Reading: Why Does Job Suffer? (Video Slides)

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

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

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

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

Option 5 – wrestle 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)