00:00:01:12 – 00:00:30:16
Clint Loveall
Hey friends, thanks for joining us as we close out the week, thinking together about The Book of Joe. Not into the text yet, but trying to do some pre work. Joe was such a wonderful book. Such a complex book. Just a lot to think about. As you prepare to read it and kind of today that is our idea or that’s our, our goal is to think together about how is it that you read the book of Job?

00:00:30:21 – 00:00:45:34
Clint Loveall
And to some extent, Michael, I, I would maybe say that that depending upon which part of job you’re reading, as we enter into the narrative section, we.

00:00:45:39 – 00:00:52:28
Clint Loveall
We get the, the narrative presents us with.

00:00:52:33 – 00:01:26:13
Clint Loveall
What is happening and why it’s happening. But then why becomes the philosophical focus of of the dialogs. And so, I mean, the questions that distract you in the prolog or are how how would this be? Why why would God do that? How how could this happen? Those are the very questions that build a bridge to the interior of the book, where those are the very questions that the characters are answering.

00:01:26:18 – 00:01:36:02
Clint Loveall
But in some ways, to get through the prolog without being overly troubled by what you read can be a struggle.

00:01:36:07 – 00:02:05:24
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. Well, because it is descriptive of a thing that Clint we would all be terrified of happening to ourselves. Sure, we live in a world in which really, we don’t need definitions or descriptions of the sinful brokenness that surrounds us. We we either ourselves or in our our living of life. We’ve come across moments or people who have experienced when life just starts collapsing, crumbling around and beneath you.

00:02:05:29 – 00:02:35:43
Michael Gewecke
And what you see happening to job is not just one clear cut moment in which he is suffering. It’s loss upon loss, upon loss. And I think that that’s a very tender place of a human heart to be imaginatively along the ride with him. I think it would be hard if you’re a person with any compassion or empathy, you’re going to have a hard time not reading the narrative and feeling the weight of the suffering that’s coming upon him.

00:02:35:43 – 00:02:59:15
Michael Gewecke
And I want to point out, I do think it’s it’s troubled and complicated by this scene where you have Satan, you have the tempter, you have this character coming and it seems like almost winning an argument with God. And then this troubling idea, you know, the leading God to this outcome. And there’s a struggle. Wait, is God active in this?

00:02:59:15 – 00:03:15:45
Michael Gewecke
Is that is is this horrible thing which is repulsive, a thing that God is doing. And obviously that’s gonna you picked up in the discourse and those conversations revolve around it. But I think anybody who’s reading this text carefully is going to be troubled by the way it sets it up.

00:03:15:50 – 00:03:50:39
Clint Loveall
Yeah. Which I, I think is part of the genius of the Prolog is that it also delivers you to the question why? And so that not only are you observing job struggle, but you yourself, as the reader, have already entered into that struggle. You you two, are asking serious questions about the relationship between God and suffering, which is exactly what Jobe is going to do and the narrative delivers you there by a different path.

00:03:50:43 – 00:04:21:51
Clint Loveall
As we move through the story post prelude, you already know the answer to the question why? Why is this happening? The reader already knows. But that answer is itself troubling, right? And and not knowing does not erase the discomfort. In fact, in some ways it may heighten the discomfort. And I think that’s again, that’s part of the beauty of this book.

00:04:21:55 – 00:04:50:18
Clint Loveall
If you can have enough distance for. And it’s one of the ways in which I think these two sections have to be paired, because the the prolog and the conclusion without the dialog is kind of a fable. The the middle without the prolog and conclusion is kind of a philosophical discussion. And yet when you put both of them together, it doesn’t make it easier.

00:04:50:18 – 00:04:55:57
Clint Loveall
But they give balance to one another and a sense of completeness between the two of them.

00:04:56:02 – 00:05:20:51
Michael Gewecke
I want to intensify that a little bit and bear with me for a second. But there’s a whole realm of traditional philosophy, which is ethics. And and there’s other realms of philosophy that deal with the idea of suffering and brokenness in the world. Some of the themes of this book walk on that ground. It why does the brokenness come back on good people?

00:05:20:56 – 00:05:42:09
Michael Gewecke
What is the right action to take, even when you’re unjustly in a situation of suffering? And that is a topic that Jobe walks through. I want to point out, though, this book is not doing so from a modern philosophical frame. This book is doing it from a theological frame, and I think it’s really, really important that we point that out.

00:05:42:09 – 00:06:14:02
Michael Gewecke
We said this in the previous day that in the book of Job, God is both the rising and inciting action of this story. God is the one who’s being discussed throughout this entire story. And the last word prior to the narrative summary is God speaking in this story. And I think it’s worth noting that for Christians, we are beset by the difficult question of what happens when good people suffer and namely, where’s God in that suffering?

00:06:14:16 – 00:06:59:09
Michael Gewecke
Job is not doing and engaging these questions from the frame of a do or a non God perspective. This is God’s written throughout the entire story. And I think that that really matters because as people of faith, when we find ourselves and our faith stretched to the limits, and we find ourselves resonating with these questions that come from the book of job, we’re able as Christians to say that this is a conversation in our scriptures about God, about the implications of God’s action and where God is, even while we’re broken and suffering, and the conversations that people are having around it that I think is and it should be encouraging, especially when people find themselves

00:06:59:09 – 00:07:15:34
Michael Gewecke
asking questions that they might not have asked before to say, that’s not new to the scriptures either, and know that that’s all under the umbrella of faith. People interrogating where’s God? Who is God? What’s God’s purpose and where is God’s place in all of this?

