Tag: suffering

05/31/22

The Foundation of the Book of Job

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We can look at the world around us and wonder will there ever be justice for the death, destruction and war in Ukraine. We can ask why God allowed hundreds of thousands of people to die from COVID; from AIDS; from ebola. Will there ever be justice for the genocide of the Tutsi people in Rwanda; for the victims of terrorism? These questions wrestle with a theological problem called theodicy, how can God be said to be good, righteous, and powerful in a world full of such disorder and evil? Walter Brueggeman, a Biblical scholar, suggested these are echoes of the dilemma of Job.

The problem of theodicy is a concern throughout the Bible, from the first pronouncement of judgment against the entire human race for the sin of Adam in Genesis, to the last plague of Revelation. But John Walton sees the dilemma of Job more particularly as the retribution principle. Satan, the adversary, claimed Job’s blamelessness and uprightness was simply because God has “blessed the work of his hands” and put a hedge around him and all that he has. If he were to lose all that he has, Satan said Job would curse God to his face (Job 1:9-12).

The retribution principle essentially says the people get what they deserve. The righteous prosper and the wicked suffer. Satan voiced this principle to God in Job 1:9, when he asked: “Does Job fear God for no reason?” The implication is that Job follows the retribution principle and obeys God because he knows it will result in his prosperity. If God were to reverse that and have Job suffer despite his righteousness, Satan predicted Job would curse God to his face (Job 1:11).

The retribution principle is an attempt to understand what God is doing in the world, to articulate it, to justify it, to systematize the logic of how God is working in the world, that God is working a justice system. You do good, you get good. You do bad, bad things happen. So, the retribution principle assumes an understanding of how God works in the world. It’s an attempt to sort of quantify or systematize it.

It’s common for people to assume their circumstances in life somehow reflect that they are in favor with God or the gods; or that they are out of favor. The retribution principle is behind the modern idiom, “What goes around comes around.” We casually say when something goes well, “Oh, I must be doing something right.” Or, “What did I do to deserve this,” when things go badly. But people in the ancient Near East widely thought that way too.

In fact, the book of Job is putting the retribution principle under the microscope because Job and his friends all believe very firmly in the retribution principle. That’s really part of the problem. They see the retribution principle. Not only do you assume that if someone is righteous, they will prosper and if someone is wicked, they will suffer, they also turn that around. If someone is suffering, they must be wicked. If someone is prospering, they must have done something right. And so, when Job’s circumstances turn so dramatically, so tragically, we know what conclusion everyone is going to draw. They’ll decide he must’ve done something really, really bad to bring this kind of disaster, to go from the heights to the depths.

That is really what we see with Job. He was living the lifestyle of the rich and famous and he fell into the lowest depths of suffering. Walton said remembering those extremes is important in order for us to think clearly about the retribution principle as we read Job. If the retribution principle is truly part of God’s policies, yet righteous people like Job suffer, then God’s justice is suspect. This seems to be the belief of Job’s wife, who encourages him to curse God and die (Job 2:9).

But if the retribution principle brings benefit and prosperity to good, righteous people, it is detrimental to true righteousness, because it sets up an ulterior motive, the anticipation of gain for doing good.

Walton suggested thinking about there being a triangle of claims within Job. At one of the lower ends of the triangle is the retribution principle; at the other lower end is Job’s righteousness. At the top of the triangle, is God’s justice. As long as Job is prospering, the triangle holds together nicely. “God is doing justice. Job is righteous, and the retribution principle is true and everything’s happy.”

But when righteous Job begins to suffer, something is wrong with the triangle of claims and it begins to fall apart. All three corners of the triangle— God’s justice, Job being righteous, and the retribution principle—can no longer all be true. But which two do you hold on to? You can’t hold on to all three; something’s got to give.

