I was a little slow this week so I decided to get a head start on the reading plan, (I am now about two weeks ahead) so I read the book of Job in about three days, and I actually found it fascinating and beautiful. So here is a quick synopsis and my thoughts of the book, please keep in mind that this was not an in-depth study, and I am by no means a Bible scholar. (I read the HCSB version, you should check it out).
The books starts out with God and Satan talking, Satan just came from scouring the world, and God says something to the effect of “Hey man, did you see Job, he is a pretty awesome servant of mine” and Satan is like, “Psshhh, whatever man, that is just because you have blessed him, I mean who wouldn’t love someone who gave them all this sweet stuff”, so God says, “Fine, you know what you can test him. See what happens. But, you can’t harm Job, you can do anything you want otherwise.”
So Satan proceeds to kill all of Jobs son’s and daughters and take all of his possessions, (and Job was pretty much the “Bill Gates” of his time. But guess what?? Job doesn’t curse God, instead he honors him more. So then God dial’s up Satan and is like “What’s up now!” then Satan is like “Well you didn’t let me touch him, I mean your are really cramping my style man”, so God is like “Fine! You can touch him but just don’t kill him”.
Satan then proceeds to inflict Job with sores, and all sorts of medical badness, but doesn’t kill him.
What Job's arm may have looked like... I know, gross!
Here is where the story shifts gears. Job starts complaining to God, he is like “God, what the heck? I did everything you asked me to do and I am getting inflicted with all this nastyness??” and so forth, he still loves God, but is trying to figure out why God appears to be punishing him.
Job has three friends who respond to Job’s complaints, and they all pretty much have the same answer, “Well you must have done something to upset God, I mean, God only punishes evil people. So somewhere you must be evil.”
Job’s response is something like, “Well I have seen some evil people prosper, if only for a little while, so I don’t think you can say that God only punishes ALL evil people”
And it goes back and forth for a while, but Job’s last friend finally lays it all out. He says something to the effect of, “Job quit lying bro, you did some nasty stuff that we don’t know about, because I know God is perfectly just and He wouldn’t do something like this to a perfectly good person. Give it up man, tell us what you did.”
At the end God himself jumps in, taking the form of a tornado type thing. He tells Job that he did well, and tells his friends that they have sinned by putting God into their form of “Justice”, and might I add God has some pretty good points. He talks about “Behemoths” which I can only assume are dinosaurs, and how he made these huge creatures that eat grass, when they could easily hunt and kill smaller animals. He also talks about how humans are able to tame and control these large Oxen, which are much larger than humans and should not necessarily have to be subject to them. So God points out that He has ultimate wisdom and justice. (I would note that I may be totally wrong on what God was trying to convey to Job there)
I would have to agree with God, I mean there is so much on this earth, the way it was created and/or evolved that just doesn’t make sense, and that we don’t know anything about. Like the oxen, why don’t they take over the world? Additionally I would like to point out that God’s form of Justice is very different then our own. For example in the early days he would punish and entire line of descendants for the mistake of one of their ancestors (aka Cain), and that doesn’t really seem fair to me, but it did to God so I’ll take it. Plus there is so much that our minds just cannot comprehend, like “Eternity”, or how time is relative to the speed of light.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that God is how we explain what we can’t understand, because I think that through science/math and observation we can learn a lot about the universe, however, I believe that God is bigger than all that and God is one thing we may never be able to fully comprehend.
One day when I sit with Jesus perhaps he will tell me, but if not that’s ok too, as long as I get to be with Him.
Love,
Ryan
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