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What is Christobiography about?

Christobiography draws attention to an old and yet sometimes neglected insight for historical-Jesus research: in terms of recognizable ancient genres, the Gospels are like ancient biographies. That is, the type of literary work from the Gospels’ era that they most closely resemble is the bios, or “life,” of a subject–what we call (and this book regularly titles) ancient biography.

Although a majority of Gospels scholars today recognize that the Gospels are more like ancient biographies than like anything else, only a minority of Gospels scholars have actually examined other ancient biographies in order to understand what implications this shared basic genre might have for the Gospels.

In the book (available here, or in ebook format, here), I examine the implications especially for the historiographic character of the Gospels. It won the biblical studies book awards in Christianity Today and the Jesus Creed blog, as well as book of the year in the Biblical Foundations Book Awards and the Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship Book Awards. Hopefully somebody else likes it, too 🙂

This content is by Craig Keener, but edited and posted by Defenders Media, 501(c)(3).

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“In Christ”: united with Christ, immersed in Christ

I knew biblical passages about our solidarity with Christ—we are “in Christ,” we are the body of Christ, and so on. But I wasn’t sure how that connected with our personal spiritual experience of Christ. Was it related to Christ living in us (Gal 2:20)? Was it related to experiencing his resurrection life through the Spirit? After all, ancient Israelites were corporately related to Jacob without a personal experience of Jacob. Humanity is sinful without humans today having ever personally met a guy named Adam.

But of course, as I learned, the nature of the relationship is not exactly the same. We are reckoned in Adam in Rom 5:12-21 as Adam’s heirs, as descendants and fellow sinners. We become reckoned in Christ through baptism into Christ, not through genetic descent. “Adam” might dwell in us in some sense (in terms of solidarity as descendants and sinners), but the Spirit of Christ makes Christ present to us more dynamically (Rom 8:9).

Solidarity with Christ

Paul emphasizes that believers’ solidarity with Christ brings deliverance greater than the defeat effected by our solidarity with Adam (Rom 5:12-21). He then goes on to develop the theme of our union with Christ rather than with the “old person” (6:6) in Adam. Baptized into Christ (6:3-4), we share Christ’s death and resurrection (6:3-6a, 11). Paul can take for granted that being baptized into Christ entails baptism into his death because he understands that immersion into Christ includes sharing his experience. It is not merely theoretical.

“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by this baptism into this death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life. For since we’ve been grafted together/united with/identified with him in the image of his death, still more certainly we shall be united/identified with him in the image of his resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him … So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:3-5a, 11, ESV)

This sense of solidarity with Christ is not limited to one passage. Not also Colossians 3: “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3 NASB); “Christ who is your life” (3:4, NRSV); you “have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (3:10 NIV).

Paul finds partial analogies for this solidarity in shared experience in terms of sharers with Adam in sin (Rom 5:12-21) and Israel’s shared experience with Moses. In 1 Cor 10:2, by analogy with Christian experience of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, Israelites were “baptized into Moses” (though, Paul warns, they failed to persevere). We may think similarly how Jesus recapitulates elements of Israel’s experience in the early chapters of Matthew’s Gospel.

Being baptized into Christ means that we have clothed ourselves with Christ (Gal 3:27); we share in him a new identity. We have put on the new person, recreated in God’s image (Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:9-10), as humanity was created in God’s image in the beginning (Gen 1:26). Obviously this solidarity has a forensic dimension: that is, how God views us in Christ. Yet it also must impact reality on our side as well as God’s. We are called to be what we are in Christ. In Christ, we must put off the old person (what we were in Adam) and put on the new, recreated in God’s image (Eph 4:22-24; cf. Col 3:8). We must live according to the new identity God has conferred on us in Christ.

Paul says that as we bore Adam’s mortal image, we shall also bear the immortal image of Christ (1 Cor 15:49). Progressively (2 Cor 3:17) and ultimately (Rom 8:29) we are conformed to the image of Christ, who is God’s image (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). We are conformed to this image by being shaped by the fruit of the Spirit within us (Gal 5:22-23), essentially by Christ living in us (Gal 2:20).

Immersed in Christ

How is this sharing of Christ effected in us? The Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9) lives in us.

The Spirit baptizes us into Christ: “by/in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Cor 12:13). Ancient Jewish baptisms were ritual immersions, so the picture here is of the Spirit immersing us in Christ. This picture suggests that being clothed with Christ is not limited only to the way God sees us.

Paul’s expressions would make sense to those already familiar with early Christian language inherited from John the Baptist: “he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit” (Matt 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5; 11:16). (There is also a narrower sense of this phrase in the NT, but at this point I am using the phrase in the more general way.)

Not surprisingly, then, Luke, who speaks of the church being baptized in the Spirit, in his narratives parallels the ministries of the Jerusalem Jesus movement (led by Peter) and the Diaspora mission (led by Paul) with Jesus’s ministry. The same Lord worked in both Peter and Paul (Gal 2:7-8).

Because the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ, being immersed in the Spirit entails being immersed in Christ. We read the Gospels as the story of our hero, but also our model, and the one the Spirit empowers us to follow. Thus in three successive paragraphs, Mark announces Jesus as the Spirit-baptizer (Mark 1:8), the pioneer of the Spirit-baptized life (1:9-11), and as the model of what this looks like as the Spirit thrusts him into conflict with the spiritual enemy (1:12-13). Jesus keeps warning disciples that they must share both his faith (9:19, 23, 29; 11:21-24) and his suffering (8:34; 13:13).

Walking in Christ

“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted and constructed in him” (Col 2:6-7)

“This is how we know that we’re in him: whoever claims to dwell in him ought to walk just as he walked” (1 John 2:5-6)

Our solidarity with Adamic humanity comes by birth. In Adam, we share glorious DNA designed to reflect God’s image yet alienated from God’s presence and purpose by human sin.

Our solidarity with Christ comes by baptism, yes, in water, at the entrance into new life, but also in the Spirit. We share Christ’s life, death, burial and resurrection because we are immersed in him. Through the mind of the Spirit (Rom 8:5), the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16), we grow to think in his ways and act how Jesus would. The old adage, “What would Jesus do?” is more than a slogan; it invites us to think and act as Jesus thinks and acts, just as Jesus acted only as he saw the Father acting (John 5:19-20). The Spirit communicates Christ himself in the preaching of the gospel (see John 16:7-11; 1 Thess 2:13). Because Christ lives in us by the Spirit (John 14:17), we bear his fruit like branches on the vine (15:4-5), continuing many aspects of his mission (20:21-22). To walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:16) is also to walk in Christ (Col 2:6).

To the extent that we recognize that God has effected our solidarity with Christ, we can appropriate that identity as members of Christ (i.e., of his body; Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 6:15; Eph 4:25). We can remember that Christ lives in us and trust his character to live through us. The better we know what he is like, the more we can reflect that character by faith. Because we are each unique members of his body, we will individually reflect different aspects of his ministry. None of us is the entire body of Christ to himself.

It should be able to go without saying, but unfortunately often can’t go without saying, that we do not take the place of Jesus; the opposite must be the case: Jesus as Lord reigns in us so as to make his heart known. This comes through our direct relationship with the head, Jesus Christ, who is the source of our new life: Eph 4:15-16; Col 2:19; 3:4a).

We aren’t Jesus, but we are his agents. And when those agents work together, those around can see a fuller picture of Christ’s character through his body functioning together. As his body we together ideally reveal his character, his heart, his purposes, so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us (Gal 2:20). Immersed in Christ, clothed in Christ, we want our lives to reveal Christ in what we say and do and think. Together as the diverse members of Christ’s body, we are invited to show the world what Christ among them would do, proving God’s transforming power even to the heavenly rulers (Eph 3:10). Ideally, we as Christ’s body should mature into unity in trusting and knowing Christ (Eph 4:12-13). No one has seen God, but by loving one another we give the world a taste of God (1 John 4:12), and we know that we live in him and he in us because he has given us his Spirit (1 John 4:13).

