Lessons for Living from the Bible in Everyday English by Dennis Magee

When good people, those who fear God and shun evil, suffer, we ask why? The Book of Job demonstrates that the suffering of the righteous provides an occasion like no other to demonstrate true godliness. Our relationship with God is not an exclusive one; there is satan, the adversary, and though he can’t compete with God in power, he attempts to thwart God’s creation centering on the creature who bears God’s resemblance, which is us. As tempter, he seeks to alienate us from God and as accuser (satan means accuser), he seeks to alienate God from us, and so bring about a chasm of alienation that cannot be bridged. In the Book of Job, satan attacks Job and tries to make God look foolish centering on the relationship that is dearest to them both. In a manner true to his form, satan accuses Job before God stating that his righteousness is evil; the righteousness in which God takes such delight is flawed; Job’s righteousness is self-serving, he is righteous only because it pays. If God will allow satan to break the link between blessing and righteousness he can expose Job and all godly people for the fakes that they are.

We’re dependant upon God for our lives and all our needs, which occasions one of mankind’s greatest temptations, which is to love God’s gifts more than God, to want to please God for the sake of his gifts and to be righteous because it pays. And this is the deep truth concerning satan’s accusation concerning God’s people. If he is right, then a chasm of alienation stands between God and man that cannot be bridged, such that redemption of even the most righteous would not be possible because they would be the most flawed. So God would have no choice but to sweep away the creation in judgment. The question once raised couldn’t be ignored nor could it be silenced because it strikes too deep into the nature of creation and the condition of man within it.

And so, God allows satan to tempt Job. Satan is given certain powers to afflict but he is kept on a leash and all of the evil that he brings about in the lives of people is still under God’s control. And so Job suffers with every sign of God’s favor having been removed. Even his friends offer no consolation saying that his own lack of righteousness gives him what he deserves using the logic of the orthodox theology of the time. Though Job curses the day of his birth, he doesn’t curse God, and so God’s delight in the righteous is vindicated and the accuser is silenced. Job suffers in silence but will not repudiate his maker and though he faces God with anger, confusion, anguish and bitter complaints, he’ll not turn his back on his maker, and so he passes the test, but in order for this test to be genuine, Job had to be kept in the dark about the goings on in God’s counsel chamber.

But Job is a member of a race of beings with insight, wisdom and understanding that seeks to learn all it can about the creation and the nature of God. The limits of his own wisdom fail to answer the question about his suffering, and the wisdom of the theology of the day cannot provide the answer. Still, Job wants to meet with God as an equal to discuss the matter. God gives man the ability to understand certain creaturely things and some of God’s ways, the most important of which is to fear God and shun evil. This is how Job had tried to live most of his life. Over time Job comes to live by the wisdom that God gave him, recognize the limitations of that wisdom, and regret having ever doubted God. In the end, God restores all of his blessings.

A lesson to be learned from Job is that, above all else, God values our righteousness, and satan knows that if he is to thwart the all-encompassing purpose of God, which is the redemption of the righteous, then he must attack the righteousness in Godly people. At stake here in the suffering of the righteous, is the outcome of the titanic battle between God and satan. True wisdom is to love God more than his gifts, trust in the wise goodness of God, and accept that some of God’s ways are beyond our ability to comprehend. We need to trust in God, fear God, and remember that some suffering is the result of unseen battles in the spiritual realm between the powers of God’s kingdom and the powers of satan’s kingdom.

Although Job is a book primarily about the suffering of righteous people, much suffering we bring on ourselves. Much suffering caused by natural disasters, such as hurricanes and floods, will invoke even the atheists to ask “Where is God?” But we’ve eliminated God from government, we don’t allow “In God We Trust “ on money, and if we salute the flag, we can’t say “One nation under God”; prayer has been banned in public schools, and the Manger scene banned in many communities. Many people don’t have the decency at mealtime to even thank God for all his provision. We have done everything we can to tell God we don’t need him and we don’t want him in our lives and so, God, being the gentleman that he is, gives us what we want; we have no claim on his protection or on his blessings; we reap what we sow.

Although this lesson is primarily about our relationship with God it has applications for relationships with each other. Just as we should value God for himself and not for what he can do for us, we should love people for themselves and not what they can do for us.