What is the Meaning of Job?
Yesterday I was sent the following email:
Subject: JOB BOTHERS ME
Date: January 24, 2012 1:50:05 PM CST
To: rondowning@ihop.orgWhat’s the point in the overarching storyline?
Is Job a literal guy or is he a “lesson”.
What is the point of this book?
Sent from my iPhone
This got me thinking, and I thought I would write a blog to attempt these highly touchy questions. I will address the questions in a different order, addressing the concept of Job’s identity first, and then attempt to tackle the overarching storyline of the book. I must say before I begin that it is with all humility that I write this post. While writing this I am aware of my own “finitude” and lack of understanding.
I. Job–Literal Person vs. Literary Lesson
As in most cases, I tend towards a more conservative understanding of the historicity of the Bible. Though there are, without a doubt, literary devices used in the Scriptures to convey a point, I think what makes the Scriptures radically unique is the fact that they relate historical events in a theological manner to tell the story of God’s purposes in time and space. So, in short, I do believe that Job was a literal person who lived and experienced the things retold in the book bearing his name. The prophet Ezekiel, who is giving the word of the Lord to Israel’s elders, portrays Job as a literal man:
“‘even though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job were in its [Jerusalem's] midst, by their own righteousness they could only deliver themselves,’ declares the Lord God.” (Ezek 14:14)
However, it is also seems clear that Job himself did not write the book (just like Samuel did not write the books that bear his name–and in all likelihood neither did Joshua or Ruth). It would be nearly impossible to pin down the dating of when the book was composed because there is no internal evidence for a specific dating. This means that the story of Job had likely been passed down for some number of generations before it was written down in recorded fashion. This does not mean, however, that it is a falsified or embellished story, created to make theological points. Ancient oral history had its own sets of standards for ensuring the integrity of the source material (this is a subject that has received a lot of debate, and could be discussed at length elsewhere).
Though Job, in my opinion, was a literal man who experienced literal things, it does not mean that this book is without lesson. The very fact that it was placed within the canon of Scripture says that there is a farther reaching theological value, or a ‘lesson’, to be found within the book. There is a reason why each of the books that found their way into the Scriptures are there, and I believe that Job has profound theological value–both in the history of Israel and to the body of Christ today.
II. What is the Point?
So what is that value?
This is a question that a lot of people ask concerning the book of Job. It is a highly confusing book if you cannot pin down the ‘big idea’. Before I discuss what I believe is that ‘big idea’, I will give a brief plot summary of the book.
Job is a righteous man who has been greatly blessed of the Lord. The story begins in the courts of heaven when Satan (adversary) and the sons of God (angelic hosts) appear before Yahweh. Satan approaches Yahweh and He asks the adversary if he has considered His servant Job. Satan believes that Job’s righteousness is tied to the fact that God has only ever blessed him. Yahweh allows Satan to cause various levels of pain and suffering to touch Job–so that when it is said and done, he has lost everything and suffers great pain in his body.
The second main section of the book is a dialogue between Job and his friends. For the majority of the book the friends, and Job himself, are essentially attempting to answer the question: “why is this happening to Job?” Through all of their dialogue, it appears that each of them includes various levels of truth and insight.
However, none of them can adequately answer the question. Finally, at the very end of the book, Yahweh Himself appears to Job and unfolds His absolute sovereignty over all things. The book ends as Job humbles himself in the dust, magnifying the glory of God–and God bringing full restitution this man of righteousness.
To me the ‘big idea’ of Job is essentially two-fold. First, God does not have to justify Himself for the way that things happen. Second, in the face of the problems of life (i.e., the problem of theodicy–how/why does evil and suffering exist), opinions are cheap and trust is necessary.
1. God on Trial
This to me is one of the most profound aspects of Job. When Job and his friends are trying to figure out why God would let this happen to Job, God Himself shows up and has a discussion with the man of righteousness. The interesting part, however, is that God never answers the question “why”. Read chapters 38-42 closely. God never tells Job, “This is happening because…” It is quite unnerving if you catch it.