00:07:15:39 – 00:08:01:37
Clint Loveall
There’s this moment in job where his friends see him and they’re shocked by what they see, that that job is physically emaciated, that he’s struggling, that he’s he’s sick. He he is these various things that they they have a visceral reaction to. And, again, part of what the book does is share that experience with us in the same way that when you visit a person in hospice care, you can be overwhelmed by the appearance and by the difficulty and by the sadness of that situation.

00:08:01:42 – 00:08:41:03
Clint Loveall
And the book presents all of that for us. But then gives us a little distance to ask, well, what does it mean? What what is what is here to learn? What is here to see? And it it’s difficult. I think that’s one of the things that makes job very difficult to read in a time of pain, because it’s hard to get the distance to be an observer of the narrative part, Jobe can’t think philosophically about his suffering because he’s chained to it.

00:08:41:07 – 00:09:17:22
Clint Loveall
He can only protest that it’s unfair, which the reader may, armed with the Prolog, may agree with, but I that’s I don’t I think that’s a challenge of this book is that while it certainly showcases suffering and puts that on the on the front and center for people, it also then asks us to back up a little and listen to these dialogs and arguments and to be a little bit further away and to be a little bit more of an observer.

00:09:17:22 – 00:09:27:21
Clint Loveall
And that’s a tough transition. When you’re dealing with these fundamental and difficult, challenging questions of life, I think that’s a hard thing to ask.

00:09:27:28 – 00:09:58:12
Michael Gewecke
We’ve said this before, but I think it’s fair for us to ask ourselves, where does this book come out? Of what? When is this compelling? And I think regardless of when it was first written and if it was ever edited, if you put that stuff aside, it if you think that this book is written in the exile, a time for Israel in a moment where they have been removed from their homes and culture has been taken from them, and the ways of life that they taken for granted are no more.

00:09:58:12 – 00:10:27:03
Michael Gewecke
If that’s the case, one could imagine how a book like this would resonate with you, that this idea that, hey, we did all the stuff we were supposed to do and it’s not working it. We’ve tried, we’ve tried to come back, we’ve tried to do better. And God’s not showing up. And if that is the context, then job speaks to it in a really powerful way to say that sometimes it’s not for lack of effort, sometimes it’s not for lack of our intention.

00:10:27:12 – 00:10:52:52
Michael Gewecke
Sometimes as the world falls back on us, for whatever reason that is. And I do think the first part of job troubles that a little bit. Regardless, this story of people engaging with, well, it’s your fault job or it a job protests. You say, no, it it’s not my fault. That kind of back and forth is the the place where you’re invited to ask, where would I be in that circle?

00:10:52:57 – 00:11:21:01
Michael Gewecke
And I do think there’s a kind of wisdom in suggesting that there are times in which the simple bow tie answer that you’re looking to get from your question is not going to be available, and that at some points you are finding yourself returning back to silence as opposed to coming back to a new form of confidence. And I think that makes especially a lot of sense.

00:11:21:01 – 00:11:34:59
Michael Gewecke
If you can imagine being a part of a people whose theology, quite frankly, hasn’t been working for them, and whose encounter with God seems far more distant than it’s ever felt. This book resonates in that context.

00:11:35:04 – 00:12:18:51
Clint Loveall
I had a seminary professor who once told our class that if your theology didn’t work in the emergency room, it didn’t work. And I suspect that’s a sentiment borne of the book of Job. The idea if this book can be dated to that painful period of of Judah, Israel’s history, that the way in which they imagined their relationship with God and suffering in the interchange of the two wasn’t working, that those simple answers were incomplete, and if so, job is a kind of indictment on that thinking.

00:12:18:55 – 00:12:54:43
Clint Loveall
However, the the book also may suggest, as we get to the conclusion that they are wrong, but they’re wrong for the wrong reasons. It’s not simply that they need a better system, it’s that the mystery of God does not fit in the boxes we try to build for it. And I, I, I think ultimately that’s where Joe may leave us now, I will leave we have a lot of ground to cover, and I will leave that conclusion on the table for now.

00:12:54:43 – 00:13:06:33
Clint Loveall
And and others can can make of it what they will as we as we get there. But I suspect that’s part of what’s going on in this book.

00:13:06:37 – 00:13:28:40
Michael Gewecke
I think that’s a good commitment to make as we seek to read this book together. If you’ve never studied Joe, maybe your commitment coming into it is I’m going to open myself to mystery, and I’m going to try to do my best to hear what Joe has to say without too quickly moving to ascribe labels of meaning to it.

00:13:28:40 – 00:13:53:07
Michael Gewecke
Well, this is this, and this is this. I think if you open your mind and you open your heart, and you’re willing to enter into this and to allow the book to lead you along, I think what you’ll discover is some heights and some depths and everything in between, as humans are engaging with some of the most difficult and, quite frankly, human topics that exist.

00:13:53:07 – 00:14:16:45
Clint Loveall
Yeah, this is not an easy book. It is a wonderful book. It’s a beautiful book. It’s an incredible book. I would argue that the author is author or authors are genius in the work that they do in this book. So I, I hope that that we will be able to bring out some of that for those who join us.

00:14:16:49 – 00:14:27:39
Michael Gewecke
We hope that you go on that journey with us. Like this video. So that helps others find it in preparation and do subscribe so you don’t miss the study. We will see you all next week as we kick off with chapter one of Joe.

00:14:27:45 – 00:14:28:24
Clint Loveall
Thanks for watching.