Job’s friends hold fast to the retribution principle. “Repeatedly in their speeches, they affirm the retribution principle. They apply it; they use it as part of their argumentation.” Are they really going to say God isn’t really being just with Job; or are they going to say Job isn’t really righteous? They continue to affirm God’s justice and ask Job what he did to deserve his suffering. But Job holds onto his righteousness.

Job tries to find fault with the retribution principle, but he really can’t. An so he turns his eyes towards God, and as Job’s speeches continue, they become more and more accusing of God; it becomes more and more doubtful, skeptical about God and whether He does justice at all. So, Job builds his house in his own corner and holds onto the retribution principle. He’s giving up on God’s justice.

Elihu Redefines the Retribution Principle

Then another voice, that of Elihu, who had kept quiet because of his youth, enters into the discussion. He takes his stand on God’s justice, essentially saying the retribution principle is true, but Job and his friends have got it wrong. Elihu wants to refine and expand it. He says most people think it refers to bad things you’ve done in the past— people get what they deserve. Elihu says this way of thinking about the retribution principle makes it remedial; fixing or responding to what’s gone wrong. But what if it is actually preventative, or developing?

It’s not so much what you did in the past that’s causing negative consequences, it’s something you are just getting ready to get involved in that you’re on the brink of this kind of behavior; that it’s supposed to turn you away from it. So, the retribution principle could be a response to, present developing things, instead of things in the past.

So, Elihu doesn’t have to find unrighteousness in Job’s past. He says the reason for Job’s suffering is his self-righteousness—his willingness to vindicate, to justify himself at the expense of God. The problem is not what Job did before his suffering began. It has become evident in how he responded once the suffering started. The problem is Job’s self-righteousness.

Walton said this seems to be cheating with the dilemma of the triangle of claims. By redefining what the retribution principle means, it gives Elihu an alternative the others never thought of and could not choose. Job himself is also less able to defend himself; and as he continues to affirm his righteousness, his self-righteousness becomes clearly evident. Elihu sees Job more realistically, more appropriately than the other friends. But he has his own problems because he makes the retribution principle the foundation for how he understands how God is working in the world.

How can we resolve these tensions? Bad things do happen to good, righteous people and evil people do prosper. How can we resolve the tension of the retribution principle? “Most people at one time or another experience life in such a way that it looks suspect to them. How are those tensions resolved?”

One way is to qualify the nature of God. Walton said this is what people did in the ancient Near East. “They had no confidence that God was acting justly.” Others qualified the purpose of suffering. Some said it was character-building. Today, they might refer to it as participating in Christ’s sufferings. They ultimately qualify the purpose of suffering. Walton said this does resolve some of the tensions in the retribution principle.

In the biblical texts, the Psalmist sometimes thinks about timing. In the lament psalms, most of the lamenting is in the context of the retribution principle. Why is this happening? Eventually things will smooth out. God will, at the appropriate time, act against the enemy. In Christian theology, we look to eternity. Things may be bad now, but on the scale of eternity, the things we suffer now are minor.

Or you could qualify the retribution principle according to the role of justice in the world. God acts justly, but we live in an unjust, chaotic world. “In this world, non-order continues.” We know that he hasn’t made the world conform to his own justice, because we know we’re sinful and yet we still exist. “If the world fully conformed to God’s justice, it wouldn’t be a world we could life in.” Therefore, perfect justice is not obtainable in a fallen world.

God and his world are different and he has not imposed his justice upon it. In his wisdom, God is concerned with justice. But given the constraints of an imperfect, fallen world, a not-yet fully ordered world, we’re not living in a perfectly ordered world yet. And therefore, it does not reflect his attributes throughout. None of these explanations is completely satisfying.

Walton suggested we think of the retribution principle as proverbial in nature. It’s often how things are, but does not always explain how things work. It’s not a guarantee or promise. And it does not provide an explanation of all the suffering or evil in the world.

The retribution principle tells us about the heart of God. He delights in giving good things to those who are his faithful servants. He also takes seriously the need to punish wicked people. “But he doesn’t carry those things out throughout, because it’s a fallen world and none of us could live through that.”