Scholars debate today the meaning of “baptism in the Spirit.” More important than those debates about wording, however (which I deliberately sidestep in this post) is that we really embrace all that the Spirit wants to do in us. God desires to enable us to live like those immersed in his Spirit, and immersed in Christ. God wants people to continue to see what Jesus is like as the Spirit of Christ works in and through us.

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Even the demons submit—and your name is written in heaven (Luke 10:17-20)

Jesus’s seventy or seventy-two disciples returned to him excited after Jesus sent them out on their mission. “Lord, even the demons are subjected to us by your name!” (10:17).

Jesus will redirect some of their excitement, but before turning to that, let me make a brief comment on the seventy or seventy-two. A majority of scholars believe that the number here should be seventy-two; some other manuscripts read seventy. It’s not surprising that early scribes who were copying the number considered both numbers significant. Jesus had already sent the twelve to expel demons and heal the sick (9:1). He no doubt chosen the number twelve to reflect his plan for the twelve tribes of Israel (Luke 22:30). Seventy, however, was the common Jewish reckoning of the number of gentile nations, based on the list of nations in Genesis 10. So this mission may prefigure the mission in Acts. Moses also appointed seventy elders over Israel (Num 11:16) in addition to heads of twelve tribes, and God empowered them to prophesy (11:25). But two other elders were not present, and God empowered them to prophesy also (11:26), bringing the number to seventy-two. In any case, Jesus is spreading the mission further, as Moses also would have liked (11:29).

Jesus sent them out to heal the sick and tell them while doing so, “God’s promised reign has come to you!” (Luke 10:9). That is, they were to preach that the expected kingdom of God was at hand, and people had to respond by either embracing this news or rejecting it. Jesus’s agents are heralds of God’s kingdom: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns” (Isa 52:7, NRSV; cf. http://www.craigkeener.org/good-news-about-jesus-christ-and-the-introduction-to-marks-gospel-mark-11/). As elsewhere in Jesus’s ministry, healing and deliverance demonstrated that the promised time had come (Luke 7:20-23; 11:20).

Now Jesus’s 36 pairs of disciples return with great news, reporting that not only were the “normally” sick healed, but that even demons had been subjected to them in Jesus’s name (10:17). They were subject “in Jesus’s name” because Jesus’s agents, who acted and spoke faithfully on his behalf, represented him—whoever accepted or rejected them, ultimately accepted or rejected him (10:16).

Jesus replies, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning!” (10:18). Is he changing the subject, only to return to it in the next verse (10:19)? We can take Jesus’s “watching” in one of two ways. One possibility is that Jesus refers to an earlier fall of Satan, noted in Jewish tradition (and probably reapplied in another way in Rev 12:9—but that is another story). (Contrary to popular thought, it is not reflected in Isaiah 14, or at least not directly; the context there refers only to the arrogant, self-deifying king of Babylon; see http://www.craigkeener.org/does-isaiah-1412-14-refer-to-lucifers-fall-from-heaven/.)

Thus he would be saying, “You don’t need to worry about Satan. He lost his place before God a long time ago!”

This makes sense, but the other possibility might make even better sense. Jesus could be saying, “As you were preaching God’s reign, I was watching Satan fall, being displaced from his authority in heavenly places. God’s kingdom was taking back ground that the devil had usurped.” In other words, Jesus was watching Satan’s kingdom retreat during his disciples’ mission. Jesus does in fact view his ministry of deliverance as an assault on Satan’s kingdom (Luke 11:18); he is liberating the strong oppressor’s possessions (11:22; 13:16; cf. Acts 10:38). Paul, too, understood his mission of proclaiming God’s kingdom as delivering people from Satan’s authority to serve God instead (Acts 26:18). Satan does claim authority over earthly kingdoms (Luke 4:6), though only under God’s permission and ultimately God can overrule him (Dan 4:32).

