Many allusions come from Job’s story and yet we all wonder just what the meaning of the story is.
We’re told, for example, to have the patience of Job but was he so patient? He didn’t deny God but he did some griping.
What was the purpose of those friends and their advice? Why didn’t Job listen to them? Should he have listened? Did his wife have it right when she told him to curse God and die?
How could he, in the midst of his dilemma, craft a phrase that is now a part of well-known Easter hymn: “I know that my redeemer lives”?
And what do we make of the closing chapters of Job? Was God rebuking or instructing Job? Did Job do well – or forget his place?
I might write more on Job another day but I found an intriguing article this week that I want to share instead.
Scot McKnight offers some thoughts: And then God instructs (or rebukes?)…Job and us.