Often when we suffer, we want to be heard. We want some form of acknowledgement, maybe even an apology. All this and more coming up right now on the Clear Vee Today Show. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis. Welcome to the Clearview Today studio. We've got a great conversation with you guys today, continuing in the book of Job with our host, Dr. Abadan Shah.
If you're listening for the very, very first time today, we want to say welcome. We're glad you're joining us. Let you know who's talking to you. Dr. Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show.
Dr. Shah, back in the book of Job. Yes, we are. That's it. You know, Job is one of those books that everybody thinks they know until they really start reading it.
Like, I thought I knew Job.
So I was going to say that when you first said, hey, we're going to be preaching through the book of Job. I was like, okay, cool. Job, you know, trusting God in suffering, remaining righteous, not sinning against God. Great. Got it.
Mm-hmm. But there is so much in Job that people don't understand, that people don't have the right view of. And I'm so excited to continue this conversation. Yeah, because we tend to look at Job as like he's the main character.
So, yeah, God really messed his life up, but he still had the faith.
So that's how I need to be. Book of Job over. And we've seen over the last few months as we've been going through this that Job is such a deeper book that translates to our spiritual suffering. You know what? I began praying about what is the next series because we had just come out of Romans and fall was coming.
People are going back to school, going back to their lives after vacation, summer vacations, you know. And God laid on my heart the book of Job. And I had a reason for that. And the reason was I wanted to really focus on demonology, not like. hardcore study everything about Satan and fallen angels and judgment to come, all that.
You know, I've taking courses on that when I was in college. There was a course on On angels, good and bad. Wow. Yeah, elect and evil, something like that.
So, um, I began thinking, okay, I'm just going to focus on. What happened? to Satan, what happened to Lucifer? Mm-hmm. And I'm like, okay, I got to go to the book of Job because that's where you hear.
Sons of God coming before God, and Lucifer was also with them, Satan was also with them. I'm like, okay. And then I said, let me just read the book of Job a little bit. And the moment I started, I was like, I cannot just do the first few verses and then leave Joe because people are going to be like, wait, wait, wait. Then what happened?
Yeah.
So that's how. We began going in the book of Job. And one thing I found is. It is just like I think one of you said, it is a complex book. Yes.
I knew that already because I had done some research on it before. But it is it blew my mind. I spent some time reading through. For those of you who are interested in studying the book of Job, you need to read the face of Old Testament studies. That is a volume that came out maybe 20 years ago, probably.
There's also a Um Companion face of New Testament studies.
So you need to read these kind of works that will bring you up to date.
So don't just go to the library and find commentaries from like the 1800s.
Some of them are really good, by the way. Yeah.
But some of them may not be up to date. They're not dealing with the issues that have come up and have been addressed. I mean, I read the Warren Wearsby commentary on Job. You're telling me I'm not an expert?
Well, I tell you what. Warren Weersby was amazing. But he would also tell you: if you really read Warren Weersby, his other works, to Read commentaries, read critical commentaries. Right. And so I read the Face of New Testament Studies section on Job.
And then I went to another work that came out. It's called The State of New Testament Studies and State of Old Testament Studies.
So I spent some time in the state of Old Testament studies in the book of Job. And then I was like, okay, I think God's leading me down this path. And so once you put all that work in, now you're ready to start applying it. You're ready to start preaching it to people in your congregation who are suffering. And one of the things we wanted to talk about today was this sort of, this really relatable feeling of anybody who's gone through some sort of trauma or some sort of suffering is that we don't want to just get through it, right?
We want some sort of acknowledgement. If I suffer, people need to know what I've been. I need you to know that I'm suffering and maybe even apologize for your part in my suffering. Yeah.
And like, even if I've got through it, you need to know that I'm stronger now because I went through it. It's not enough for me to just suffer, get through it, learn my lesson. The people around me need to acknowledge my suffering. Where does that thought come from? Um so What helped me understand that, because it's real, it's very true.
People want to be acknowledged that you are here, been through something, I see you. And You haven't done anything wrong. People also want to be acquitted. Because The first response is, you did something wrong, hence you're suffering. And all of us, and even Job, wanted to be acquitted.