Why is this?
Essentially, one of the major points of the book of Job–and I think this serves to elucidate its place within the canon as well–is to highlight the perfect, holy, good and pure sovereignty of God. Who is able to put Him on the stand as if to try Him? To whom does He owe an acquittal for the way that He leads all things?
God does not seek to justify, or even explain what is happening to Job. Rather, He shows Job how utterly insufficient his limited knowledge is. Job does not possess all the information. How could Job attempt to answer such questions–he did not lay the foundations of the earth. He did not put the waters in their place, assigning them boundaries. He has never called forth the dawn to break the darkness of night. He does not know how to lead forth constellations in their right time. He does not walk on the surface of the deep, or know when the time comes for the mountain goat to give birth.
In other words, God is showing Job the insufficiency of his understanding is the reason that he cannot make sense of what is happening. However, God knows why it is happening. He knows how to orchestrate all things. He can call forth the morning. He laid the foundations of the earth and was their when the morning stars sang with joyous song. God alone is the one who possess all insight and understanding, and He alone possesses the power to work all things according to His great and glorious will.
I find it interesting at other places in the Scriptures God does a very similar thing. When Israel is accusing God of forgetting them and overlooking their just cause, God does not justify Himself–rather He highlights His infinite sovereignty and His ability to bring forth His purposes just as He had promised (see Isa 40:12-31).
2. Dust and Ashes
The understanding of the first ‘big idea’ leads directly to the second. To me one of the glaring lessons of the book of Job is the necessity for absolute humility in the face of life’s hardest questions. God actually indicts Job at the beginning of their discussion that his opinions, which hold some truth and understanding, are actually darkening counsel (Job 38:2). This means that Job’s opinions–and the opinions of his friends–may have included bits of truth, but they did not know for themselves the deep reasons why things were happening. Therefore, their opinions were actually making it harder to understand.
After three chapters of God unfolding His perfect and beautiful sovereignty to Job, the man is struck with his own ability to answer, and puts his hand over his mouth and repents in dust and ashes (42:2-6). In other words, he retracts his simple and uniformed opinions, and chooses to simply trust in the Lord who has just made Himself known.
The problems and the pains of life are complex. Often times they are too complex for our simple answers. When we face these problems and questions, we would do well to offer less opinions and more humility before the Living God who is full of goodness and kindness. When we counsel, we may do well to offer less opinions that lack knowledge, and do more pushing others into the revelation of the sovereign God who works all things according to the counsel of His will, for His glory–both with absolute kind intention and delight to bring good for those who love Him.
Does this mean that we will never have (or give) answers to these questions? No. There are times for answering, and I believe there are times when God answers. But often times our desire for answers is nothing more than a indictment against God, longing that He would justify Himself to us. Yet, as we see from Job, the answer to our plight is not always God’s justification, but God’s sovereignty.
Can there be a Centerpiece to Biblical Theology?
We live in a day where truth is regularly called into question. The questions of ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ are often raised, but many do not have answers. The worldview of our times often sees no clear ‘center’ to life–no coherent meaning; no coherent purpose. This philosophy of the world has caused the Bible to be greatly criticized and greatly questioned. Many no longer believe that the Bible tells a cogent or coherent story. Some have argued that the Bible is nothing more than a compilation of various religious texts with little to no consistency in their message and their meaning.
Biblical theology, as we saw last week, seeks to answer this question and present a unified center to the Bible. Does the Bible present an ultimate meaning for life, does it provide an ultimate purpose? If it does, we should seek to find what it is, and devote ourselves to uncovering that story and presenting it with clarity to all. If the Bible is God’s revelation of His purpose, than it will ultimately elucidate the meaning of many other things.
I believe that the Bible does in fact present a unified story, a coherent statement of God’s redemptive purposes in the earth, and the ultimate goal of all creation. I think that from this ‘center’, all other questions of life can be answered–albeit at times in humility and with small, darkened insight.
