 Accordingly The Lord said to Satan: “Look! Everything that he has is in your hand. Only against him himself do not thrust out your hand!” So Satan went out away from the person of The Lord.
God very clearly pointed out that
· Satan is in charge in the world, as evidenced by the fact that he says that all that Job has is in the hands of Satan. (This, put together with other passages from the Bible clearly indicate Satan’s role in this world)
· God himself would not turn away from anyone, no matter what. If evil was to befall anyone, it would be the doing of Satan and not of God. (James 1:13) 13 When under trial, let no one say: “I am being tried by God.” For with evil things God cannot be tried nor does he himself try anyone.
· Satan proclaimed that people would not worship God when things turned sour for them in this world. However, true worshipers would be faithful to God even under the most adverse conditions.
At that time, Satan proceeded to take all of the physical, material and familiar possessions from Job. He seemed to be convinced that this would not only turn Job away from God, but openly and blatantly curse God. As anyone who has read the book knows, that was not the case in the end, but they were trying times for Job.
Job was disheartened as disaster after disaster befell him. He lost his cattle and donkeys first. While he was still being told about this, he found out about the loss of his sheep. During this unpleasant discourse, yet another messenger came bearing the bad news about the loss of his camels. During the news about his camels, there came yet another messenger, bearing perhaps the worst news of all, that all of his children had been killed in the collapse of the eldest son’s home.
Did he curse God at the onslaught that had befallen him? He tore his clothes and shaved his head and bowed down praising the name of God.
The Biblical Account:
(Job 1:20-21) 20 And Job proceeded to get up and rip his sleeveless coat apart and cut the hair off his head and fall to the earth and bow down 21 and say: “Naked I came out of my mother’s belly, And naked shall I return there. The Lord himself has given, and The Lord himself has taken away. Let the name of The Lord continue to be blessed.”
The Biblical Account:
(Job 2:3-8) 3 And The Lord went on to say to Satan: “Have you set your heart upon my servant Job, that there is no one like him in the earth, a man blameless and upright, fearing God and turning aside from bad? Even yet he is holding fast his integrity, although you incite me against him to swallow him up without cause.” 4 But Satan answered The Lord and said: “Skin in behalf of skin, and everything that a man has he will give in behalf of his soul. 5 For a change, thrust out your hand, please, and touch as far as his bone and his flesh [and see] whether he will not curse you to your very face.” 6 Accordingly The Lord said to Satan: “There he is in your hand! Only watch out for his soul itself!” 7 So Satan went out away from the person of The Lord and struck Job with a malignant boil from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8 And he proceeded to take for himself a fragment of earthenware with which to scrape himself; and he was sitting in among the ashes.
It would seem that while Job must have been truly distraught, he still understood that things happened in the world. He did not blame The Lord, but instead he still worshipped God and praised his name.
Now granted, many people may feel it callous for God to allow these things to happen. How would God otherwise prove that his rule is the only one that will work though? I am not so egotistical as to think that we are truly like God, but when we are challenged, don’t the majority of humans offer the challenger an opportunity to prove their point?
In many instances, we are forced to give someone who challenged us an opportunity to state their case and prove their point. In return we will have an opportunity to refute their story and present our side. While it cannot be said that the truth always prevails in our world, I think it is a bit different for God.
We know that Job was put in a very bad state of affairs. He was put there by Satan however, and not by any actions of God. Some will certainly take this opportunity to cry that a lack of action on God’s part is every bit as bad as doing it himself. I disagree.
God was challenged. God has some major qualities, but among them is a sense of Justice that we cannot even truly begin to comprehend. It must be remembered that Satan is still one of God’s creations as well. Surely, God must love him as we do a child that has gone astray or a sibling or parent who no longer has the ability to decide right from wrong.
Just like a young child who goes astray, God has allowed him to wander. Perhaps this stems from a love for that “child” or creation and hopes that it will learn, or maybe it is simply because God was challenged and he wished to let Satan prove his point beyond any reasonable doubt.
