Job

I finished the book of Job a few days ago, and was really surprised at what I found.

The story of Job is often portrayed as the tale of a righteous man who suffers through trials that he did not deserve. His friends told him that he did deserve them, and that he should figure out what his sin was and confess it. Job is portrayed as a hero for sticking to his convictions and refusing to admit that he did anything wrong.

That wasn't exactly what I found. Yes, Job was righteous, and his story contradicts the common thought of the time that hard times are a direct result of a sin or sinful lifestyle. If anything, though, I thought Job was really stubborn, and not in a good way. Why not even consider the possibility that he had done something wrong, even unintentionally? That smacks of pride to me. And his proclamations that he had absolutely not sinned in any way were incredibly arrogant and incredibly untrue. I disagreed with Job's friends' stubborn insistence that Job must have deserved what happened to him in some way, but I did think all of them were right in insisting that man, including Job, is inherently depraved, that God is thousands of times higher than us, and that God has his reasons.

And when God comes to talk to Job, He doesn't exactly praise Job for his insistence that he'd done nothing wrong. He tells him that he understands absolutely nothing, and that He was much wiser and knew what He was doing. And then He reprimands Job's friends (although I didn't get the reason at all).