From beginning to end, the Bible presents one distinct story that is told in a multi-faceted way. It is told through historical reflections, poetry, prophetic utterance, ancient biography, religious historiography, epistles and apocalypse. There are, to be sure, many different genres of the Biblical testimony, written over a period of millennia. However, the differences in genre, culture, and historical-social background do not necessitate a difference in the essential testimony of the Scripture.
Though Moses’ voice is different than David’s, and they are both different from Paul and Mark–they are all essentially singing the same song (to steal an analogy from Ben Witherington). They each have different parts, and they emphasize different things. Some do not see the full picture, but lean forward in eager expectation, looking for the way in which Yahweh would bring to pass all that He had promised. Some look back at the day when Yahweh definitively acted, radically transitioning redemptive history by raising Jesus the Christ from the dead, and then with similar expectation, awaited the day when He would consummate that which He began in firstfruit. The differences in style, cultural-historical setting, and place in redemptive history–though they are present–do not mean a dissonant story. Rather, they show the beauty of God’s unfolding purpose as it has been made known through history–not seeking to transcend history, but to become incarnate within it and make Himself known to people in time and in space.
The differences in the writing come because God has chosen to reveal His purpose to mankind by revealing Himself to men, and inspiring them to write concerning His purposes. It is through understanding the meaning of that writing (authorial intent) that we can understand the purpose of the one, true, Creator God for all things.
As we uncover the meaning of the different texts within the Bible, there is a clear unity in concept from text to text, from one testament to the other. As the story of the Scripture unfolds, there is great literary dependence of the latter texts upon the earlier ones. The rich thought world of the writers of the Scripture is shaped by Scripture. As the writers are each dealt with on their terms, we find that there is a profound story being told in the Scripture–we find that the ‘center’ of the Bible is that God is going to universally glorify Himself in Jesus Christ, specifically by making known His nature expressed in lovingkidness and justice.
Two Cultural Elements of the Reformation
Last week’s Church History post set up the religious context of the Reformation.
In understanding the Reformation we must think that at the turn of the 16th century there was one religious institution throughout Europe, and within fifty years the ideas of the reform had so transformed the continent, that a child born in the early 1500s would have no recollection of a day without a saturation of Protestant ideas. In the brief post today I want to look at two cultural aspects that allowed ideas to spread so rapidly at the time of the Reformation.
‘Social Networks’
There is a lot of historical work related to the print culture of the Reformation. Historians for centuries have noted the profound impact that the printing press had for the proliferation of ideas during the Reformation. Though I will not argue completely, often times the case for the impact of print is overstated–or it is given the only place within the argument–as the reason ideas in the Reformation could spread so quickly. We must remember in looking at the Reformation that the majority of the population was still illiterate in the 16th century (this is why Luther made such use of woodcuts to express the essence of his idea through illustrations). The fact of the matter is that the ‘social networks’ of 16th century Europe were highly elaborate, and quite conducive for the ‘rapid’ spread of ideas.
The printed word did have a great impact in the Reformation, but it was also the Reformer’s understanding of the cultural mediums of the people that caused ideas to move rapidly through Europe. The Reformers often would use woodcuts (mentioned above) to illustrate ideas related to their message. They would also use familiar ballads or tavern songs, changing their lyrics to communicate and teach ideas. The ideas of the Reformation were almost immediately popular among many guilds–whose members travelled all across Europe and would thus spread the ideas wherever they went. It was not just print that primed Europe for Reform (though the printing press was absolutely necessary), but a highly efficient (before globalization) system of social networks.
Urban
Another amazing thing about the Reformation is that it was almost entirely an urban event. For the first century there was very little in-roads to rural areas with the ideas of the Reformation (and, on an extreme side note–once the reformers/or Catholic counter-reformers did begin to make in-roads to the rural areas, they found that many of the areas were only nominally Christian. Many rural areas had a perish and local clergy, but were often times steeped in folk religion and lore–but I digress). Because of the nature of the ‘social networks’ of 16th century Europe, it was the cities–specifically cities with universities–that saw the lion’s share of reform.