Tell me that I am not guilty. I'll take it, but tell me that this is something else is happening.
So, as I was studying, as I mentioned, face of the New Testament, state of New Testament, there's some other research, I found out that. Recently, Trauma Is looked upon as a lens through which to understand the book of Job. Trauma You know, our world talks about trauma all the time. Everybody needs therapy. Everybody's traumatized.
Everybody needs therapy. And that's not true, by the way. And so I was like, okay. Let me see if this is even worth it. I was very reluctant.
And I came across several works like Michelle Keener's work. You've heard me talk about her, Carol Newsom's work, others. And I was like, okay.
Alright. Then I'm going to have my one foot in. Grammatical, literary, theological. Scholarship and the other one is going to be in trauma research. What was it about their works that made you, I guess, change your mind or soften your view of like this trauma approach?
That Michelle Keener and others were using critical commentaries, good, solid research. They were not just like, okay, guys, forget all that critical stuff. We're going to study the book of Job now through our tears. I would be like, bye. See ya.
See ya. But they're using reputable sources that you do and respected. I saw David Klein's work, C.L.
So's work, let's see, who had John Hartley's work. Um You know, Longman's work. I mean, so many good, solid scholars on Job.
So I was like, Okay. I want to keep reading this. And then it was like, okay. Sample Is done.
Now I have to buy this book. Right. Okay, I'm buying this book. And so that's how I was able to see things in the book of Job. That other people haven't been able to see.
And that's why today we're talking about. When you go through trauma, you want to be acknowledged. You want to be acquitted? And this is natural, this is normal. And the sooner pastors, youth pastors, um, Councillors Christian therapists, the sooner we understand this, parents.
College professors. The sooner we can understand this, The better it is. Yeah.
Because now we can meet people where they are without compromising solid biblical convictions. We don't have to compromise those things. Right. Do you feel like people will go to their pastor and their pastor is just doing the best they can? They're the pastor of maybe a small country church or maybe a large church, but they haven't done this research.
They haven't really dove in and looked at things through different lenses. And so someone comes to them and they say, Pastor, I'm suffering and I just feel like I don't deserve it. And maybe their pastor or their ministry leader, whoever just goes, well, you know, just you got to hang in there, pray, ask God for forgiveness. And right there, they're like, forgiveness for what? I didn't do anything.
Or God is teaching you something. Yeah.
I mean, if you really study the book of Job, what is it that God was teaching Job? I mean, what is the lesson he wants? He doesn't ever really spell out the lesson for Job, does he? Because there isn't. Right.
There isn't a lesson that God was teaching Job.
Now, God was going to reveal himself to Job in a new, in a fresh, in a powerful way. And that happens in chapters 38 through 41 when God begins to speak to Job. But other than that, The suffering did not happen to Job because Job had done something wrong. We already agreed on that. Neither did the suffering happen to Job because God was teaching him something through suffering.
Now, C.S. Lewis often talks about that. He talks about And a God has a megaphone. He talks. He.
speaks to us in our joys and But he shouts to us in our sufferings. But if you really say the book of Job. This did not begin because God was going to teach Job something. Right. We don't see Job as lacking something that needs to be fulfilled through his suffering.
Yeah.
Even the beginning of the book of Job, I mean, people who have read the Bible have read it probably multiple times, but the very fact that Satan comes before God, that alone can throw your theology for a loop. Oh, yeah. The fact that he's able to just come into God's presence, and that all of this is initiated because Satan brings it up. Right. Satan points the finger at Job, or God, God.
God, God brings Job. That's right. That's right. See, I'll correct myself on there. God points the finger at Job.
He said, if you consider Job, and Satan says, well, yeah, of course, because you blessed him. And then the story unfolds from there. And how often do we take the time to really. Not just glance at all this. But take our time to study this and meditate upon this and let it soak into our minds and our hearts that suffering could be because God is.
Showing off. Who we are. And I promise you that alleviates a lot more than definitely. you're getting what you deserve or suffering is where you learn things To go, oh, so I am suffering because God is bragging on me somewhere? Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Wow. Yeah, that doesn't make it not suffering, but it almost adds a sweetness to it. Yeah, because I'm not a bad person, actually. This is happening because I am a righteous person before God and through God. That's the lesson.
Maybe God isn't teaching Job a lesson, but he's teaching us through Job. You know what I mean? Like, Job himself is like, I don't like this one bit. Oh, no. And he's looking for acquittal from his friends, but also in a way, I guess, from God, right?
He's saying, like, somebody, give me a sign. Tell me, I didn't do this. Because if Job knew about. The council in heaven where Satan challenged God and said, Oh, he loves you because you do things for him. Take it away, and he will curse you to your face.
Bam bam bam. And then Once again, have you considered my servant Job? Yes, I do. He does it because you do things for him, touch his body, skin for skin. Go for it.
Can kill him. Boom. Joe. doesn't know that this has happened. Is Job completely oblivious to the fact that these things happen?
I don't think so. I think Job knows that God is in the heavens. And I believe Job wrote the book of Job. That's just me. And some scholars agree with that, many disagree.
I think Job wrote the book of Job, and I probably believe that Moses is the one who brought it into the Old Testament canon. I may be wrong, but I think based on Some of the Hebrew words that are used based on some of the ancient Um Uh references. To the ice age. to the marauding tribes. To how Job's wealth is measured, things like that.
This is a very early, early book. Right. You're talking about the time of Abraham. Job was. Maybe Maybe fifty to seventy five, maybe even a hundred years after Abraham.
Or maybe even contemporary, because he's sort of a. Descendant, right? Yeah.
So, seven different lines. If you, if you read the book of Job. coming from the side of Edom.
So so it's it's about that time period.
So all that to say I think Job Had an idea because some of the things he says about. The mediator The Redeemer, and then also from last weekend's message. that I am not like Adam who denied his transgression. Which is a very deep theology. Those three things to me tell me that Job was not as clueless that something was happening in the heavenlies.
He simply wanted God to show up. and silence his friends who were accusing him. Tell them what is happening. Tell them that you are actually bragging on me. And God Of course, doesn't.
Until the very end. Until In a sense, the The pre-incarnate Antichrist shows up.
So he's so Job is sort of forced to clear himself. You know, when God is not showing up, he's talking to his friends. And it was kind of funny because we talked about this, these dialogue cycles in Job where he's trying to progress, he's trying to.
Okay, you're not listening to me. Let me try it this way. All right, let me talk about wisdom for a minute. Let me try to approach it from this way. And his friends just aren't hearing it.
So he has to continually find new and creative ways to defend himself from this accusation of sin. Yeah.
Yeah.
So. You know, the whole third dialogue cycle sort of breaks down. In chapter 25, I believe, and then starting in chapter 26, all the way to chapter 31 of the book of Job.
Now, Job is talking. And he just talks and talks and talks. And if you remember in chapter 28, he had a good day. He talks about wisdom. We did that.
And then He starts going down the negative road again in chapters 29 through 31, but in chapter 31, As John Hartley, one of the Job scholars, said, The job makes if one final attempt to clear himself. One final attempt to say, I did not do. the things I'm being accused of Having done. He's been on the attack. He's been on the the receiving end of this accusation from his friends.
Yeah.
And maybe in the next show we'll talk about this chapter thirty-one, his vow of innocence. That's what it's known as.
Okay. His vow of innocence. We'll focus on that. But here, just for the next few moments, Uh Joe Uses Legal metaphors a lot.
Now, he's been using it throughout the book. Even his friends use that, the legal metaphor. But in chapter 31, this forensic terminology, this courtroom metaphors, these lawsuit languages are sort of like at a crescendo. He is like. Really?
emphasizing the Shaphat, which is the justice of God. Like I need the judge to speak up. He's like a Matt Murdoch of himself. Could be. Or a, who's another one?
Matt Locke. Matt Locke. There you go. Matt Locke. There's a bunch of people.
Many Griffith. Yeah, there's a bunch of people listening, like, Matt Murder, who is that? Oh, Matt Lock. Yeah, that's what he meant. Yeah.
Those who know know. Same thing.
So, what happens here? He heads toward this legal jargon, this idea of forensically defending himself, forensically looking for an acquittal or looking for an apology. Where does Job go from there? Where he is going, and can I give you a couple of examples of he uses this legal analogies? One is, let's begin in Job chapter 9, verse 1.
It says, Then Job answered and said, Truly, I know it is so. How can a man be righteous before God? If one wished to contend with him, he could not answer him one time out of a thousand. The Hebrew word for content, if one wishes to contend, is the word Larib, which has a legal implication. You got to go through the proper channels to contend with this issue.
Yeah.
Yeah, if I were to summon you into the court If he were to take the stand. And I would have questioned the witness. That's what. That's the meaning behind it. Let's go down to Job chapter 16, verse 8.
You have shriveled me up, and it is a witness. Head. Head is a witness. Against me. Verse 19, Job 16:19.
Surely, even now, my witness is in heaven, and my evidence is on high. It's a courtroom word terminology. But you also mentioned his friends were well versed in this too. They were using that same terminology. Oh, yeah.
And Eliphaz uses that in Job chapter 22, all legal terminology. And then, of course, in chapter 31, it is all coming to a head here. In Job 31, verse 5: If I have walked with falsehood, or if my foot has hastened to deceit, let me be weighed on honest scales. There you have it. Lady Justice.
I mean, we still see that to this day. Go to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and you have the blind justice. She is depicted as blindfolded, holding those scales. And um That represents justice. That's what uh Job is saying here.
He said, Let me be weighed on honest scales that God may know my integrity. And then he says, Oh, that I had one to hear me. Here is my mark. Oh, that the Almighty would answer me, that my prosecutor had written a book. The word for prosecutor can also mean adversary.
But I think in this context It's a prosecutor. Yeah, a better translation would be would be, oh, that my prosecutor had written my indictment. Or that you had written down what exactly you're accusing. What have I done wrong? Served it to me.
Tell me what I've done. Serve me my papers. I mean, that would be, if I were to have a very, very loose translation, that's what I would say. Serve me my papers. Wow.
Where's your warrant? We think in terms of legality when it comes to our relationship with God as well. I mean, we talk about things like, you know, the punishment for our sin. We talk about things like being justified.
So we are already kind of operating in that headspace. But why legal? Like, like we think about, because when you think about Christianity on the surface, you think of like love and relationship and forgiveness and these warm feelings. Why legal imagery? Why legal language?
If you think about other religions, let's focus on that for just a minute or two. Only Christianity And if you want to be more specific, Judeo-Christian Value system uses Such legal terminologies. Hinduism doesn't. Hinduism is very. Ah.
philosophical Very uh not even introspective, it's very Almost transcendental. Kind of like Stepping out of your own self to see self, becoming one with yourself, very meditative. Islam, on the other hand, is very cut and dry. It's very very this is what you've done, this is what you get. Very very to the point he would say.
Almost, it has an emotion which is usually anger. Mm. because angry for God, angry over evil in the world kind of thing. Yeah, sort of a I mean Pushed toward an intense anger, maybe even hatred at times. No real sense of forgiveness or.
Salvation, even. No, it's not. It just be a good person. Yeah.
Do the things. That's all there is to it. There's nothing more than that. Hey. Buddhism, as you know, is atheism.
Even those chants and those mantras and sutras are really trying to get you to be more mindful. More in the moment, concentrate. Focus on wisdom. That's it. Yeah.
I mean, what other religions are there? We can focus on Native American-type religions, which are. I mean, it's it's a s it's a bunch of Okay. Just stuck. Spirituality, yeah.
I don't see any legal terminology being ancestor worship a little bit, mixed in with a little pantheism, worshiping nature. Just it's just. Shamanism. Worshiping evil. It's all just a mix of whatever.
I don't know what other religion has lived, other than if you want to talk about communism as a religion, which is which it is. evolution as a religion, which it is. I mean, this is it. Right. But in the Judeo-Christian framework, There is heavy, heavy emphasis on justice.
