The Scarlet Letter
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
By: Nathaniel Hawthorne Modernised and edited by Jim McGuiggan (2004)
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One of my failures as a student of scripture (and life) down the years has been to reduce rather than include. I think we should stick to the immediate context but I'm sure we should allow a passage to suggest other truths that fall in line with the bigger biblical picture. I'm not suggesting that we should import ideas that aren't taught elsewhere in scripture. Start that business and there's no end to the nonsense we'll see "taught" in scripture. That leads me to say I'm sure that the book of Job has more than one point to make.
I believe Job intends to tell us that human wisdom (even when it derives from God) is limited and that only God knows the whole story. Including young Elihu, we have five wise men running around in circles, repeating themselves (because they don't know anything else to say) and never getting any nearer the truth that we as readers have been let in on. Regard with skepticism anyone who quickly and easily offers simple answers to very complex questions.
I believe Job intends to warn us that there is more going on than what we can plainly see. Job and his friends could plainly see and feel the pain, the loss, the frustration, the misery that stared them in the face. They didn't know that behind the scenes something of profound importance was being worked out. It makes sense that the heat of battle blinded them all to other things. People don't usually want theological lessons when they're hanging by their thumbs or when their comfortable world is under attack. But in and behind the cross of Christ with all its misery and sinful cruelty was a God who was acting out his holy love for a world he adored. What was true in Job's case and in the cross of Christ is true in ours.
I believe Job intends to teach us that a happy ending is ahead. Some modern scholars think the happy ending ruins the book. Oh well. There's this stubborn insistence everywhere (literature, movies and "art") for what's called "realism" as if countless millions didn't know realism right up close. The writer of the book of Job knew what he was doing and knew that beyond the loss and pain there was life even more full than we have known in our most blessed moments. The resurrection of Christ to immortal glory is not just a happy ending stuck on to a profound tragedy it is an essential part of the story. Think noble things of God. In Jesus Christ he has earned that from us.
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