I am convinced that anyone who speaks and acts like Job would be kicked out of most churches today—even those, perhaps especially those, that proclaim the Bible their authority. They might be right to do so.
He certainly is someone who should be kept away from new believers. Job is bitter. In fact, Job speaks of God as one who “has taken away my right, and the Almighty who has embittered my soul” (Job 27:2). He is so bitter that he wishes he had been “carried from the womb to the tomb” (Job 10:19) We would rebuke him for his bitterness and for blaming his bitterness on God. He is certainly disobeying Paul’s exhortation to “rejoice, always.”
It might be okay if Job would just shut up. Job refused to be quiet: “I loathe my life own life, I will give full vent to my complaint, I will speak the bitterness of my soul.” We would dread him sharing “what God has been doing” in his life. Let’s skip testimonies when Job comes to church! Give Job the suicide hotline number and send him on his way!
Lest we are tempted to correct and counsel Job, we should remember how terrible Job was to his friends. Job had an unteachable spirit. He calls his friends “worthless physicians and all their advice “proverbs of ashes” and “defenses of clay” Job 13:12. He declares, “Sorry comforters are you all. Is there no limit to your windy words” (Job 15:3)? Job is not open to all grief counsel they are ready to give.
Job fails to testify to all the things we insist upon. He should be testifying to how all his troubles have improved his godly character. Instead, we find a guy wishing for death. He should also be testifying to how through it all God has been with him. Instead, he complains of God’s absence and silence: “Behold, I go forward, but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him.” When he speaks of God’s friendship, it is in the past tense: “Oh that I were as in months gone by, when God watched over me. . . . when the friendship of God was over my tent.” Job would refuse to sing, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” He would embarrass us by just sitting in his pew and weeping. Job’s only achievement is blessing God instead of cursing Him.
Even more infuriating would be Job’s claim that he is blameless. Certainly, like Job’s friends, we would insist he must have done something wrong to bring about such devastating trouble. We would rebuke him for trying to justify himself before God. We would insist our righteousness (and especially Job’s righteousness) is like filthy rags before God. And, after all, don’t we all sin, in thought, word, and deed daily? Of course, we would have to ignore that it is God who first says Job is “blameless and upright.”
Job does repent, but only after God shows up and speaks to him. I have heard preachers say that it is okay to cry out to the lord like Job did. It is okay, they say, to be honest with God.But do we really want people talking like Job until God appears to them and lectures them? We would rebuke Job’s demand to see and hear God as a refusal to walk by faith, not sight. Job never repents, it seems, of what he said. But when he sees and hears God speak out of the whirlwind, Job repents of having said anything. Despite Job repenting, God rebukes three of Job’s friends “because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has” Job 42:7.
I doubt that this declaration by God would keep us from kicking Job out, if only to protect the flock. We are now under a new covenant. Believers are filled with the Holy Spirit, a comforter better than Job’s. We live with the promise of Jesus that He will never leave us or forsake us. Like they say, if you are not as close to God as you used to be, guess who moved? Perhaps if we feel abandoned like Job, it is our fault. We now have the Scriptures which always speak to us and are for us the voice and revelation of God. We now walk by faith, not sight, so modern Jobs should shut up and just trust God.
Perhaps we have the example of Job, so that we never have to follow his example. We never have to wish we had been a miscarriage, complain loudly to God, and demand God appear and answer our arguments. Maybe Job did all this, so we don’t have to. We can jump to the end of the book of Job and just be reassured that as with Job everything will work out in the end.
Despite all these excellent arguments for kicking Job out, we should give him a pew. We need to resist the temptation to recite the same old counsel—even though true—that life is hard, but God is good. It is okay for Job to ask why life is hard, to ask where the goodness of God appears in the deaths of our children and wife.
The real example to avoid is that of Job’s comforters who had all the answers. Until recently, most of my sympathies have been Job’s friends. I am by instinct a teacher and will be thinking of a verse before a person is done telling me their problem. Like Job’s comforters, many of have our pat answers for every question. If not, we can google it. Having “Jobs” in our flock may be a problem, but it is not as serious a problem as making them unwelcome. Most of us have been or will be Job at some point, so we need to make room for Job no matter how uncomfortable he makes us.
God is not threatened by Job’s questions, nor ready to slap down those who ask them. More than the loss of everything else, Job mourns the absence of God. He longs to return to the days when “the friendship of God was over” his tent. May our pews be filled with all those who cry out for the friendship of God.