This challenge actually dates back to the time when Satan was cast out from the heavens with his host of angels. We know that he wrongfully believed that he was deserving of God’s worship. Unfortunately, nobody besides God is the creator. Does the homeowner deserve the praise for the appearance of their home or did the home builder have just a little bit to do with that?
God did all the work and Satan is trying to get credit for it. Any one of us even on a lesser scale would probably do the same thing. Let the challenger build another home, let them try and create something without breaking it. The simple truth of the matter is that when it is all said and done, only the creator can create.
Ultimately, this will be shown to be the case. As Satan tries to establish himself as a ruler, many people will undoubtedly suffer and pay a heavy price for his actions. It is sad, but it is unfortunately true in this world. Only when God does resume control will things be as they are supposed to be.
We may be a long ways from that and we may not. My Bible(s) certainly give me room to believe that we are in the end-times. Even Christ however, said it was only for the Father to know the time. God will fix it, he will fix it right and he will do it in his own sweet time. In the meantime, we must remember the lessons of Job.
But did God cause this or allow it to happen?
None of us can truly question God and certainly none of us, as his creations, have a right to question his motives or his actions … though some of the Biblical teachings do lend us cause to wonder about these things from time to time. The Bible also encourages us to see out the truth as well and the Book of Job as was pointed out in the title, is actually symbolically representative of the entire world. Thus, it bears taking a closer look at this question and at least to a limited extent, supposing an answer.
When Satan, as the ruler of this world, challenged God, God was forced to answer that challenge one way or another. We do know that God has four primary qualities and those definitely come into play in this part of the Biblical Equation.
The Four Primary Qualities of God Are
· Power
· Love
· Justice
· Wisdom
Satan’s claim regarding Job was that Job was a stalwart follower of God only because of the many material possessions that he had already received from God and that without those, he would curse the very name of God. He literally challenged God’s ability to gain Job’s love and trust without material blessings. So that being the case, what were God’s only viable responses? (Within the limited capacity of human reasoning that is applied here anyhow?)
God could have simply slapped Satan down (as he could have on many different occasions, but remember, this is in relation to how Job is relevant to the world we live in today) but a demonstration of God’s power would not necessarily be a demonstration of love and would not have allowed Job (The World) to prove God’s point without his direct intervention.
The wisdom of this is symbolic in that, even existing as an entity with free will, God was confident that Job (The world) would ultimately choose God over Satan. God will be fully justified in his sole and sovereign authority of Job (The World) when Job learns his lesson, retains his faith in God despite tribulations and the loss of material things and God has proven Satan to be both a liar and incorrect.
One of the most interesting points of interest!
You may see that ultimately, Job was consoled by the elders and allowed to revel in his misery for quite some time. The elders (Symbolic of the church today perhaps?) did nothing to look at the big picture and why this was happening but only said what they believed Job wanted to hear. Do you remember in the New Testament where it talks about the churches will be teaching the traditions of men and telling people what they want to hear and “tickling their ears” rather than preaching the Truth?
Job was not brought back to the Truth by the elders but rather by a relative youngster in the congregation who had no formal education or training as far as we can tell from what is written there. Likewise, many Churches today are teaching traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation and not really telling us the whole story.
Many of the church traditions today are based on the teaching of pagan traditions that were combined with Christian traditions in an effort to appease both Pagans and the relatively new but powerful “sect” of Christians in the period between the second and fourth centuries. Now we are not saying that we are the youth that brought Job back around to a more reasonable perspective but we do say that it would behoove you to look closer at your Bibles and not satisfy yourself with the position of Professional Benchwarmer in your church.
All of us should be vigilant in seeking out the Truth and we should know that the Truth, the Light and the Way is only through Christ. The devil has sway over this world and we are all equally trapped in a world of sin that we all may be judged equally. We have a responsibility not to allow the devil to sway our free will away from the only True God.
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