Why aren't more Christians or seekers disturbed by the story of Job?

[JEBofChristTheLord]

I believe in God and accept that Jesus is his risen son, but beyond that I can say that I'm more of a logic guy.

Indeed, anyone who requires their favorite logic, their favorite human reasoning, for comfort, will be very disturbed by not only much of the Book of Job, but many other things God has said and done. This is why Christ the Lord treated His disciples the way He did, when they were reasoning about Him and what He said.

 

[CoreyD]

Indeed, anyone who requires their favorite logic, their favorite human reasoning, for comfort, will be very disturbed by not only much of the Book of Job, but many other things God has said and done. This is why Christ the Lord treated His disciples the way He did, when they were reasoning about Him and what He said.

You are referring to one of my favorite scriptures - John 6:28-71.
Yes, I do love Jesus' sifting method there, and it does show the difference between human reasoning, and spiritual reasoning.

I like how Peter responded to Jesus' question, “Do you also want to go away?”
But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

I think that is the key, right there - knowing the source of truth, and sticking to it, even when something does not seem to mesh with "our logic".
Actually, I was just reading something in the Bible, that did not mesh with "my logic", but knowing from where the source of truth lies, I take the position of Peter.

I am interested in how others reason though, so I started a thread "Questioning God's Actions".

 

[Richard T]

I reconcile stuff like Job with God being just. First, God tests a certain person (s). Those that may die to create the test seem to have gotten a raw deal. But have they? God could easily adjust the rewards in heaven to reflect on what they would have accomplished had the person been able to live a full life on earth. So the adjustment is made and all seems fair to me.
In this way those that died to perform Job's test were rewarded justly and all seems well.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Since God allows anything by default, any individual event is meaningless.
There are so many wrong-headed ideas about the Book of Job that it is no wonder people are disturbed.

• Satan did not ask God for permission to do anything. He did not have to. Satan has standing permission to get anyone he wants who does not have a hedge around them.
• God did not permit Satan to do anything that he did not already have permission to do. He is the adversary. He does not need permission to be adverse. Up to this point, the only thing preventing Satan from getting Job was the presence of a Hedge.
• "Behold" is not a word granting permission. It merely means "look." In this case, God told Job to "Look, everything he has is in your hands." In other words, "The hedge is down, and he is wide open."
• God did not push down the hedge; Job did that by his fears and words. Satan is not omniscient and did not know the hedge was down. God had to tell him it was. Once Satan knew the hedge was down, he rushed off to have his fun.
• People come into the book thinking that Satan needs permission, so they assume the word "Behold" means what they expect it to mean. It does not grant permission. It is merely a suggestion to "look."
• God did not harm Job; Satan did. In no instance does the story suggest God harmed Job.
• People come into the Book of Job thinking that "God is in control of everything," and so they conclude (erroneously) that the only way Satan could harm Job is if God granted him special permission to do so. This erroneous context colors their entire reading of the book and leads them to the conclusions they seek. As stated above, Satan did not need special permission to attack Job. He already had standing permission.

 

[JEBofChristTheLord]

• God did not push down the hedge; Job did that by his fears and words. Satan is not omniscient and did not know the hedge was down. God had to tell him it was. Once Satan knew the hedge was down, he rushed off to have his fun.

Why do you claim that Job had the power to push down the hedge of God?

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Why do you claim that Job had the power to push down the hedge of God?

Fear is a faith destroyer.

Matthew 14:
28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.
29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.
30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.
31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

Job 1
5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.

Job 3:
25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.

Job 3:26 (YNG)
26. I was not safe--nor was I quiet--Nor was I at rest--and trouble cometh!

Luke 8:
50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.

 

[JEBofChristTheLord]

Fear is a faith destroyer? None of the passages you have cited, contain this. And nowhere is it written that when God erects a hedge, a man has the power to destroy it, by his fear or by anything else.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Fear is a faith destroyer? None of the passages you have cited, contain this. And nowhere is it written that when God erects a hedge, a man has the power to destroy it, by his fear or by anything else.

Ok! Have a wonderful holiday season!

 

[public hermit]

God Has a Plan for Your Life—And It Might Be Horrible! - by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes

I am also disturbed by Job's story and it's one of those reasons or doctrines why I can't completely accept or reconcile the faith. I mean, what kind of father would want to willingly allow custody of their offspring in the hands of a wicked person for all of his childhood and minor life as a kind of bet or test? Who would even think that is good?

IDK why people so strongly accept and encourages others to accept a God who is supposed to hate wicked things but then lets another being do wicked things (and Satan is the second most powerful and especially compared to us, and God is the only being who is powerful enough to stop it or choose not to bet in the first place). I'm not badmouthing God entirely. I love the creation. I love humanity. But some of his other attributes can't go unquestioned.

I think if we assume the purpose of Job is to somehow explain evil, we are already on the wrong foot. That's easiest to see if we isolate the poetry from the prose. The prose intro and ending our likely later additions and likely added to try and explain the evil that happened to Job, i.e. God allows it. But if we focus on the poetry of Job, the basic ideas seem to be 1) evil is not always the result of sin, and 2) it isn't given to us to understand why God allows evil. Evil is still evil, but what God is creating is so much greater than us. To try and understand evil in relation to what happens to me, and in the context of my personal experience, is way too narrow a horizon. The one thing about the story that is important is the idea that even the very righteous can suffer evil.

If that's right, that's a very sophisticated point of view that has clearly been around longer than the Book of Job. The reality is, all kinds of horrible things could happen to me that actually have little to do with me, personally. Everything that happened to Job (sans the prose parts) just happened, and none of it was because of what Job did (unless we want to blame him for existing, which his wife kind of does lol).

The Book of Job is not so much explaining evil as exposing the reality of it in the context of human experience. What we experience as evil and God's reasons are so much greater than us. It's spiritually instructive in terms of having some humility and awe. It also gives a picture of God who delights in things that have nothing to do with us. Why did God create these things that we don't understand? The sense one gets is that God was enjoying this vast universe before we ever showed up on the scene. God's reasons for everything are greater than us, although they includes us. Not all of God's delight has to always be about us lol.

The prose parts attempt to give some accounting for all that, which isn't necessarily a mistake once one grasps the point of the poetry. It's a brute fact (assuming a Creator God exists) that God allows evil. The prose intro simply expresses that in the heavenly scene. But we're no closer to knowing, in any satisfying way, why God allows evil by reading the intro. We just walk away with the idea that God allows it. The ending is simply the promise that God will make good on having allowed evil (at least for Job lol). But what we read in between still stands as it is. Evil isn't always about us, and the reasons for evil exceed us.