We shouldn’t expect it to work all the time. We have the theology of God—what he is like—standing against the theodicy of God, which explains life as we experience it. The contrasting positions of the theology and theodicy compels us to turn to God and ask him to resolve the dilemma.

The book of Job is, as it were, doing some radical surgery to separate these two principles so we don’t make the mistake of thinking that a theology of God leads to an explanation of how he is working in the world. Yahweh’s justice must be taken on faith rather than worked out philosophically. God does not need to be defended. Our attempts at theodicy, are in one sense, an insult to God. “He doesn’t need our defense.”

Walton added we cannot defend him very ably anyways. God wants to be trusted. We can’t tell when God is going to choose justice or when he’s going to choose mercy. We can’t tell where his compassion might override something else that he “ought” to be doing. Justice is a part of God, but does not trump all the other attributes God has.

Jesus and the Retribution Principle

Jesus was repeatedly challenged with retribution questions. For example in John 9, Jesus heals the man born blind. The disciples posed the retribution principle in their question saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  If the answer is the man sinned, why was he was born blind. If the answer is his parents, why did he suffer? Their question is a question of cause; a theodicy question.

But Jesus said: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” In effect, Jesus tells them not to look to the past and ask about cause. That’s not the answer. Instead, he tells them to look to the future and think about purpose, namely that the works of God might be displayed. The glory of God is a purpose, not a cause.

Walton said this was the same answer Job got from God—“trust God’s wisdom and seek out his purpose.” Don’t expect to get causal explanations. When Jesus addressed issues concerning retribution principles, he consistently turned away from giving reasons or explanations for cause and pointed to what God intended to do. That’s essentially what the book of Job is about.

This was a retelling of Lecture 7 of Dr. John Walton’s YouTube series of 30 mini lectures on the book of Job, “Theological Foundation: Retribution Principle, Tringle.” Dr. Walton also wrote the commentary on Job for NIV Application Commentary Series, for which he was one of the contributing editors for the Old Testament.

05/10/22

Thoroughly Following the Path of Recovery

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When discussing “Salvation” in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, M.J. Harris said it had three tenses: the past, the present and the future. Trusting in the reality of our past deliverance in Christ, salvation can be understood as a past event. ‘Being saved’ is also an ongoing, present process as believers strive to manifest the reality of that salvation in our present lives (Romans 6:6, 12-14, 19). Yet the ultimate consummation of salvation lies in the future when Christ will return and redeem His creation. Christians are saved in hope with the expectation of the redemption of the body (Romans 8:23-24).

There is a similar sense of three tenses in recovery: a past decision to be abstinent, coupled with a present commitment to change, which results in the future realization of recovery. Abstinence may be a past completed action, but recovery is also a process of change that continues throughout the life of an addict or alcoholic. In this way, there is an eschatological sense to both salvation and recovery, where growth and change is a progressive process of striving for a fulfillment we cannot achieve in this life. Progress, not perfection applies equally to the journeys of salvation and recovery.

The Importance of Faith

(Romans 5:1-2) Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

The three tenses of salvation are embedded in what Paul says here. Paul concludes that since we have been justified by faith (a past completed action), which he convincingly demonstrated in chapters one through four of Romans, we now have (present tense) peace with God “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We also have access by faith into the grace in which we stand (present tense); and so, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. The past completed work of Christ results in grace and peace with God; and we rejoice in the future hope of the glory of God. No human being will ever be justified by works of the law (Romans 3:20). But now the righteousness of God through faith in Christ is available as a free gift for all who believe (Romans 3:21-4:25; esp. v. 3:24).  Therefore, we rejoice, because what had seemed hopeless is no longer hopeless because we have been justified by faith.

While it clearly lacks the centrality of Christ, consider the parallels with this example of the three tenses of recovery.

