Year 1, Week 3, Day 5 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 3, Day 5

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Job 35-37.

Today’s reading contains the rest of Elihu’s words to Job. Altogether, Elihu’s words comprise six chapters, which, unlike the words of Job’s friends, are not interrupted, but composed as one long speech. Elihu has differentiated his explanation for Job’s suffering from both Job as well as his three friends. There are aspects of Elihu’s words that seem to come closer to being a faithful interpretation of what Job is facing, then any interpretation yet offered. Whereas Job’s friends have emphasized that Job is suffering primarily as a means of punishment for his sins, Job himself has countered that his suffering is ill-deserved for he has not done anything wrong.

Elihu offers another perspective to explain the purpose for Job’s suffering: “He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity.” (Job 36:15). The poetical nature of Elihu’s statement can make it hard to decipher what he is saying, but I would offer this paraphrase: “God uses affliction to deliver us from our affliction and He uses adversity to get us to listen to Him.” The explanation as to why God permits and/or purposes suffering in our lives is not due to His anger toward us and also not as a result of His neglect of us. God arranges and leverages suffering for positive ends.

I was struck by what today’s reading reveals about the good reasons behind God’s purposes in our suffering. God can often use suffering to teach and mature us. Thus, the experience of suffering need not at all be explained as retributive justice, that is God harshly getting back at us in response to our sin. No, the experience of suffering might very well be just the kind Fatherly work of developing us. In addition, the experience of suffering does not at all mean Divine neglect or mistreatment. No, the experience of suffering should be understood as Fatherly nurture and care [As a point of clarification, before I develop these ideas more fully. Please keep in mind that the mention of Fatherly involvement squarely roots these explanations of suffering in the context of God’s saving relationship with His people. It is only as children of God through trusting in Jesus that God is our Father. These Fatherly descriptions only help explain suffering in a Christian’s life].

The greatest sufferings of our lives can accomplish the greatest purposes in our lives: “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.” (Psalm 119:71). This does not mean that we have to find suffering a pleasant or enjoyable experience. We do not. Suffering is hard and painful. But we are to realize that our sufferings are not without good purposes and outcomes. Therefore, we can find joy in the meaningful design that God employs in the context of our sufferings: “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3b-5).

Even if the affliction comes from Satan and/or from human agents, God’s purposes outrank any and all evil designs. In Job’s particular case, on one level, it certainly was Satan, who desired to afflict Job. On still another level, the Sabeans and Chadeans (see Job 1:15,17) were immediate agents in at least some of Job’s sufferings. It goes without saying that neither Satan nor the Sabeans and Chaldeans were motivated with good designs when they afflicted Job. However, above all of the evil and mean intentions of mankind and Satan, stands the ultimate purposes of God. The way that God uses afflictions—the way that God even works through the evil intentions of others—is for the good of His people: “He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:10b-11).

Affliction can find its design, not in God’s neglect nor anger, but in His faithfulness: “I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” (Psalm 119:75). Elihu was surely right when he called for God to be worshipped: “Remember to extol his work, of which men have sung. All mankind has looked on it; man beholds it from afar. Behold, God is great, and we know him not; the number of his years is unsearchable.” (Job 36:24-26).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe