God Did a Job on Job, Didn’t He?

Excerpt From Newsletter

The Book of Job is one of the best known, yet least understood, books of the Bible. So before we go any further, let me say I don’t expect very many to accept my understanding of it. Nonetheless, it is imperative that True Believers understand what the Prophet who wrote the book has told us about the God we serve. So I’ll risk provoking the ire of all those who love their inane “theology of success” delusion and explain the book for the benefit of those who have ears to hear.

The Book of Job is essentially a parable. I say “essentially” only because there is a lot more to the Book of Job than parable. But that is its essence. Every parable draws a comparison. So does this one. The Prophet wants us to see Job as a parabolic image that represents anyone who is, as he describes Job on three occasions, “blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil” (Job 1:1, 8; 2:3). In short, the Prophet uses Job as an example to tell us what we should expect in our own relationship with God. We should expect to be smelted, refined, and tested.

However, the Prophet has also told us how we should respond when we encounter unpleasant circumstances like those that befell Job. That’s his main point. You see, Job did not fail when he was tested, but neither did he excel. He just sort of muddled through. The Prophet would prefer that his reader not respond the way Job did, but in the way that God desires. That’s why he wrote the book. As he plainly states in the first verse of his book, God held nothing at all against Job. Look at what he says:

There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil.
(Job 1:1)

The Prophet writes that because he wants us to know Job did not suffer because of his sin, he suffered because he was “blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil.”

“God Did a Job on Job, Didn’t He?” The Voice of Elijah^®, April 1996, p. 1

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