J. B. boldly declared there was never a clearer example of faith in God than his. As an alcoholic, “Four walls and a bottle had become my world.” He drank until he was unconscious. He carried on conversations with “the man who wasn’t there.” He imagined little bugs crawling under his skin; and more. With the help of a friend, he came to the realization that he had been trying to run his own life. “I had always known there was a Higher Power, but I had forgotten God. He hadn’t forgotten me.” He was convinced that only a power greater than himself could cure him of his obsession for liquor. With complete faith, he turned to God. He admitted defeat and asked for help. He began to work the principles of the A.A. program.

I found peace within myself. I felt in harmony with, and became conscious of, the power of God. It is in the air we breathe, in the wonders of creation. . . . I changed on the inside, so life for me changed on the outside. I have faith in myself again. I became free of that pattern of running away from life and myself. I didn’t need an escape. My alcoholic problem had disappeared. . . . I am grateful and humble to be a part of something so big and wonderful; a spiritual program that is growing, and whose principles can be applied to all our daily affairs. It is simple. It is faith. (“When Faith Helped Me Most,” AA Grapevine, November 1952)

Suffering Leads to Hope

(Romans 5:3-5) More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Paul says that not only do we rejoice in our future hope of the glory of God, we also rejoice in our present sufferings or troubles. Our present peace is not just because of our future hope. Right now, in the midst of our troubles we can rejoice, because suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. The Greek term for “character” here denotes something that has been proven by trial. Perseverance or spiritual tenacity in the midst of trials and suffering produces character, which leads to hope. There is a progressive spiral upwards that begins with the grace we obtained by faith and ends with hope that will not put us to shame.

The implication here is that we cannot be defeated; there is always hope in achieving the glory of God, if we remain faithful. Looking ahead to our future hope, confident of its fulfillment because we have been justified by faith, we endure in suffering. As we continue to bear up under trying circumstances, Robert Mounce thought we developed strength of character. “Christian suffering is a source of joy because its purpose is to build character in the believer.”

Christianity is not a masochistic rejoicing in suffering, but it is a confidence that when we rely upon Christ in the midst of our suffering, we cannot be defeated. But without faith, there is a progressive downward spiral: suffering brings about despair; despair leads to faint-heartedness; and faint-heartedness produces hopelessness. Hope leads to more hope; hopelessness brings about greater hopelessness.

In “Embers of Hope,” a man described the consequences of a decision he made to end his life on Labor Day, 2001. After drinking himself into oblivion, he set fire to his house and staggered into the woods behind his home. There he put a shotgun with a rifle slug under his chin and pulled the trigger.

An hour later he awoke, filled with disgust for failing to end his life. He’d only brought one shell and couldn’t go back home for more, because by this time there were twelve fire companies on the scene. So, he crawled further into the woods, hoping that he would bleed to death before anyone could find him. In what he said was “an act of Providence,” he had a moment of clarity and somehow found the strength to walk the distance he had crawled into the woods.

A photographer for a local paper who saw him at first thought he was some kind of a Halloween decoration, with his jaw blown away and his left eye hanging out of its socket. The doctors who treated him said it was a miracle he was alive; ten more minutes in the woods and he would have most likely bled to death.

In the hospital, I awoke one morning and standing next to my bed was the pastor from the local church in my community. He asked me in no uncertain terms if I had had enough yet and handed me a Bible and the A.A. Big Book. With tears streaming down my face, I reached out for the books. With a nod of submission, I started my journey into recovery.God has turned my shadow of death into another morning and A.A. is giving me the tools to live in this day. I am powerless over alcohol, and I firmly believe that what my human helplessness could not overcome, God’s divine enablement can. (AA Grapevine, June 2007).

The reason for us to have hope as we endure suffering is: “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” This love is God’s love for us, which does not waver and cannot fail. He has loved us with an everlasting love and continues His faithfulness to us (Jeremiah. 31:3). The Greek word translated as poured in Romans 6:5 has the sense of dying as a sacrifice (Matthew. 26:28; Mark. 14:24; Luke. 22:20). Paul is obviously thinking of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ through which we receive the Holy Spirit. This love of God has also been poured into our hearts; and what rules our heart, rules our behavior (Matthew. 6:21; Luke. 6:45). Again, the result is that we will be like Him. We shall be at peace with God and full of the glory of God. So we rejoice in our sufferings, as we rejoice in hope of the glory of God, because nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ (Romans 8:39).

Often in recovery there is a tendency to focus efforts on addictive behavior, the wrong doing of addiction. Don’t drink and go to meetings. Don’t pick up the first joint, pill, fix or drink. Stay away from people, places and things associated with addiction. Although these behavioral changes are necessary, they are not sufficient for long-term recovery. Just not using drugs or alcohol (abstinence) and systematically modifying your addiction-related behavior is a shallow imitation of true recovery. Without concurrent attention to the wrong being of addiction, the addict or alcoholic will eventually resume active drinking or drug use. There has to be a corresponding change in the heart and soul of the addict or alcoholic; you must abstain from active drinking or drug use and then change the thinking, feeling and attitude patterns that were part of the addictive lifestyle. You have to transform, to metamorphose your mind (Romans 12:2).

On February 20, 2001, a man named ‘John’ was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The driver turned himself in and was incarcerated for vehicular homicide. Despite three previous citations for drunken driving, he had continued to drink. The night of the accident, he swore he’d never drink again; Again. But after a year of being locked up, it became “I will never drink and drive again.”  One day he went to an A.A. meeting in prison, and realized it was three years to the day of the accident. He took that as a sign and has been active in A.A. and practicing the Twelve Steps ever since. He’d been contacted previously by John’s brother, and so after a year in A.A., he wrote another letter to John’s brother, saying that he belonged to A.A. and was practicing the Twelve Steps in his life. He hoped his story would reach another alcoholic, “and–in John’s memory–save at least one family from the tragedy I had put his family through.” Ten months later, he received a letter, which said:

I am John’s mother and will celebrate five years of sobriety on the twenty-second-of this month. I do not know what direction this letter will take–I leave it to God to guide me. Twenty-nine years ago, I gave birth to John and, in honor of the way he lived and the loving memories I have of him, I find the right thing to do is to reach out to you. John’s brother shared your letter of amends. I cannot describe the gratitude I felt and the healing that letter brought. I sobbed in my sponsor’s arms and let go of so much of what I had kept inside me. Thank you. I pray that you will keep on the path of sobriety and receive God’s love and forgiveness. (“A Letter from the Mother of the Man I Killed,” AA Grapevine, December 2006)

“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. . . . It works–it really does” (Alcoholic Anonymous, p. 58).

If you’re interested, more articles from this series can be found under the link for “The Romans Road of Recovery.” “A Common Spiritual Path” (01) and “The Romans Road of Recovery” (02) will introduce this series of articles. If you began by reading one that came from the middle or the end of the series, try reading them before reading others. Follow the numerical listing of the articles (i.e., 01, 02, or 1st, 2nd, etc.), if you want to read them in the order they were originally intended. This article is the 13th in the series. Enjoy.

03/8/22

The Ancient Near East and Job

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“The Bible is written for us, but it’s not written to us. It’s not in our language. It’s not in our culture. It doesn’t anticipate our culture or any other culture since that time.” So, when John Walton teaches about the book of Job, he dives deep within what the surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East thought and believed about their relationship with their gods. Here are some of his insights on the book of Job and its relationship to the ancient Near East.

The book of Job is fully embedded in the ancient world. Even though it’s nor indebted to any particular piece of literature in the ancient world, it’s embedded in that world. That means the conversation about Job is unfolding in that context. Even when the book is taking a different perspective from what others in that time and culture might take, it’s still having the conversation in the context of that culture. As you read Job, notice how Job’s friends represent Near Eastern thinking and how he resists it and them.

