Why The Old Testament Matters: Lessons from Job

Why The Old Testament Matters: Lessons from Job

When thinking about some of the more challenging books of the Old Testament, Job may not be the first to come to your mind. That likely has something to do with the fact that most people who know anything about the story of Job feel pretty confident that they know what the book is about. A blessed, wealthy, righteous man gets targeted by Satan, who wants to turn the man away from God. God allows Satan to make the man’s life miserable, taking away almost every bit of his blessing. The man debates with his friends about why he is suffering but maintains his faith in God. Then, in the end, God sweeps through the scene to prove His power, the man humbly submits to God, and God restores him. What is difficult to understand about that? Well, let’s talk through some of the difficulties many people have when they actually try to read Job and what else there may be below the surface that we can learn from this one-of-a-kind book.

If you have not actually read Job before, you may be surprised to learn that it is 42 chapters long. Despite how quickly we can summarize the book, we cannot quickly make it all the way through from the beginning to the end. For comparison, the story of Joseph is the longest one in Genesis, and it only spans 14 chapters, which is a far cry from 42. Most of the chapters read a lot like something Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, wrote called a dialectic—like a play with little action and just two characters talking back and forth on a stage, rehashing the same subject over and over again. Most of the dialogue could be summarized like this: one of Job’s short-sighted friends tells Job that he’s clearly a bad guy because God has made him suffer, and then Job insists that he’s not a bad guy, and even though Job doesn’t curse God, he thinks that God isn’t being very fair. Back and forth, across dozens of chapters, Job’s position (and that of his friends) is made clear. When we are in the thick of reading their arguments, we can come to a place where, as the old adage says, we can’t see the forest for all the trees. Are we supposed to conclude that Job has bad friends and that God was testing Job to see if his loyalty was true before rewarding him with greater abundance because he was faithful?

The answer to that question is “no.” There is something much more important for us to get from the pages of Job’s story. Through Job’s blessings and sufferings, his arguments with his friends, and the words the Lord speaks in the end, we see that the relationship we have with God is based solely on grace, and not on merit. While it is true that people generally see good things from God when they are faithful to him, and they suffer from being unfaithful, that isn’t the way it works all the time. Sometimes people do really good things and suffer bad things, and other people do really terrible things and are gifted good things. Why is that an important lesson for us to learn? To use an analogy, if we knew there was a formula we could follow to get a desired outcome from God, then we might conclude that we could control God. Not only is that dangerous and untrue, it also reduces our relationship with God to something that is purely transactional. None of us yearns to have transactional relationships with the people we value most. All of us have had a “friend” who only did nice things for us so they could get something they wanted in return. We don’t tend to count those kinds of people as true friends.

Through Job’s blessings and sufferings, his arguments with his friends, and the words the Lord speaks in the end, we see that the relationship we have with God is based solely on grace, and not on merit.

This message is further reinforced by the teaching of the New Testament. On a spiritual, eternal level, we know that the only way we can be reconciled to God is through Jesus , not through any action we take on our own (see Romans 5:10). And we also know that we are guaranteed to suffer in this life (see John 16:33). The good things we do in the name of the Lord do not exempt us from that. Job wanted an advocate who would plead his case with God (see Job 16:21), and we have that in Jesus (see 1 John 2:1).

If you are reading this article, chances are you may fall into one of three categories—or perhaps all of them at the same time. If you are feeling burdened by suffering and wondering where you went wrong, stop asking that question. Regardless of what you have or have not done, your answer is Jesus, and staying close to Him will carry you through, even if it doesn’t explain why you are where you are. If you are feeling like your suffering is justified because you have done unspeakable things and there is no way God would want you, stop believing that lie. Regardless of what you have or have not done, your answer is Jesus, and He wants you to stay close to Him. And if life is pretty great and you’re thinking that God has given you what you deserve, check your heart. Regardless of what you have or have not done, your answer is Jesus, not yourself, and staying close to Him is your only hope—not you doing all the “right things.”

Since we know that, ultimately, none of us do all the right things all the time, it is a relief to know that God reaches out to us with grace, disregarding what we deserve. We can trust Him at all times, no matter what those times look like.

If you would like more guidance like this, check out our resource Understanding the Bible. It’s a podcast with a workbook that you can go through on your own or in a group. It is available wherever you listen to your podcasts, on the church’s app, or on our website, experiencecc.com.