Intro to Job: IT WON'T BE AS BAD AS YOU THINK
We next move over to the book of Job. Job is called Job because reading it is a lot of work. :o)
Ok, Job actually means something like “to come back” or to repent. “Fun times”, said nobody ever when starting the book of Job. But we can do this!
Job is the oldest book in the Bible and was likely based upon a story verbally recited before it was written down. I have read that in the original language, it was poetry. Nothing like a gloomy poem to get me reading. It was also written in a format that looked like it might be performed as a play. The Bibleheads are not sure who wrote the book, but it is certain Job did not. Maybe Moses or someone before him. But it was a Hebrew writer because of the language used. It was in an early form of Aramaic and the language was very hard to translate accurately.
We are told a lot of information that Job does not know during his lifetime. This tells me that there are things I will never understand during my lifetime. I always wonder if Job was a real man or if this is a parable. I would like for it to be an allegory. The format is very different than any of the surrounding text. But it was probably a poetic recitation of the events that happened to a real man.
I usually mentally resist the message in Job for a couple of reasons. First, is that the description of God's behavior does not jive with the prepackaged idea of God that I sang about in Sunday School. My view of God has to change. Second, we have a dim view of suffering in our culture. I have heard many people say that God wants them to be happy. That message is very attractive and dangerous. Suffering suck and nobody likes it. But it is universal. As Oswald Chambers once wrote:
"Suffering is the heritage of the bad, of the penitent and of the Son of God. Each one ends in the cross. The bad thief is crucified, the penitent thief is crucified and the Son of God is crucified. By these signs we know the widespread heritage of suffering."
Suffering is a theme we all experience. Job is included to inform us that suffering is not always due to our failures and is not pointless. I have recently experienced an intense season of suffering in my own life and I am curious about how this season will impact my reading of Job. I know I thought of Job often as I mourned.