While Job is not an Israelite (he’s from the land of Uz), it’s evident the book of Job is an Israelite book. It was written by Israelites for Israelites. Also, since it talks about the situation of a pious sufferer, it fits into a literary category known in the ancient world. There are several other pieces of literature that discuss the pious sufferer. However, the answers given in the book of Job are very different from what is found in other works of the ancient world.

There is an early Sumerian work called, “A Man and His God.” In this work, the person is suffering. He confesses himself ignorant of any offense that he might have committed. He suffers illness. He’s a social outcast. “But at the end of the book, sins are revealed to him and he confesses his sins and is restored to health.” The philosophy here is there is no sinless child born; everyone has sins.

There is an Akkadian Mesopotamian text called “A Dialogue Between a Man and His God.” Again, the person is ignorant of any possible offense. The pious sufferer motif is the idea that someone who on the surface looks like they’ve done everything right, that they are pious in all the right ways, yet they are suffering. Here, the man suffers illness and eventually is restored to health. There is no philosophy given here; no divine favor assured.

“One of the most famous pieces of literature in the ancient world is another Akkadian, Babylonian one called “Ludlul bel Nemeqi,” “I Will Praise the God of Wisdom.”  Again, there is a character who is conscientious and pious, ignorant of any possible offence. And yet, he finds himself a social outcast. He’s suffering illness. What the gods say is unclear. His protective spirits have been chased away. He talks about demon oppression. In the resolution of his situation, the god appears in a dream and gives him a way to make a purification offering that brings appeasement. His offenses are born away; his demons are expelled; he’s restored to health.

Again, the implication is that he was not really without offense. The philosophy behind this work is that the gods are inscrutable. Who can know what they are doing? It ends in a hymn of praise to the Babylonian god, Marduk.

There is a final work called “The Babylonian Theodicy.” Here the person claims piety, but his family is gone and he’s suffering poverty. In this case, there isn’t any resolution of his situation. The conclusion is that the purposes of the god are remote; you can’t tell what they’re doing. It seems to say that the gods have made people with evil inclinations and prone to suffering. That’s just the way things are.

“We can see that they offer a very different perspective on the gods and the suffering people experience.” The answers we find here is divine inscrutability— you really can’t know what the gods are doing. Everyone sins, “and therefore in suffering, you can never claim that it was not deserved.” Or even that the gods made humanity crooked. No one can do everything that the gods require. “So, there would always be something that the gods can get angry about.”

There tends to be less of an inclination to assign blame for suffering in the ancient Near East. “People are really without information. The gods have not communicated forthrightly.” The Egyptian, Babylonian, Canaanite or Hittite gods have not really revealed themselves. There is no clear communication about what they desire, what will please them. “There is no sense of that in the ancient world.”

People in the ancient Near East believed the gods were largely inconsistent and had their own agendas. They might act differently from one day to the next. Therefore, even though they feel their situation is the result of the god’s neglect, anger or change of mind, “they really have no way to think through it all.”

In the ancient world, if the gods became angry, people believed they would remove their protection; and as a result, the individual would be vulnerable, “in jeopardy from demonic powers” or other forces. In “Ludlul bel Nemeqi,” after the person has done everything he can think to do, he says,

I wish I knew that these things were pleasing to one’s god. What is proper to oneself is an offense to one’s god. What is in one’s heart seems despicable is proper to one’s god. Who knows the will of the gods in heaven? Who understands the plans of the underworld gods? Where have mortals ever learnt the way of a god?

Notice the frustration in what the speaker says. What would it be like to live in such a world, where there are powerful beings who affect everything you do, but have not told you what they expect of you or what will please them; or what will make them angry. What if you had a job like that, where you were being held accountable, yet your boss never made it clear what it was you were supposed to do or not supposed to do? And that you were punished or rewarded based on your guesses.

