Job's Purpose

Lesson One in the Job series.

The next several blogs will be about the book of Job. It's been a long time coming with a couple hundred hours of research, but well worth the time and effort! Suffering is a common theme in our lives and unjust suffering is something everybody needs help with. So here goes...

The book of Job is best studied after the entire book has been read. It takes so many twists and turns that it can be confusing to interpret if you do it chapter by chapter. The best way to approach the book is by the themes that occur throughout the book, and then tie them together at the end. I will cover these themes in the following order: 

Job's Purpose

Job's Priorities

Job's Persecutors

Job's Prayers and Prophecies

Job's Prosecutor

Job's Protector (in three parts)

Job's Perseverance and Prosperity

Job's Priesthood and God's Greater Purpose

Job's Purpose

For starters, the book of Job is written as a drama with about seven main characters. God is the "mainest" of the main characters. Then there is Satan whose name means adversary. He is also known in the Bible as the serpent, the accuser, the devil, the tempter--you get the idea. The protagonist in the story is man named Job. God says, "My servant Job" five times in this book. So Job is right up there with Moses and all the Old Testament prophets. He was a spokesman for God. God's spokesmen were the men who would write the Old Testament Scriptures. 

As God's servant, Job would take his place in the city gates where he would dispense justice, taking care of the poor and needy and widows and orphans. He would also engage in dispensing wisdom and when he was there, the other princes and noble men would put their hands over their mouths as a sign of respect and honor. It meant that they recognized that someone more important and wiser was in their midst and it was their way of saying that they would keep silent and let him speak. You can see the full list of things Job did in chapter 29. 

Job was the wisest of all the men because he got his wisdom from God. He would tell the people what God told him. There is a whole chapter in the book of Job--chapter 28--where Job talks about this wisdom and where it comes from. In the end, he says that you can't really understand all of God's ways and you can't find wisdom by searching for it, (or by getting old!) but if you want to attain wisdom you have to begin by fearing God. He says, "Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom and to turn away from evil, that is understanding." Does that remind you of another very wise man? I hope it reminds you of King Solomon who wrote the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. 

Job had been God's servant for a long time but now God had a special purpose for him. Job was the one chosen to teach people about God's kindness and comfort when they suffer unjustly. We suffer unjustly when bad things happen to us for no apparent reason. Sometimes we suffer because we sin, but that is not suffering unjustly. The Apostle Peter talks about this in his first letter. He says, For this is a gracious thing, when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, that is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. (I Peter 2:19-22)

So when we suffer unjustly, we follow Christ's example. Christ taught us how to suffer without resorting to sin. But whose example did the Old Testament people follow? They knew nothing about the suffering of Christ and how he suffered unjustly because it hadn't happened yet. You probably know where this is going. Job was selected by God to be the stand-in example for how to suffer unjustly until the time Christ came. Job was the poster boy they could look to for comfort. Job was not suffering because of sin. This does not mean that Job was not a sinner. But Job's suffering had to be seen as completely unjust because God said it was unjust: God said to Satan, "...You incited me against him to destroy him without reason (2:3). Still, God committed to protect Job's soul during this trial. Job was God's example to Old Testament believers of how to suffer unjustly without resorting to sin. 

One of the people who followed Job's example was King David, and he wrote a lot about unjust suffering in the Psalms. He was kept from sin when Saul was trying to kill him, because God's words were in his heart, and even when he had a chance to kill Saul, he wouldn't do it. Many of the Psalms use laments that draw from Job as the original source. Psalm 22 which is a prophecy about the crucifixion is remarkably similar in its description to Job 19 which describes Job's tortured condition. David put many of Job's emotions and prayers into songs of beautiful poetry which the church has used through the ages in worship, and we still sing these songs today. 

Jeremiah also followed Job's example. Jeremiah often quotes Job in both Jeremiah and Lamentations. In fact, Job says nothing in this book that we can't find elsewhere in the Bible. We call that a seminal work--the original source from which the others draw. The book of Job became a source of comfort to everyone who suffered because it helped people see that God is the source of all kindness and comfort and they could see clearly through Job's story how God would be Job's Rock and Shield and Defender. Job's steadfast faithfulness to God during this trial made him a legend in his own time. God was still talking about Job when Ezekiel was a prophet and even the Apostle James draws heavily on Job when teaching about how suffering produces steadfastness. 

In the next lesson we will look at Job's priorities.