We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
The Lessons of Job
Breno Peck via Compfight
In his book Benefit of the Doubt, Greg argues that the lessons of the book of Job reassure us that God does not lie behind suffering, but he rather is a trustworthy friend who can handle our doubt and pain. If you’re in the midst of grief or suffering, we hope these words will bring you both comfort and courage.
This inspired epic poem doesn’t explain why some people suffer and others do not, but it offers a singularly profound insight into why we ultimately can’t know the reason why. It’s not that God acts arbitrarily, as Job thought. Nor is it that people get what they deserve, as Job’s friends thought. Rather, good and evil and everything else unfold with apparent randomness because the causes that factor into what comes to pass flow out of a cosmos that is unfathomably vast and complex; a cosmos that includes a heavenly realm that sometimes influences events, as it did Job, but that we are not privy to, and a cosmos that is perpetually under siege by powerful hostile cosmic forces, represented by Leviathan and Behemoth.
More importantly, for our purposes, this inspired poetic drama also provides us with a poignant illustration of what it means to have an “Israelite” faith that honors God. It’s not a faith that is centered on right beliefs and pious language. And it’s certainly not a faith that focuses on feeling secure and worthwhile by convincing ourselves that we’re right. It’s rather a faith that is grounded in authenticity and that is therefore unwilling to sweep questions, doubts, and complaints under a pious rug to avoid the pain of cognitive dissonance. It’s a faith that is not afraid of going to the mat with God. (89-90)
Category: General
Tags: Benefit of the Doubt, Doubt, Pain, Problem of Evil, Suffering, The Book of Job, Theodicy
Related Reading
Is Suffering Part of God’s Secret Plan?
In the Christian tradition since Augustine, the most common explanation for the apparent arbitrariness of life and God’s interaction with humanity has been God’s mysterious will—his “secret plan,” as Calvin says. Whether or not a child is born healthy or a wife is killed by an intruder is ultimately decided by God. If we ask…
Imaging God Rightly: God’s Self-Portrait, Part 3
In the previous two blogs I noted that the vision of God in our minds is the single most important vision in our lives, for it completely determines whether we’ll have a relationship with God and what kind of relationship this will be. A. W. Tozer once wrote, “What comes into our minds when we…
Lord Willing?
Lord Willing? Wrestling with God’s Role in My Child’s Death, by Jessica Kelley In November 2012, I received one of the most touching emails I have ever received. A young mother named Jessica Kelley explained to me that her four-year-old son had been diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. Despite his parents’ and doctors’ valiant…
What Will You Do With Your Doubt?
Richard Beck shared some of his thoughts on Christianity as something that for many of us is our “native religion”…something we were born into and that is, to quote Wendell Berry, “an intimate belonging of our being; it informs our consciousness, our language, and our dreams.” With Christianity so foundational to our identities, doubt is a…
What To Do with the Bible’s Talk of Satan
Recently, Roger Olson raised the question on his blog about why Satan is ignored in modern theology. He observed how Greg’s theology takes an “obvious, ‘up front,’ blatant belief in a very personal, very real, very active Satan who has great power in the world.” Because we often have so little to say about Satan…
Let Us Pray
Per Ola Wiberg via Compfight It’s appropriate to pray and reflect and run to God when tragedies like the one in Newtown, CT take place. We wanted to share a couple of things we found helpful around the blogosphere as we struggle through our sadness. T.C. Moore shared some thoughts on Darkness, Advent, and Newtown CT on…