Part of a series, ‘Preaching on…’.
We preached a series on Job at church. Over winter. Can you think of anything more depressing?
Actually, it wasn’t. Yes, Job is about suffering, but it’s not depressing. For those going through suffering, it’s empathetic. And for those not yet going through suffering, it is preparation for when they do, and for helping others in the meantime.
Living with Mysterious Suffering
Job is not primarily about why we suffer. It doesn’t particularly address the philosophical problem of evil (how can an all-good, all-powerful God allow suffering?). Other Bible books do that, or at least get closer to doing that (for e.g. Habakkuk). Rather, the book is about how to deal with suffering and how to relate to God when we don’t know why we’re suffering. Job is a man who suffers terribly but never finds out why. We, the readers, find out why right from the beginning: Job is the subject of a divine test. But even when Job finally gets an audience with the LORD, the LORD refuses to tell him. That’s what Job is about: how to live when you don’t know. The answer? Entrust yourself to God, who does know why you’re suffering, and let that be enough.
If we think Job is about why we suffer, then the LORD’s refusal to answer Job on that question seems confusing and rude. But if we see that Job is about trusting God when we don’t know why we suffer, then God’s reply makes sense. The LORD is reminding Job that the world is more complicated than he thinks, and therefore that Job should leave running the universe to the LORD. Likewise, if we think Job is about the why of suffering, when we see all the loose ends at the end of the book—why does Job get good things again? Are they a reward or not? Where has Satan gone?— we’ll be frustrated. But if we think it’s a more practical book about how to live in the day-to-day realities of suffering and ignorance, it will make more sense: this is what life is like: we don’t know why things happen, and we often never can, so we just have to get on with it, loose ends and all.
How to Structure Your Sermon Series?
Job is long and repetitive. This requires a different approach than simply preaching chapter by chapter. I followed Bryson Smith’s structure in The Eye of the Storm.
Sermon 1: Job 1–2
These opening chapters introduce us to Job and the test he’s subjected to. Satan challenges God to take everything away from Job, to see if Job really loves God, or just loves God for the good things he gives him. The LORD agrees to let Satan test him and Satan gets to work, first taking away all of Job’s property and children, and then taking away his health.
This section sets the scene for the whole of the book. It also raises questions that a preacher needs to be prepared to answer.
First, why does God let Satan test Job? Is God insecure and so needs to prove himself to Satan? No. The fact is, though Job is a good man, he also has led a rather charmed life. As such, he only knows how to live when things are going well and he knows what the LORD is doing. He doesn’t know how he’ll respond when things are going badly and he doesn’t know why. Can he trust God then? The LORD wants him to find out.
Second, what is Satan doing in God’s court in the first place? We aren’t told. What we do learn is that Satan is not the LORD’s equal; he is just another one of his servants. Satan is not a rival, but a dog, and he’s on a leash.
Sermon 2: Job 3–27 (Part 1)
These chapters form the bulk of the book. They begin with a speech that Job gives, after a week of bereaved silence, about his plight. What follows is a lot of to-and-fro between him and three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, about the reason for his terrible suffering.
In this first of two sermons on this section I focussed very much on what Job’s friends said about why they thought he was suffering. They are convinced he must have done something wrong. We the readers know this is not true, and that leads to opportunities to teach on how to be a friend to those who are suffering. We should not be like Job’s friends, assuming we know why they’re suffering, potentially engaging in a kind of victim-blaming.
Sermon 3: Job 3–27 (Part 2)
In my second sermon on this section, I focussed on Job’s responses to his friends and his periodic cries to God. Job knows his friends are wrong but he doesn’t know why he is suffering. And because Job has the same worldview as his friends, this is a problem for him. He knows he hasn’t sinned. He believes the LORD should only let people suffer who have sinned. So he concludes the LORD must be treating him unjustly. As such, Job demands multiple times that God meet with him and explain himself.
In this sermon I dwelled on the nature of justice, on the limitations of human knowledge, and also the need for a mediator between us and God—a need ultimately met for us in Jesus, our Great High Priest (Hebrews 4–7).
Sermon 4: Job 28
This chapter, a reflection on the nature of wisdom, acts as an interlude. We humans can know some things, but only God knows all things. When we don’t know something (for example, why we’re suffering), we have to entrust ourselves to God. As such, the interlude functions as a conceptual centre of the book.
Sermon 5: Job 29–41
After more speeches from Job and the reflections of a new character, Elihu (who despite his claims, doesn’t really add anything new to the discussion), Job finally gets his day in court. The LORD shows up and addresses him. Unexpectedly, rather than tell Job why he’s suffered and congratulate him for his faithfulness, the LORD gives Job a sustained dressing-down for presuming to question his justice and thinking he knows how to run the moral universe.
There is great material here about being humble before God. This needs to be treated with pastoral sensitivity, lest we scold suffering people for crying out to God and asking questions of him. It is not his questioning that God rebukes, but Job’s presumption to know better than God how the world works.
Sermon 6: Job 42
Finally, we reach the happy ending. Job repents of his presumption and is reconciled to God (Job 42:1–6). He is vindicated in front of his friends (vv 7–-9), and restored to his former fortunes, and more (vv 10–16).
Yet, there are still loose ends, and that’s kind of the point. The book of Job is realistic about what will and won’t be resolved in life, and is teaching us to also be realistic.