But how would this second possibility fit Satan falling “from heaven”? If we use NT cosmological imagery, Satan works on earth from a position above it (see e.g., Eph 2:2; 6:12). More importantly, even the immediate context applies this language figuratively for one who is exalted being cast down. Because Capernaum, privy to much revelation of Jesus’s identity, did not respond even more radically to his identity, Jesus declares, “And you, Capernaum: you won’t be lifted up to heaven, will you? No! You’ll be thrust down to the underworld!” (Luke 10:15). Scripture often uses such language figuratively; compare Lam 2:1: “He has cast from heaven to earth the glory of Israel” (NASB). It would seem even more appropriate for Satan, already fallen and now being displaced from authority through the advance of Jesus’s kingdom forces in Luke 10:17.

Indeed, Jesus was granting them authority over Satan’s ground forces: “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you” (10:19, NIV). Here Jesus echoes the idea in Ps 91:13: “You will subdue a lion and a snake;you will trample underfoot a young lion and a serpent” (NET). (This is the same psalm the devil earlier tried to manipulate Jesus into abusing in Luke 4:10-11; Jesus, by contrast, does have authority to apply it the right way.) We see an example of this authority in a more literal sense in Acts 28:3-5, where Paul is unharmed by a viper. Traveling dirt footpaths throughout Galilee to proclaim him, Jesus’s agents would indeed value protection against snakes. But in this context, Jesus undoubtedly also implies protection against spiritual serpents such as the devil (cf. 2 Cor 11:3, 14; Rev 12:9; 20:2).

Jesus thus acknowledges their observation: indeed, demons are subject to them (Luke 10:17-19). But then he qualifies their celebration with another observation. There is far greater cause for celebration than the subjection of demons. They can rejoice that their names are written in heaven (10:20); salvation is the greatest reason to celebrate (15:7, 10, 32; Acts 13:48; 15:3), and rewards in heaven are causes for joy (Luke 6:23). Satan has been cast down from heaven (Luke 10:18), but they are established in heaven! This draws on the earlier biblical image of God’s record book (Exod 32:32; Ps 56:8; 69:28; 139:16; Mal 3:16), elaborated in Jewish tradition and noted elsewhere in the NT as a heavenly book of life (see esp. Phil 4:3; Rev 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; 21:27).

We celebrate many divine gifts, but the greatest of all is knowing that we can spend forever in the Lord’s presence, fulfilling the purpose for which we were designed. We may rejoice at exegetical insights, at opportunities to preach and see others turn to God, and even at discovering that as Jesus’s agents we can expel hostile spirits. But the ultimate cause of celebration is eternal life. It belongs to all who have come over to God’s side, who have embraced his kingdom, through Jesus. If you should happen to be reading this and not know whether you have that assurance, you have only to ask God for it in Jesus’s name. The God who gave his own Son to bring you to himself will certainly welcome you if you come.

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COVID 19 and biblical grounds for social distancing

Nearly all of my posts are scheduled far in advance. None of them (including the recent post on the biblical book of Job) was precipitated by news of the coronavirus. But since the topic is on people’s minds, I offer here just a small possible contribution.

For those wondering whether quarantine or social distancing can be biblical: I have long taken biblical texts about isolation as potentially relevant precedent for certain conditions. (Admittedly, I have some bias: some have thought me OCD because even in regular times I wash my hands after being settings with much handshaking. But when I do, fairly rarely, catch colds, sometimes they develop into worse and protracted conditions.)

The relevant OT passages have more to do with ritual purity (and the ritual contagion of impurity) than with contagious diseases in our modern sense. Nevertheless, they also incidentally illustrate that the idea of isolation or distancing for perceived causes of a sort of contagion has some biblical warrant. (Because my PhD and my usual teaching area are NT, I should defer to my OT colleagues for correction on this, though I think all of us would agree that there is modern medical warrant for social distancing.)

Here I give the example of “leprosy” (a label used in our translations of the Bible for a range of skin conditions, but which were associated back then with ritual impurity):

“The priest shall examine the disease on the skin of his body, and if the hair in the diseased area has turned white and the disease appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a leprous disease; after the priest has examined him he shall pronounce him ceremonially unclean. But if the spot is white in the skin of his body, and appears no deeper than the skin, and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall confine the diseased person for seven days. The priest shall examine him on the seventh day, and if he sees that the disease is checked and the disease has not spread in the skin, then the priest shall confine him seven days more. The priest shall examine him again on the seventh day, and if the disease has abated and the disease has not spread in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only an eruption; and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean. But if the eruption spreads in the skin after he has shown himself to the priest for his cleansing, he shall appear again before the priest. The priest shall make an examination, and if the eruption has spread in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him unclean; it is a leprous disease” (Lev 13:3-8, NRSV).

