Job is not, contrary to popular opinion, about why bad things happen to good people. It is about a sovereign God and the struggle to be faithful in the most difficult of circumstances. If you search for answers to the first question, you will hunt in vain and walk away frustrated by the book. If you approach with the second vision in mind, you will still struggle, but you will find deep and lasting riches.
A new set of assumptions indeed. Like assuming that God has to be 'fair' as we define fairness. We read this book and say that "it's not fair" for God to allow Job to suffer all these things. Job's friends insisted that calamities like those he suffered can never happen to a man if he is right before God with the belief that God is obligated to some cosmic quid-pro-quo - if I do something right then God is required to do something nice for me and vice versa. When God does answer with His questions: "Who is this who darkens counsel with words without knowledge?" and "Were were you when I...?", "Can you tell me how I...?" Job rightly answers with humility "I repent". He finally says, "I have declared that which I did not understand" and "teach me". This tells me that surrender to the Sovereign God is the path to peace and real understanding. Following Him requires me to have a totally new operating system - a renewed mind that learns His Ways, His Character and Nature - things that are not natural to me but must come through the work of the Holy Spirit.
A new set of assumptions indeed. Like assuming that God has to be 'fair' as we define fairness. We read this book and say that "it's not fair" for God to allow Job to suffer all these things. Job's friends insisted that calamities like those he suffered can never happen to a man if he is right before God with the belief that God is obligated to some cosmic quid-pro-quo - if I do something right then God is required to do something nice for me and vice versa. When God does answer with His questions: "Who is this who darkens counsel with words without knowledge?" and "Were were you when I...?", "Can you tell me how I...?" Job rightly answers with humility "I repent". He finally says, "I have declared that which I did not understand" and "teach me". This tells me that surrender to the Sovereign God is the path to peace and real understanding. Following Him requires me to have a totally new operating system - a renewed mind that learns His Ways, His Character and Nature - things that are not natural to me but must come through the work of the Holy Spirit.