Job: A Good Man Asks Why (Catholic Perspectives- 6 Weeks With the Bible, 6) - Softcover

How to Use This Guide

 

You might compare this booklet to a short visit to a national park. The park is so large that you could spend months, even years, getting to know it. But a brief visit, if carefully planned, can be enjoyable and worthwhile. In a few hours you can drive through the park and pull over at a handful of sites. At each stop you can get out of the car, take a short trail through the woods, listen to the wind blowing in the trees, get a feel for the place.
 In this booklet we’ll drive through the book of Job, making half a dozen stops along the way. At those points we’ll proceed on foot, taking a leisurely walk through the selected passages. The readings have been chosen to lead us to the heart of the debate about the meaning of suffering that takes place in the book of Job. After each discussion we’ll get back in the car and take the highway to the next stop.
 This guide provides everything you need to explore Job in six discussions—or to do a six-part exploration on your own. The introduction on page 6 will prepare you to get the most out of your reading. The weekly sections feature key passages from Job, with explanations that highlight what his words mean for us today. Equally important, each section supplies questions that will launch you into fruitful discussion, helping you both to explore Job for yourself and to learn from one another. If you’re using the booklet by yourself, the questions will spur your personal reflection.
 Each discussion is meant to be a guided discovery.
 Guided. None of us is equipped to read the Bible without help. We read the Bible for ourselves but not by ourselves. Scripture was written to be understood and applied in and with the Church. So each week “A Guide to the Reading,” drawing on the work of both modern biblical scholars and Christian writers of the past, supplies background and explanations. The guide will help you grasp Job’s message. Think of it as a friendly park ranger who points out noteworthy details and explains what you’re looking at so you can appreciate things for yourself.
 Discovery. The purpose is for you to interact with the book of Job. “Questions for Careful Reading” is a tool to help you dig into the book and examine it carefully. “Questions for Application” will help you consider what it means for your life here and now. Each week concludes with an “Approach to Prayer” section that helps you respond to God’s Word. Supplementary “Living Tradition” and “Saints in the Making” sections offer the thoughts, experiences, and prayers of Christians past and present in order to show you what Job has meant to others—so that you can consider what it might mean for you.
 How long are the discussion sessions? We’ve assumed you will have about an hour and a half when you get together. If you have less time, you’ll find that most of the elements can be shortened somewhat.
 Is homework necessary? You will get the most out of the discussions if you read the weekly material in advance of each meeting. But if participants are not able to prepare, have someone read the “What’s Happened” and “Guide to the Reading” sections aloud to the group at the points where they occur in the weekly material.
 What about leadership? If you happen to have a world-class biblical scholar in your group, by all means ask him or her to lead the discussions. But in the absence of any professional Scripture scholars, or even accomplished biblical amateurs, you can still have a first-class Bible discussion. Choose two or three people to be facilitators, and have everyone read “Suggestions for Bible Discussion Groups” before beginning (page 76).
 Does everyone need a guide? a Bible? Everyone in the group will need their own copy of this booklet. It contains the sections of Job that are discussed, so a Bible is not absolutely necessary—but each participant will find it useful to have one. You should have at least one Bible on hand for your discussion. (See page 80 for recommendations.)
 How do we get started? Before you begin, take a look at the suggestions for Bible discussion groups (page 76) and individuals (page 79).

 

A Book That Asks Hard Questions
Introducing the Book of Job

 

To start you thinking about the subject of the book of Job, I was going to begin this introduction with a story or two about people who are suffering. But is there any need? We are all well-acquainted with situations of pain and loss, including the kind that the book of Job portrays, in which the suffering seems undeserved, even terribly unfair. If the starting point for reading Job is an awareness of suffering, we all, sadly, have plenty of material
to begin.
 Sooner or later, pain draws from us the agonizing question Why? Why has God let this dreadful thing happen to me or to another person? Why has God created a universe where such suffering can occur? How can God be just—indeed, how can God be—if such evil exists? What possible use can this suffering serve?
 To some people it may appear that such questions are inappropriate for a person of faith. The person who asks them may seem to lack trust in God. The questions may even seem dangerous, for often they are asked with anger, and it may seem unwise to get angry with God. And what if the questions have no good answers? In that case, it might be better not to pursue them, since they would only undermine our faith.
 The biblical, Christian tradition, however, does not counsel timidity or repression in our relationship with the Almighty. The writers of Scripture and the saints of the Church model honesty with God. Faith does not entail weak-minded avoidance of hard questions. Asking questions, even with deep feeling, is a necessary part of progress toward the truth. God is not afraid of our questions; in fact, he welcomes them. Concerning the why? that we cry out in suffering, Pope John Paul II has written: “Man can put this question to God with all the emotion of his heart and with his mind full of dismay and anxiety, and God expects the question and listens to it, as we see in the revelation of the Old Testament. In the book of Job the question has found its most vivid expression.”
 The Pope sounds almost like he is writing the introduction to this booklet. The book of Job is indeed the Bible’s most vivid and profound examination of the meaning of human suffering. Reading Job will lead us to reflect on our own questions about God and suffering—a process of reflection that can help us to mature in faith. Job will also spur us to reflect on less theoretical questions— how suffering should be borne, how comfort to the suffering should (and should not) be given, how comfort should be received.
 The central question. Probably all people who have suffered, whatever their beliefs about God or gods, have asked why. The Jewish and Christian view of God gives the question a special urgency. The God who made himself known to Israel and revealed himself perfectly in Jesus of Nazareth is the creator and ruler of all. He is a just and loving God who takes a deep interest in human beings and promises to lead us into happiness with himself. The evils that arise in the world force us to ask how this God, who is so powerful and so compassionate, can allow so much to happen that seems to contradict his purposes.
 For some people, this question takes the form of what has been called “the problem of pain.” The question is whether the existence of a powerful and...