The NASB repeatedly employs the English term “isolate” in this chapter (Lev 13:4-5, 11, 21, 26, 31, 33). In Num 12:14, Miriam has to remain outside the camp for seven days after her outbreak of this condition.

In the NT, Jesus clearly transcends ritual impurity, touching the impure. He models for us compassion, trust in God’s power, and courage to cross barriers. Jesus made the impure pure. There are undoubtedly also various “spiritual” applications of the purity principles in Leviticus (such as avoiding what is spiritually impure).

Nevertheless, the application that I suggest here rests not on analogy with purity regulations per se but with recognizing the practical value of containing what was understood as contagious. We are not bound to follow levitical regulations, but we can still learn principles from them. Moreover, doing church is less about being spectators than about relationships, so we do not always need to meet 5000 strong to be the church (cf. http://www.craigkeener.org/the-new-building-program/; http://www.craigkeener.org/megachurch/).

It is not OCD to follow guidelines from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). If the CDC (in the U.S., or equivalent professional bodies in other nations) provides warnings how to prevent the spread of something that harms our neighbor, we should do our best to comply.

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Job and his comforters, or: how not to do grief counseling

I often think painfully of godly students or friends who died quite young—for example, Caritha Clarke, Nabeel Qureshi, Aaron Nickerson, and most recently Brittany Buchanan Douglas. The news of these events made little sense to me emotionally, though I have confidence in each case that they are celebrating now; they made it to God’s throne ahead of me. With less sorrow, I think of godly friends (or my wife or myself) who suffered but experienced healing and restoration in this life.

You won’t have to read many of my blog posts to figure out that I believe God does miracles. But if you’ve been around very long, you probably also know some people who haven’t experienced healing, despite much prayer. You undoubtedly know godly people who have experienced tragedies. Some of us live through our tragedies and find happiness on the other side, but that not everyone does is itself often part of our experience of tragedy.

How do we make sense of these things? Sometimes those of us who are theologically inclined bristle at leaving some things a mystery, such as why one person is healed (sometimes even in inexplicably dramatic ways) and another person isn’t. Although there are definitely principles that change outcomes in many cases, there are some exceptions to all our humanly devised theological rules.

The Book of Job addressed God’s people facing tragedy and not understanding why. For those who persevere it offers hope (James 5:11), whether in the short run or the long run. Sandwiched between its narrative introduction and its narrative conclusion, most of the book consists of Job’s poetic dialogues with his “comforters,” who actually prove to be rather “sorry” (NASB) or “miserable” (ESV, KJV, NET, NIV, NRSV, WEB) comforters (Job 16:2). They withhold kindness and prove to be fair-weather friends (6:14-17, 21a).

Job’s comforters start out helpfully, lamenting with Job and staying silent for seven days (Job 2:12-13). They mourn with those who mourn, sharing Job’s pain. If they would have just kept their mouths shut the story would have taken a different turn. Instead, they soon begin spouting conventional wisdom, providing many wise sayings but misapplying them to Job’s case. Knowledge can be applied in foolish ways: “The legs of a disabled person hang limp; so does a proverb in the mouth of a fool” (Prov 26:7 NRSV); “Like a thorn that falls into the hand of a drunkard, so is a proverb in the mouth of fools” (26:9 NASB).

Job didn’t need their theology lesson about why he was suffering. Job already knew the sorts of “wisdom” they were unloading on him: “What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you” (Job 13:2, NRSV). He really didn’t need them to justify God by condemning him: “If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!” (13:5).

Job’s friends kept insisting—and more so as the conversation progressed—that God is righteous and punishes the wicked. That, of course, is true. But they also kept insisting—and again more so as the conversation progressed—that this meant that Job must have sinned. Job didn’t understand his situation, but he knew that he wasn’t being punished for impiety. Certainly he at least was no worse than his accusers. So he pushed back—and himself the more so as the conversation progressed—insisting that he was innocent and that God would not justly find fault with him. God’s power is unlimited, but if God heard Job’s plea he would vindicate him.