And justice in the sense, not like you're going to serve justice to somebody else, but justice in the sense of. There is a right and a wrong. In this world. And it needs to be made right. And where does this come from?
And I talked about this in our message. It comes from the fact that God is a God of justice. Another way to say that is, God is a God of righteousness, because justice and righteousness are not just like two sides of the same coin, they're really interchangeable. They're almost the same thing. Almost.
Yeah, yeah. Because God is a God of justice, he is righteous. And because he is righteous, That he's a God of justice. You cannot just be, I'm righteous. I'm righteous.
I'm righteous. Because you need just, you're saying you need some sort of justice. You're righteous according to what? Right. There needs to be some standard.
And then if I'm righteous, then I cannot sit back and watch unrighteousness. Right. I take action against unrighteousness or injustice. Yeah.
Right. Uh Righteousness is a standard.
So, anytime, anywhere around that standard, there is a deviation or there is a drop. Justice will try to fix it. It would indict it, it would punish it, it would make it right.
Now you said, What is the point of all this? since we are made in the image of God, The Bible talks about that. We are made in the image of God. More specifically, we're made in the image of the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. were also built with a sense of justice.
If you look at the world, I know right now we have a lot of people who are fighting for justice. They're not. They have. deviant ideas and behaviors? And even the ones who maybe is because they grew up in a tradition that was heavily impacted, even if it's generations back, by Judeo-Christian values.
So they know somewhere in their psyche deep down that something is injustice, but it's been twisted, it's been perverted over generations. We're seeing that in Minneapolis. Yeah.
So someone who, so, I mean, kind of to tie it back to what we're talking about as far as like Job and suffering, when you go through something, when you suffer, like legitimately suffer, and you desire acknowledgement, you desire this, this acquittal of, hey, someone to. It's not an attention seeking, look at me, feel sorry for me. This is what God has designed us to do.
Well, some people do that for attention-seeking. Like a few years ago when the whole Me Too movement began, I think it caught all of us by surprise. I know, I'd be the first to admit it caught me by surprise because some people, you know, they're jerks. I mean, I've known that years ago, and they never got caught. Right.
We said it, and it's like that this pa pastor is not right. Or this famous leader or personality has other issues.
Okay. got exposed, some never did. But when the Me Too movement began, it was like Everybody has been abused. What are we talking about? And everybody is an abuser.
Yeah, and everybody's an abuser. What in the world is happening here?
So. Yes, I was reluctant at first to go. I don't I don't know about this. Oh, you too? Or you too?
When we say The whole idea of justice Is the reason why all these people are talking crying foul? No, I think there are real people in that group and then there are phonies. Yes, I agree. I think there are a lot of phonies are happening in in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and St. Paul.
There are a lot of phonies are there. They're real people who are suffering and then they're phonies.
So Our world today uses throws this around when I think they're genuine people. Who genuinely care about justice, and then there are fakes. Because God has designed us. To fight for justice, not only for ourselves, but for each other. That is a virtue that we as Christians should not hand it over to the liberal, leftist, social, Marxist, Islamic, Marxist world.
Please don't give it away. That's right. That's right. Why are we talking about this? Because many times we surrender values that actually are ours.
The fighting for justice. Those are our values. Why are you giving it away to other people? That's right. Don't do that.
That's right. But anyways, we gotta finish this. We're going to have to come back to it. Yeah, I was going to say, I would want to continue the conversation, but we're completely out of time. But it's important for us to unpack the idea of justice so that we can understand how justice is portrayed and how it's revealed in the book of Job, as we can see there.
That's right. And just like Dr. Shah said, this is not ultimately about understanding the book of Job better because once you understand the book of Job, once you understand what God is trying to say to you and to me and to all of us through this book, yeah, you're going to be, you're going to be out there fighting for justice too. Yeah, absolutely. Guys, make sure you join us next time.
Same time, same station. We're going to be diving further into this topic, dealing with the idea of justice in the book of Job. If David was your first day listening to us, we're glad that you're here. Make sure you share this content with your friends and with your family. You can do that on any one of our podcasting platforms, and you can always support us financially at Abadanshah.com forward slash give.
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