The Bankruptcy of Polytheism in Job

This is a little of what is in the literature behind the book of Job. “But Job so far transcends them; has so much more to offer.” For example, with Job there is no inclination toward polytheism even though in the ancient world, polytheism was the common way to think about the gods. There is a small bit of a community in the opening chapters with the divine council, but no suggestion of polytheism. Job even makes some affirmations to stand against polytheism. In Job 31:26-28, he swears he has not been enticed by the sun or moon, which would have been iniquity, “for I would have been false to God above.”

This only makes sense in a monotheistic Israelite context. All the other people groups around routinely worshipped the sun and the moon. This wasn’t an aberration. Only in an Israelite context would this have been a reasonable claim for Job to make that he had not raised his hands to praise the sun or the moon. Job has a good deal of certainty about his righteousness, giving the book a very Israelite feel.

Job shows no curiosity about which god has brought him trouble. He seems to know exactly which God he is talking to; no others are in the picture to confuse the situation. “Sometimes if one god is giving you trouble, you can appeal to another god to help you out of it.” Job makes no such an appeal to any other god. “He is only working through one God.”

In the ancient world, they believed the gods had created humans because they had become tired of meeting their own needs. The gods would get hungry or thirsty, they would need clothing and housing. “They had to grow their own food, irrigate their own fields, build their own houses.” This was tiring, exhausting work. The gods decided to create slave labor; people who will meet their needs.

“So people were created so that they would meet the needs of the gods and pamper them.” But then the gods had to do things for the people they created. Once they became dependent on people to meet their needs, they had to preserve them. They had to send enough rain for people to grow the crops to feed the gods and themselves. If the people died of starvation, they couldn’t feed to the gods.

“The gods had to protect their interests by providing for people and protecting people.” Today, we would say there was a codependency between the gods and people. The gods depended on the people to pamper them; and the people depended on the gods for protection and provision. Here is one of the places where justice fits. The gods were interested in preserving justice not because it was inherent in their nature, but because if there was mayhem and chaos, if society was not ordered and just, then people could not attend to their duties in pampering the gods.

“The gods had some self interest in making sure there was justice, order in society.” So, when Satan asked, “Does Job fear God for no reason?” (Job 1:9), the question hit at the very foundation of the symbiotic, codependent relationship between the gods and people. “In the ancient world, nobody served god for nothing. The whole idea of serving god was so that god would return the favor.” No one in the ancient world served god for nothing; the rituals were so that the gods would bring prosperity and protection.

The very premise of the book of Job denies that this so-called codependency between the gods and people will always be in place. “Only in Israel could you begin to think in that direction.”

“The book’s answers do not hinge on human nature or divine nature, but on God’s policies in the world. How does God work? And in that sense, again, it’s very unlike what we find in the ancient Near East.” The book of Job, then, is not indebted to any piece of ancient Near Eastern literature. “It uses the ancient Near Eastern literature as a foil.” It wants you to think about the other answers that were given, to see how bankrupt they are.

This was a retelling of Session 5 of Dr. John Walton’s YouTube series of 30 mini lectures on the book of Job, “Job and the Ancient Near East.” Dr. Walton also wrote the commentary on Job for NIV Application Commentary Series, for which he was one of the contributing editors for the Old Testament.

01/25/22

God Is not a Vending Machine

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The book of Job in the Bible is not about Job. “Job” is the title of the book, and he is a main character, but the book is not about him. In the beginning of the book, Job loses all his wealth, his children and his health, but the book is not about suffering. When you get to the end of the book, all of what Job lost at the beginning is restored, and then some. So, what is going on here?

If you go to the book of Job, thinking that you are getting an answer to why there is suffering in the world or in your life; you’re going for the wrong reason. And you are going to be disappointed. It is not going to tell you that.

Dr. John Walton, an Old Testament professor at Wheaton College, has a YouTube playlist of 30 mini lectures on Job. The above quote and the discussion that follows on were based on his first lecture, “Interpretation problems and false ideas about Job.” Dr. Walton also wrote the commentary on Job for NIV Application Commentary Series, for which he was one of the contributing editors for the Old Testament.

