I’m in the class of Job right now. I know what you’re thinking, and it’s probably the same thing that I thought when I first signed up for the class. Job is an easy book. We all think the only part of Job is the story of Job that we know as a story. We think that it’s a small nice story about how Job suffered and stayed faithful. What I didn’t realize however is that the book of Job is so full of content that it would take a lot more than a 3 credit hour course to even begin to comprehend everything that could be uncovered in this book.
The book starts off in the first two chapters telling us the story of Job. This is the part that I already knew going into the class. This is the part I’m sure you know. We also of course know the last chapter when Job gets tons of stuff back, way more than he had before. Some of us probably also know that Job is a great book to prove that Dinosaurs existed, because the author of Job mentions these two creatures. That’s about all the Job that I had in my head before entering this class.
Then I started to realize that Job was a pretty big book; forty-two chapters to be exact. Everything I knew came from three of the forty-two chapters. That left thirty-nine chapters unaccounted for. Before reading on; see if you can think up a summary of what goes on in those chapters, if you know at all.
In quick-form those chapters are a dialogue between Job, his friends and then finally God comes in at the end and shuts everybody up. The dialogue is an interesting one. We have Job who is being punished and suffering beyond anything any of us have ever even thought of suffering and then we have his three friends who are sitting around him. Job knows he is innocent. His friends have a problem though. They seem to be theologians and they seem to know what’s going on. See a prevailing theology of that day was retribution theology. This means that if you are righteous you will be blessed and if you are sinful you will be cursed. All of Job’s friends thought and would not budge from the idea that Job must be guilty of some kind of sin. We pretty much have thirty-nine chapters of Job freaking out because no one is understanding him, his friends saying the same thing over and over again and no conclusion is ever reached until God steps in.
All that was ground-work for the point I wanted to make. See all of Job’s friends had a theology in their head, they had an idea in their head and it wouldn’t budge. They were unable to see past their concepts of God. In the end, you can read it for yourself; we have Job’s friends saying the same thing over and over again. Obviously it sounds smart, they were smart men. However when they didn’t have an answer for something they simply started giving answers for what they did know.
Job’s friends went from attempting to console him and encourage him to live righteously to telling him the fate of the wicked. They said the same thing over and over again, and I was getting annoyed reading their repetitive answers. So was Job.
I find that we do a lot of this in theological conversations, and conversations with unbelievers about Christian matters. I don’t know how many times I’ve asked a question about the bible, tradition or some theological matter that is close to a certain person ‘s heart and been accused of not having enough faith or being to analytical or getting some regurgitated Christian cliché that gets neither of us anywhere. When will we start to take people’s experience, especially our unbelieving friends, into account when talking to them? If your unbelieving grandfather loses his wife, you can’t tell him “it’s ok, God has everything under control.”
Why do we insist on giving answers to questions that are never asked. I’ve been in so many conversations with pastors where I will ask them one question and I will get a barrage of answers and stories about something that I never even mentioned. Why? First, we are lazy. Second, we have a hard time looking into someone else’s world and helping them see God from their history and perspective. We think that God will be the same for us and Christianity will be experienced the same as we experienced with everyone else. The last type of people I want to be are the sorry comforters of Job who do nothing more than regurgitate clichés and theologies that have absolutely nothing to do with people and do nothing more than become a scapegoat to make us feel smart and like we have it all figured out.
you know how i feel. amen bro.
hi friend,
this is so true. i think a big reason people give answers to questions that aren’t asked are because we are prideful. we think that if we dont have the answers somehow we’re inadequate and that tears us down and we get our back up so we give an answer that we do know, whether it relates or not. sometimes i believe it’s just plain misinterpretation. but most of the time it’s stubbornness (as you said, to go into someone else’s world), lazyness and pride. ALSO, we just dont care. if we dont care enough to actually listen to what people say or ask, then there’s a pretty good chance we wont answer them correctly.
sorry this was so long.
xoxoxo.
The practice of silence, the art of listening and the dicipline of prayer are lost to many. We can’t help but have an answer to everything.
And I still think deep inside many that retribution theology is alive and well.
I’ll stop babbling now.