I read the book of Job and found it to be very sad with all of the bad things happening and don't think I really understand the message.
2007-11-25 01:59:05 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Thank you everybody for all the great answers!
2007-11-25 03:04:56 · update #1
You have some excellent answers here already, so I won't repeat what they've said. I would like to add my favorite part of the book, however, which no one yet has touched on.
In Job, the title character does, at one time, come close to giving up, and confronts God directly. What he asks can be paraphrased as "Why do bad things happen to good people?" This is a question that gets asked here A LOT. Whenever you see me answer a question with, "read the book of Job," this is why. The answer is there. God tells us why he "allows" bad things to happen. This is so often ignored or forgotten amidst the other messages of this story. God uses this tale to inform us how he views things.
One last thing: I have found in my own life, that what is happening to me at the time influences what I have read in the bible. In other words, if I'm depressed, I'll see the stories I read as depressing. This may be something you may want to investigate in your life right now. If you're seeing the book of Job as only sad, you might want to look at your own life and see how you are feeling and why.
Good luck on your spiritual journey and God be with you.
2007-11-25 02:23:52 · answer #1 · answered by King James 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I'll give it a try in a few sentences. The great lesson of the book is that there are times when we cannot be told the whole picture. There are times when God does not adequately explain life to us. There are times when we must trust that not all suffering occurs because we are bad, but because it can also be the source of some final good. The deepest note in the book may be struck when, out of the desolation of his heart and yet with the Spirit of God within him urging him on to faith in the midst of his bewilderment and confusion, Job says,
"But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." (Job 23:10)
Life is too complicated for us to handle alone.
2007-11-25 10:09:35 · answer #2 · answered by thundercatt9 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The story begins with Satan entering heaven with the other angels (this is before Satan was re-cast as the bad guy in all the other stories). He proposes a bet with God that the "faithful servant" Job would curse God if he lost all the good things in life.
God takes him up on the bet, and allows Satan to destroy everything that was important to Job: his wife, his kids, his livestock, his health, etc. Job's friends says "Well, you must have done something bad." God has a speech at the end that says Job didn't do anything to deserve it, but stayed faithful no matter what, and God "restores" all his blessings.
Nevermind that God allows the death of his wife and kids, he got a new wife and kids! Everything's fine!
Maybe the point is that God won the bet.
2007-11-25 10:32:56 · answer #3 · answered by Robin W 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Didn't you read the end?
Jas 5:11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
It's about trusting God when you have no idea why trials come. And through the darkness hanging on to the belief that God will save in the end and make himself known to you in a way the was only possible through suffering.
Job 42:5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
I just started reading a book all about Job. "Baffled to Fight Better" by Oswald Chambers. I got it at half.com. The title should even answer your question. Very very good book!
2007-11-25 10:10:00 · answer #4 · answered by stvn967 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Job is the story of godly man, tried terribly by sudden, unaccountable setbacks, misunderstood and misrepresented by his friends, plunged into the depths of discouragement, yet holding on to God and finding, at last, an unshakable faith in Him. The story closes with Job being blessed in "the latter end" more than at the beginning.
2007-11-25 10:05:59 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Beloved , believe not every spirit , but test the spirits whether they are of God , because many false prophets are gone out into the world
2007-11-25 10:08:37 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It shows the integrity of one of God's children, that no matter what ,he trusted in God
that he stood against adversity from his friends
it also has some marvelous insights and understanding of God's creation
2007-11-25 10:25:53 · answer #7 · answered by sego lily 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
One thing we can count on in this life is trouble! Becoming a Christian, contrary to what some say, does not so much deliver us from problems as delivers us in them. We still get sick, lose jobs, worry about our children and struggle with loneliness. On a deeper level a personal encounter with God brings at the same time exquisite joy and a new set of questions. Sometimes, like Job, we are led through a dark valley without seeing the path out, why we are suffering, whether God has a redeeming purpose in it all and how we are to respond. Are we to just patiently take it all?
Mention the name Job and one immediately thinks of patience, partly because of one misunderstood New Testament reference to this Old Testament saint (Jas 5:11). Job did suffer, but not patiently. He rebelled.
Job's saintly friends tried to "explain" his problems by appealing to the logic of good orthodox theology. In the end, Job's almost irreverent appeal to God for an explanation led to his justification and approval by God. While Job's orthodox friends were rejected (Job 42:7), he persevered; that is the real point of the New Testament reference. Perhaps among other things, this surprising reversal can be explained by the fact that Job spoke to God about his suffering while Job's friends spoke about God to Job. But this is not the only mystery encompassed by this fascinating Old Testament book.
Job raises as many questions as it answers. Indeed, when God finally speaks to Job in the whirlwind (chapters 38—41), God himself asks questions! Traditionally theology has wrestled with how a good and all-powerful God could at the same time allow or even cause (as Job claims) suffering and evil in the world. But the usual abstract arguments, spoken smoothly by Job's three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar—are not only rejected by God and his beloved Job, they are not even the point of the book.
This is not a book of rational, systematic theology. This is the story of one human being—one very human and very righteous being—who loses his possessions, his family and his health. But it is a story that takes place within the household of faith. And it is faith that rebels and a God who loves the rebel that is the surprise of the story.
Job—and we—have problems with innocent suffering precisely because we have faith in God, whose goodness is known in the land of the living. There is no answer either in jettisoning belief in the goodness of God or in rejecting the hope that in this life there should be both satisfaction and justice. In the end, and only in the end, Job finds peace with God through his sufferings and not in spite of them. Ultimately, Job's passion points to the death, resurrection and vindication of Jesus as God's final answer to the problem of the innocent suffering.
The gospel-bearing quality of Job is all the more remarkable because the book may be very ancient. There is no mention of temple, monarchy or prophets. We do not know who wrote the book, when or where the author lived, though there is no adequate reason to deny the unity of the book. For date, authorship and textual questions read Francis I. Andersen, Job, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1976), pages 15-76.
The book contains an astonishing mixture of riddles, hymns, curses, proverbs and nature poems. The introduction (1:1—2:13) and conclusion (42:7-17) are in prose, while the speeches of Job, the three friends, the young man Elihu and God himself (3:1—42:6) are in poetry. No wonder the Jewish rabbis were unsure where to place Job in Scripture. Though they eventually chose the Writings section, this book fits just as well alongside the great exodus, David and Ruth.
Like all biblical stories, this one catches us in its plot and invites us in its mysterious and ironic way to find God not in talking about God, but in talking to him at the point of our deepest questions about the meaning of life and of God himself, not in leisure-time spirituality, but in the middle of life where it is hardest. According to The New Bible Commentary, "The book takes its place in the testimony of the ages that there is a blank in the human heart which Jesus alone can fill."
Outline
1: Job 1:1-2:10: Dueling with the Devil »
2: Job 2:11-4:17: God in the Dark »
3: Job 6: God-Talk »
4: Job 9-10: If God Were Only Human! »
5: Job 13-14: The Faith That Rebels »
6: Job 16-17: Our Heavenly Guarantor »
7: Job 20-21: The Problem of Pain »
8: Job 23: The Silence of God »
9: Job 35: Songs in the Night »
10: Job 38: God in the Storm »
11: Job 40: The Joy of Repentance »
12: Job 42: Is Faith Always Worthwhile? »
2007-11-25 10:09:09 · answer #8 · answered by Gerry 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
i found it to be about faith.....through all his affliction he never stop trusting God.....And God lifted him back up ...and blessed his life many time over with more than he had before
2007-11-25 10:07:17 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
It means,
Your arm is too short to box with God!
2007-11-25 10:04:24 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