Job's Friends, and their Contribution to the Message of Job Research Paper

jokes Friends, and their Contribution to the Message of melodic phrase - Research Paper ExampleResultantly, Satan is allowed to destroy stage businesss wealth, family and health. Stripped of all his wealth, children and infatuated with a malignant boil that covers him head-to-toe, three of Jobs friends Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz come to comfort him. Their company opens a lengthy dialogue that covers four-fifths of the book. The dialogue among these four friends is interrupted by Elihu and ultimately, God. As shall be seen forthwith, it is not in doubt that the friends play critical roles in the Book of Job- that they fail miserably to comfort Job, notwith digesting.1 In the discourse, Jobs friends attributed Jobs great abject to sin. Among many other instances, this can be seen in Job 41 and 7 where Eliphaz tells Job that those who are innocent cannot suffer harm. Again, in Job 517-18, Eliphaz exhorts Job to appreciate the chastising discipline of God. The import of Eliphazs rea soning is that misfortunes overtake the evildoers while tidy things happen to the upright in conduct. Therefore, the conclusion that Eliphaz is making is that the misfortunes that have befallen Job are as a result of Jobs sins.2 The flipside of the three friends rationale is that so-called bad people cannot get in force(p) things. This line of thought is seen in the same books references such as 55, 1529 and 189. ... To tell such a child that because of his sins, he will have to demonstrate life in his parents absence and bear the overwhelming sense of loss would be the height of immeasurable insensitivity and shallowness. This makes Eliphazs idea on suffering really hard to provide comfort for the suffering innocent. This mentality is the same reason why Jobs comforters inadvertently became his tormentors. Because of the case above, Jobs friends open up a door for the rethinking of the theology that suffering is solely caused by sin. In Christian theology, although exs sin op ened the world to suffering, yet, not all suffering that an individual may experience are necessitated by that individuals sin. On the contrary, instead of lumping suffering as a result of sin, theologians such as Boadt and Ellis have become poignant that suffering is a mystery. In an undertake to reconstruct the meaning of suffering, Boadt and Ellis give insightful standpoints which separate followers of Christ and those outside Christ. Like Adam who initiated a new system which opened up a Pandora Box of suffering, Christ also initiated a new system through His sacrificial suffering during His Passion. Thus, suffering unites the people of God with Christ.3 Jobs friends also open a door for the discussion on God. Particularly, the false charges that Eliphaz, Zophar and Bildad bring to Jobs charge only foster a siege mentality on the side of Job. Because of this, in his drive to defend himself, Job insinuates that God is unfairly treating him. Given that Jobs three friends have v ery limited insight on the nature of God and the developments materializing in Jobs life, it behooved God to stand up for Himself (from Job 38-426). Gods