Out of the Crucible: Thoughts From the Book of Job

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Job is a singularly good man who lived perhaps 4000 years ago, and who experienced unparalleled loss and pain. Three friends come to visit Job in his suffering and to offer sympathy and counsel. Job wants to know why God treats him this way, and they suggest he must have sinned heinously to have brought such great suffering upon him. An analysis of the facts in Job (including a rhetorical analysis of the debate) suggests some answers to Job’s questions and to ours. God has purpose in Job’s suffering. In the process, the counsel and motives of Job’s friends are seen to be defective and self serving, including the idea that all our deeds are rewarded or punished in this life. Job comes to a renewed faith in God and a preliminary grasp of the fact of life after death, a fact more implied than taught in the Old Testament. And we gain assurance of God’s unwavering presence with us in our own pain.