When We Treat Proverbs Like Axioms

Job 4:1-21

Context
If you haven't read Job 1-3, I recommend you read the earlier posts, starting with The Man From Proverbs.
After Job’s complaint, his friends start to speak up.

Listening to the writer
Eliphaz was able to sit quietly with Job for a week of suffering. But he cannot sit by while Job complains about God. He knows Job might not like it, but he feels compelled to speak against Job (vv. 1-2). What is his argument in verses 3-5?

Verses 6-11 seem to be encouraging: “Look, you are a man of integrity, and you know good people are never punished. Bad things only happen to bad people.” But, if bad things only happen to bad people, and bad things are now clearly happening to Job, then… hmm. Job must be bad! In verses 12-21, Eliphaz describes a dream. What does he learn about people in the dream?

Listening to God
Do you agree with the basic reasoning in verses 6-11? Have you ever encouraged others this way? “Hey, you’re a good guy. God will certainly take care of you!” What does God think of this argument?

Does God talk to people through dreams? Are dreams always a portent from God? Is Eliphaz's dream of God, of the adversary, or from his own unconscious?

Miscellaneous Meanderings
Chapters 5-22 turn into a long argument with one basic theme: Job keeps insisting that he is upright (as the narrator has told us, read 1:1), and that his current position is unfair; his friends keep telling him that he must have done something terrible to deserve his fate, and he should confess it to God. Who do you think is right? The narrator clearly agrees with Job. If Job is right, then why do the innocent suffer? If his friends are right, then how do we decide between right and wrong, when Job looks like such a good guy?

I have struggled with this question for most of my life. Tragedy is a common part of human existence. There are some really horrible things that happen, and they often happen to people who are no more sinful than the rest. It is also the question that troubles most agnostics I've spoken with. Within the church, people tend to resist some of Jesus' extreme teachings; outside the church, although many ignore Jesus altogether, I have known many who embrace Jesus' teachings (on, for example, loving enemies and sharing rather than collecting wealth) but simply cannot reconcile an all-loving, all-powerful God with events like natural disasters and child abuse. One way or another, thoughtful Christians who want to have honest discussions with non-Christians will need to deal with this topic.