Job is unique, not only in the Old Testament, but within the entire ancient world. The first problem Walton wants to address is what does the book of Job actually say. The Hebrew in the book is the most difficult in the Old Testament. There are many words in Job that only occur once in the Hebrew Bible. So, there are difficulties understanding the meanings of some words and how they are used.

Then there is the issue of what kind of literature or genre Job is—how did the author communicate what he wanted to say? Walton sees Job as a unified, coherent text. In his commentary on Job, Walton said Job is unarguably wisdom literature, rather than historical literature. “As wisdom literature it makes no claims about the nature of the events.” A discussion about whether the events are real events misses the mark.

As wisdom literature, Job could be thought of as a “thought experiment.” If this is the case, the author is using various parts of Job to pose philosophical scenes that address wisdom themes. Walton said in both philosophy and science, hypothetical situations are explored for their philosophical value. “The point is not to claim that the events in the thought experiment did happen, but they draw their philosophical strength from the realistic nature of the imaginative device.”

So, if the book of Job is a thought experiment, the reader should draw conclusions about God from the final point, not from every detail in the book. For example, the opening scene in heaven is not intended to inform us about God’s activities and nature. “We would not rule out the possibility that such a scenario could happen, but we would be mistaken to think that author seeks to unfold a series of historical events. It is wisdom literature.”

A common misperception when reading the book is that Job is on trial. Job thinks he’s being accused of wrongdoing and is being punished for it. He claims he’s been wrongly accused and treated inappropriately; he sees himself as the victim. However, he thinks he’s on trial and so do his friends. Job has trials; he’s not on trial. The book makes this very clear from the beginning; Job is not on trial.

The book is not about Job. It doesn’t present Job as a role model for us to follow in the midst of suffering. It is about God. We need to see what it teaches us about God, not what it teaches about Job. It is a wisdom book, and wisdom is ultimately about God.

It is not a treatise on God’s justice. If you look for an explanation of God’s justice in Job, you’ll be disappointed. The book of Job does not explain or defend God’s justice. Job’s accusations against God concern His justice. And our questions about suffering often concern justice. “But the book of Job does not defend God’s justice. Instead, it defends God’s wisdom.”

If we think it defends God’s justice, then we’ll try to justify or somehow explain what happened to Job. But to do that, we’d need all the information there is on the issue, but only God is omniscient. From the beginning of the book, we know Job and his friends do not have all the information about what’s going on. They know nothing about the opening scene in heaven. “We are not in a position to try to talk about whether God is just or not.”

The book of Job is also not designed to help us think about suffering. Rather, it is designed to help us think about God when we are suffering. “That’s what we really need to know.” It is a book about trusting God, rather than answers that explain the suffering we see in the world. Trusting God should be our response when we don’t know what’s going on—as it was with Job.

The book of Job is more about what constitutes righteousness than about why we suffer. In Job 1:9-10, Satan said to God, “Does Job fear God for no reason?” Then Satan said God has put a hedge around Job and all that he has. Walton thought Satan is asking God what really motivates Job’s righteousness. Here is one of the theological, philosophical issues grappled with in Job.

If Job behaves the way he does because he expects to get prosperity and reward, his “so-called righteousness is just going to dissolve in the wind.” This seems to be the view expressed by Job’s wife, who asks why he continues to hold on to his integrity and counsels him to curse God and die (Job 2:9). The book of Job challenges its readers to be righteous even when they are suffering. “It challenges us to be righteous because righteousness is what should characterize our lives.” It calls us to be faithful because God is God, and not because he is generous.

“God is not a vending machine,” where we insert righteous behavior and expect his favor in return.

This was a retelling of Session 1 of Dr. John Walton’s YouTube series of 30 mini lectures on the book of Job, “Interpretation problems and false ideas bout Job.” Dr. Walton also wrote the commentary on Job for NIV Application Commentary Series, for which he was one of the contributing editors for the Old Testament.