Why was Job chosen?

[Sonny]

You're stuck in gear....I'll call a wrecker.

[Gerr]

You're stuck in gear....I'll call a wrecker.

If you don't believe what God says, no amount of human reasoning/persuasion will/can convince you.

[Guest]

You're stuck in gear....I'll call a wrecker.

You're stuck out of gear. Maybe you SHOULD call a wrecker.

[Sonny]

If you don't believe what God says, no amount of human reasoning/persuasion will/can convince you.

I believe what God stated. Job was a blameless man. Later we learn what type of blamelessness, remember?

[Sonny]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

If you don't believe what God says, no amount of human reasoning/persuasion will/can convince you.

I believe what God stated. Job was a blameless man. Later we learn what type of blamelessness, remember?

Here's the reason Job did all those so-called good deeds:

Job 1:10 You have always protected him and his home and his property from harm. You have made him prosperous in everything he does. Look how rich he is!

Is that agape? Do you remember what agape is? Here:

1 Cor 13:3 If I give all I possess to the poor ..., but have not love [agape], nothing is gained.

See you can do the right thing outwardly, but for the wrong reason. When you do this you pollute agape and agape becomes bent back to self. In other words you are looking for a reward. That's iniquity, not agape. Let's read on:

Verse 4 Love ...does not boast, it is not proud. 5 ....it is not self-seeking

Did Job boast? Yes. Was Job proud of his righteousness? Yes. And why did he do these outward righteous deeds? Riches!

Now let's compare Job to the Pharisees:

Luke 16:14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money [riches], also heard all these things, and they derided Him. 15 And He [Jesus] said to them,

"You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

Not only did Job justify himself to his four friends, but Job also justified himself to God.

Saul, before he became Paul had this same problem:

Paul says that as "touching the righteousness which is in the law"--as far as outward acts were concerned --he was "blameless" (Philippians 3:6); but when the spiritual character of the law was discerned, he saw himself a sinner. Judged by the letter of the law as men apply it to the outward life, he had abstained from sin; but when he looked into the depths of its holy precepts, and saw himself as God saw him, he bowed in humiliation and confessed his guilt. [sC 30]

So both Paul and Job had the same problem.

[Nic Samojluk]

Originally Posted By: Nic Samojluk

Yes, the story of Lazarus in Abraham bosom, told by Jesus himself, and the apocalyptic literature which uses individuals and animals to portray reality. The Deuteronomy principle suggesting that the just are always rewarded and the evil doers are always punished is negated in Scripture quite often. Read the Psalms of David who quite often complained about this fact.

So the book Dt is fictional? Was Dt a revelation of all the truths? Or was Dt meant to reveal to us that generally speaking, we reap what we sow? There is a progression of truth from Gen to Rev.

As to Lazarus, it has to be a parable because the testimony of Scripture is that death is a sleep.

Would Jesus lump a fictional Job with historical characgters Daniel & Noah? Or are these also fictional?

I see no evidence in the book of Deuteronomy to suggest that it was a work of fiction. The same can be said about historicity of individuals such as Noah and Daniel. I have a question for you: Do you believe that the long speeches we find in the book of Job depict the actual dialogue between Job and his friends? When you get visitors in your house, do your friends engage in delivering long speeches like those we find in said book? The way the material is arranged strongly suggests that it is the result of a work of art.

People do not behave in that fashion in the real world. This does not necessarily mean that a real character named Job never existed in real life, but this doesn’t mean that someone did listen to all those speeches and was able to reproduce them verbatim. My reading of the works of Josephus leads me to conclude that those long speeches are the result of someone who used his imagination to produce a great work of literature at a time where there were no tape recorders to document what was being said by Job and his friends.

[Gerr]

Quote:

I have a question for you: Do you believe that the long speeches we find in the book of Job depict the actual dialogue between Job and his friends? When you get visitors in your house, do your friends engage in delivering long speeches like those we find in said book? The way the material is arranged strongly suggests that it is the result of a work of art.

Of course not, no such kind of conversation takes place in real life. But the author took the story of a real person and real events and the concepts expressed in their dialogue and arranged it in his own artistic way. Authors do that all the time. The gospel writers wrote about real people and real events, but arranged their books from their own perspectives and according to their purpose for writing.

[Nic Samojluk]

Quote:

I have a question for you: Do you believe that the long speeches we find in the book of Job depict the actual dialogue between Job and his friends? When you get visitors in your house, do your friends engage in delivering long speeches like those we find in said book? The way the material is arranged strongly suggests that it is the result of a work of art.

Of course not, no such kind of conversation takes place in real life. But the author took the story of a real person and real events and the concepts expressed in their dialogue and arranged it in his own artistic way. Authors do that all the time. The gospel writers wrote about real people and real events, but arranged their books from their own perspectives and according to their purpose for writing.

I wouldn't argue with such a view!

[John317]

Quote:

I have a question for you: Do you believe that the long speeches we find in the book of Job depict the actual dialogue between Job and his friends? When you get visitors in your house, do your friends engage in delivering long speeches like those we find in said book? The way the material is arranged strongly suggests that it is the result of a work of art.

Of course not, no such kind of conversation takes place in real life. But the author took the story of a real person and real events and the concepts expressed in their dialogue and arranged it in his own artistic way. Authors do that all the time. The gospel writers wrote about real people and real events, but arranged their books from their own perspectives and according to their purpose for writing.

I agree with both of you here.

I believe the book of Job is based on something that happened but that it is a work of art-- one of the greatest.

[Sonny]

Okay, I agree with this....