I was excited to read this, because the book of Job is probably my favorite book of the Bible. It's also the one that started my re-conversion back to Christianity after many years as an atheist.
Like many atheists, one of my big problems with faith, especially a Christian faith, was the problem of evil. And I know it seems weird that it was Job that both cast that into sharp relief, and then also started to resolve it. I was also studying evolution at the time, and was engaged in a lot of very public arguments against creationism. (I'm still very convinced of the truth of biological evolution.) As I came to understand evolution better, and spent more time in nature, the last few chapters of Job made everything fall into place, in a way I can't really explain in words. It was just that the natural world is so beautiful, even with its bloodshed. I don't have to be able to explain everything. But I get to be a part of it.
Later, when I had more experience of suffering and our reaction to suffering, it became increasingly clear to me that this book is also, dominantly, about how we react to others' misfortune. Do we help Job bandage his boils, or do we come up with a well-reasoned explanation about why he deserves the boils? I don't have to be able to explain anything to be able to help, to love.
I once heard an evangelical preacher (forget who, can’t find a source at the moment) say something like, “Job had the best friends in the world…until they opened their mouths.” That’s kind of a pithy way of putting it, but if you want to glean a practical moral message from the text, that’s probably the best one: humans don’t need words, they need *presence.*
(And I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record about this, but I think that’s a big part of why social media is so deeply unsatisfying.)
I hope you will indulge me sharing an essay I wrote about the presence of friends, social media, and also the book of Job which is concordant with a lot of these thoughts. Here is a link:
I was excited to read this, because the book of Job is probably my favorite book of the Bible. It's also the one that started my re-conversion back to Christianity after many years as an atheist.
Like many atheists, one of my big problems with faith, especially a Christian faith, was the problem of evil. And I know it seems weird that it was Job that both cast that into sharp relief, and then also started to resolve it. I was also studying evolution at the time, and was engaged in a lot of very public arguments against creationism. (I'm still very convinced of the truth of biological evolution.) As I came to understand evolution better, and spent more time in nature, the last few chapters of Job made everything fall into place, in a way I can't really explain in words. It was just that the natural world is so beautiful, even with its bloodshed. I don't have to be able to explain everything. But I get to be a part of it.
Later, when I had more experience of suffering and our reaction to suffering, it became increasingly clear to me that this book is also, dominantly, about how we react to others' misfortune. Do we help Job bandage his boils, or do we come up with a well-reasoned explanation about why he deserves the boils? I don't have to be able to explain anything to be able to help, to love.
I once heard an evangelical preacher (forget who, can’t find a source at the moment) say something like, “Job had the best friends in the world…until they opened their mouths.” That’s kind of a pithy way of putting it, but if you want to glean a practical moral message from the text, that’s probably the best one: humans don’t need words, they need *presence.*
(And I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record about this, but I think that’s a big part of why social media is so deeply unsatisfying.)
I hope you will indulge me sharing an essay I wrote about the presence of friends, social media, and also the book of Job which is concordant with a lot of these thoughts. Here is a link:
https://doctrixperiwinkle.substack.com/p/friends-like-these
Took me a sec to find sufficient time to read this, but it’s beautiful.
Thank you!