Book Review – Ben Witherington’s Indelible Image (vol. 2)
I recently read the second volume of Ben Witherington’s The Indelible Image
This work is a two part series that Dr. Witherington wrote to address the theological and ethical thought world of the New Testament. As he lays forth in the preface to the first volume, it was a book that he had been approached to write over two decades ago–but turned down the opportunity to write it until he had first written a substantial commentary on each of the books of the New Testament. In his estimation, writing a New Testament theology before faithfully exegeting each of the individual books would be a bit like putting the proverbial cart before the horse.
After writing an in-depth commentary on each of the books of the New Testament (except I cannot find one for the gospel of Luke), Witherington set out to write his New Testament theology. It should be noted that Witherington is of the Methodist tradition (he currently serves as a professor and doctoral advisor for NT at Asbury Seminary), and writing a major, historical/exegetical commentary on each of the books of the NT is a task that no one of his tradition has done before (Wesley’s notes on the Bible would not be in the same category of commentary).
The work attempts to elucidate the theological and ethical thought world of the New Testament. To Witherington, there can be no exclusive ‘theology’ of the New Testament–because the ‘theologizing’ of the NT writers is profoundly ‘ethical’, and the ‘ethicizing’ of the NT authors is profoundly theological. In other words, the theology (belief) of the NT always leads to ethics (behavior)–and any exhortations on ethics (behavior) are saturated with theology (belief). Yet another way to say it would be that to the NT writers, all theology is practical and all of their praxis is theological.
The first volume of the work attempts to uncover the theological and ethical thought world of each of the NT writers. Witherington takes good bit of time to give credence to each individual voice (as the volume is sub-titled: The Individual Witnesses
In the second volume Witherington seeks to synthesize the theological and ethical thought world of the whole NT. He compares the authors of the NT to individual voices in a choir, singing an oratorio. Some have larger parts than others, and each part may have it own nuance, but they are all singing the same piece.
“The singers in the New Testament choir are not like dueling banjos; they are more like multiple voices in a massed ensemble, each one singing a portion and stressing a part in large, harmonious oratorio. The more voices, the more complex the harmonies can be and are. But still, all of them are singing recognizably the same sons: the good news about Jesus and its implications.” (245)
This is one of the main theses of Witherington’s work: that the writers of the NT essentially share the same thought world and message. Yes, they may highlight different aspects and fail to mention certain parts, but they are singing the same, harmonious piece, to use his metaphor. In other words, the differences in the NT works are not to be seen as discrepancies, whereas different writers are putting forth differing theologies. Rather, they all share the same thought world, and in turn seek to interpret what God has done in and through the person of Jesus in ultimately harmonious ways.
One of the main positive elements of this book its Witherington’s great ability to elucidate the historical/rhetorical setting of a work in the NT, and then draw out its meaning. I also find that Witherington is excellent at holding to the essential ‘narratological’ function of the Scripture, and using this to understand the NT.
Like a good Durhamite (i.e., NT Wright/James Dunn) Witherington does an excellent job of uncovering, and then working within, the storied thought world of the NT. However, I find his eschatological outlook to be much more helpful than others who are strong here–doing a better job of holding the tensions of the already-but-not-yet nature of God’s kingdom as it is in-breaking in Jesus, and what that therefore means for the people of God after the resurrection.
If you enjoy theology I highly recommend both of Witherigton’s volumes–even if you essentially disagree, I believe his thoughts must be grappled with. I will, however, recommend that you read the second volume first (unless you need the exegetical foundation of the first). The second volume is the synthesis–or using Witherington’s own metaphor again, what the oratorio might have sounded like if all the singers were singing at once. The first volume provides the necessary foundation, but can become quite arduous if you are not as concerned with his foundations.
