Where were you?

August 9, 2020
Friends today we are returning to the book of Job to examine the conclusion of the matter. The matter I am talking about is the question of why innocent people may suffer especially when a good God is keeping watch over it all. Now three of Job’s friends took a stab at it and in different forms you will remember they came to the simple assumption that the only possibility is that Job or his family did something wrong in the past. Then Elihu the mysterious forth character appears and gives three very plausible explanations for the existence of suffering in general. in the end, after all the speeches were completed, it is God’s turn to take the stage. God addresses Job’s suffering in a very different and unexpected way. God reframes the whole conversation by counter questioning Job. You see Jesus do this all the time in the Gospels. And the purpose of this counter questioning is not to dodge the original question but to elevate the thinking of the questioner in such a way that the questioner is able to see things from a perspective in which the original question is not so relevant any more.