In the book’s closing chapters, God calls to account both Job and his friends. God first answers Job at length (Job 38—41). Does Job understand all the secrets of creation, all the interests that God must wisely balance in bringing to pass his purposes? Before God’s infinite majesty, Job confesses his own inadequate understanding of the divine purpose (42:2-6; esp. 42:3 with 38:2). But God also speaks, far more concisely, to the leading voice among Job’s friends. (God sidesteps directly answering the speech of Elihu in Job 32—37; scholars differ as to whether this is because Elihu voices God’s perspective or does not even merit an answer!)

To Job’s chief comforter, God replies: “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7-8, NIV).

Indeed, Job was more righteous than they, and while God would reprove Job’s pretense of understanding, he would defend Job before his friends. They submitted to God immediately, and God answered Job’s prayer to forgive them.

In one way, God reproved both Job and his friends, because in a sense they both misunderstood God’s ways. Job’s friends believed that bad things should happen only to bad people, and therefore Job was bad. They were theologically wrong, and their assumption that Job had merited his suffering was morally wrong, misjudging Job and contributing further to his suffering.

Job misunderstood God’s ways in a slightly different sense. Backed into a rhetorical corner by his accusers, he kept insisting that he was not a bad person, and that God should vindicate him. Yet Job was still partly working from the wrong assumption that his friends shared: that bad things should happen only to bad people. God’s answer to Job was to show his glorious design in nature, that his wisdom is beyond our wisdom, and therefore to leave us back at the bothersome answer we often want to dismiss at the beginning as simplistic.

We may be welcome to explore and seek for greater knowledge, but we are finite and some things will always be a mystery to our limited intellects (cf. Deut 29:29; Prov 25:2). We know enough that we should trust the Lord who is smarter than we are when there are some things we don’t know. If we think we can explain adequately all the Lord’s ways, we, like Job, may learn otherwise when we stand before him (Job 42:5-6).

God never explains to Job the backroom discussion with the superhuman accuser (Job 1—2) who is far more powerful than Job’s earthly accusers. He never explains the sorts of celestial negotiations that may go on behind the scenes, to which we are normally not privy except when he grants special revelation. Job doesn’t need to know those things, and wouldn’t have been prepared to understand them in his era if he had. He does need to remember that God is trustworthy no matter what. Further, Job may be innocent with regard to the suffering, but that is beside the point. His own right hand cannot deliver him (Job 40:14). In NT language, God’s blessing comes by grace.

In any case, Job was right that he had not merited his suffering, and his friends acted sinfully when they judged him. Unless God provides insight into a given case, we don’t know why a given person is suffering. Looking down on them is sometimes a way of distancing ourselves from having to consider that we could experience suffering ourselves. “You see my suffering and are afraid” (Job 6:21b).

Others do not assume that the suffering have sinned, but they assume that they lack sufficient faith to escape. Some quote Job 3:25: “what I fear befalls me, and what I dread overtakes me,” as if Job’s fear brought these events on him. But Job probably refers to his present fears; he had reasons for posttraumatic (or in this case, during-trauma) stress. Compare Job’s lament about how unexpected his sufferings were: “When I expected good, then evil came; When I waited for light, then darkness came” (30:26, NASB). Part of the point of the book is that Job did not do anything (1:1)—or neglect anything (cf. 1:5)—to deserve his suffering. God himself declares this: “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil” (1:8, NRSV).

When brothers and sisters suffer, let’s mourn with those who mourn (Rom 12:15), like members of one body who suffer together (1 Cor 12:26). Mystery can be difficult from the standpoint of theodicy or apologetics. Scoffers may complain, “Where is their God?” (cf. Ps 42:3, 10; 79:10; 115:2; Joel 2:17). But while we do our best to honor him, God is able to defend his own honor, and he owes no answers to scoffers. Sometimes, in this life, he does not even explain himself to us.