Question:
Dear
I
would like to hear how you respond to what not only was allowed to be done to
Job’s sons and daughters, but also encouraged.
The story treats their lives as merely parts of Job’s other
possessions.
I
have a problem with the conclusions of the story too—that in the end God
restored all Job had and double, when those that were killed were obviously lost
and simply replaced by other sons and daughters.
If
I was Job and God stood by as Satan took my children from me and replaced them
with others to prove a point, I would be furious and not so easily pacified.
Thank
you for your thoughts on this.
Terry
Answer: Dear Terry,
The
charge of elitism is frequent when literate, free and progressive citizens of
the 21st century read the Old Testament.
Why did God only deal with one nation?
Why did he command “his people” to kill other nations that differed
in their religion? Why did God wipe
out all the families on earth except for Noah and his family in the Flood?
Why did he burn up
The
fact that the Bible records that God “allowed” Job’s children to die in a
house that collapsed is no different than what God has “allowed” throughout
history—indeed the 20th century through Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol
Pot, Mao Tse-Tung, Rwanda, Uganda, Vietnam, Bosnia and the Holocaust.
Job’s
children were seen as his possessions? The
Old Testament allowed slavery and the place of women and children was different
than the higher value taught by Jesus and his followers in the New Testament.
Job, as a book, is actually showing the bankruptcy of the primitive
theology of rewards and punishments, which were a part of the old covenant God
gave to the Hebrews (Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28).
In its own way, it illustrates the need for the personal relationship
with God offered in and through Jesus Christ.
In
Christ,