Lately, I keep hearing about Job, mostly because Job puzzles readers. Well, like people climb mountains because "they are there" I used to preach on Job as it was there, in the Bible, a challenge intellectually and philosophically, but an excuse to wrangle on about suffering. My congregation suffered more from my problem of suffering than from their all ailments. We talk of the patience of Job, but what about my congregation's patience?

The Job drama starts with the devil. There'd be no story plots at all if he retired, like the newspapers keep in business by people breaking the Ten Commandments. A lady complained about the expression "What the devil!" saying the devil is mentioned in Scripture so is a sacred personage. I fancy however, that Job would have been less squeamish about taking Satan's name "in vain" if he had known what Satan had to do with his misery, but Job didn't know.

His Infernal Majesty Satan appears 14 times in the first two chapters of Job engineering all the calamities, but doesn't have even a walk-on part in the rest of the drama. In 38 chapters Job's friends discuss his troubles but never once suggest Satan had anything to do with it. In fact 42:11 speaks of "all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him." This is a contrast to naïve Christian ideas today that even if a fuse blows it is the devil.

So though the five characters in Job never once mentioned Satan, the drama names him in the prologue, which was quite novel. In the Old Testament despite his activity from the Garden of Eden forwards, trouble is rarely attributed to Satan. In people's minds then God was behind everything, good and bad. God sends sickness and God heals, sends plagues and droughts and then forgives and brings better times, takes away a man's breath and restores it, sends armies against Israel and defends Israel. "I bring prosperity and create disaster" Isaiah 45:7. "Is there evil in the city and the Lord has not done it?"

The speeches of the three 'comforters' make up most of the drama. It is the Old Testament theological book. Oddly it never quotes other Scriptures, perhaps being written before the Bible. At the end, the Lord tells the three 'comforters' that they had not spoken that which was right, but that Job had. (42:8). Quite. They had no Bible then.

The author put into the mouth of his characters a theme with variations, namely that sin brings retribution. They wanted to 'comfort' Job by fathoming his afflictions. Seeking an explanation for suffering is cold comfort, especially as these comforters concluded it was all his own fault, he must have sinned. Why knowing 'why' should be thought a comfort, I do not understand. Is it ever? We all ask why, and it is ridiculous really. A philosopher with the toothache wants a dentist, not an explanation. If God told us why, little good would it do us. The explanation would be infinitely complex and leave us with a headache. God is running eternity, not a pie shop. His thoughts are not our thoughts.

One thing Job does get right, that he needs to know God properly. "Oh that I knew where I might find him". Knowing God is always the answer. Job could and could not answer God 'one time out of a thousand", but He was sure of God "He knows the way that I take. Though he slay me yet will I trust him". 23:3,10. 13:15. 9:3. In that long-ago world of impenetrable spiritual darkness, before the Greek wise men were born, Job already had penetrated the deeps of true knowledge. The fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom. We play around with useless intellectual conundrums, trying to fathom God's reasons, but all we need is to know Him. Then we can heave a sigh of relief and find rest.

In all my hours of flying, I've never questioned a pilot about his control of the plane. Pilots are well qualified and I confidently suppose they can manage without my advice, and get me where I want. The Lord God is surely well qualified to do the same! Every aeroplane pilot comes on the intercom with the same strong, assuring, educated English voice. Seat belts fastened, we settle back and leave it all to him. No back-seat drivers at 35000 feet. Those who know God, and hear His voice, do the same, leave it all to Him. He can run my life better than I can.

Israel believed God ran all creation and was responsible for afflictions, even sending enemies into their country. Yet it was Israel, the most troubled nation on earth, that exhorted us to have faith in God. That was not Israeli' religious genius, but God's revelation gift, long before the age of great thinkers who never found God. We read them, say Aristotle's 'Ethics' but find no sign of feeling or comfort,

The message of Job is the message of Israel. If it is God who is behind events, then it is all right, like children with parents. Fear God and no fear is fearful. I recall mother pushing me out on the doorstep, when I was four, and shutting the door exasperated. I stood there, commiserated by my playmates who agreed she surpassed all cruelty. But it was mother, not some villainous stranger, so I knew the door would open again. If our Father lets a lion loose in our garden, then as Psalm 4 says "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety". When it comes to understanding everything, it is honest, not humble to admit we don't, and it is not pride to declare we know God. That is everything.

Now Job's comforters argued he must be guilty seeing he suffered so much. That was the current outlook. Sin and suffering stood as cause and effect. Job protested he was innocent, but they concluded he must be a secret sinner. How comforting for Job! That was their one-track thinking, and largely what the book is about, The author, putting words into the mouth of his characters, was daring to challenge popular ideas. He was brilliant, and described the three friends as toning down their accusations to make their theory fit that sin brings retribution. Job was innocent and it upset their theology. It never was satisfactory that God sends pain on sinners, but Christ bore it for our sins.

We hear of today's 'thinking man'. They think they think, but it is one-track, limited within the frame of the present world-view. People really astonish me. They criticise God, why doesn't He do this or the other? God! They really kid themselves they know better. When 'thinkers' boast they don't believe in God it doesn't prove they think at all. Any moron can be an atheist. Nobody knows enough to be sure God doesn't exist, but even a child can know He does.

In the end of the drama, God comes into the scene. He simply challenged these too cocksure comforters with a score of zoological questions. If they didn't understand a crocodile, how could they understand God? Job said 'Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?". (40;2) I still remember one remark of the college Principal to us as students which surprised me. "When man fell, he fell on his head and has been cracked ever since". The world's wisest man might argue that elephants are impossible, but a schoolboy could contradict him if he has seen one.

Christians 'see!' Jesus liberates thought. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Believers can think straight. "We have the mind of Christ". The common philosophy has always been that suffering and wrong are complementary. "What have I done to deserve this?" The answer is that our deserts have nothing to do with it. We happen to live in a fallen world. " He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities, For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love…" Psalm 103:10. His love explains everything.

The disciples saw Jesus looking at a born-blind man. They could not resist saying something and asked whether the blind man had sinned or his parents. How could he sin before he was born anyway? Jesus changed thousands of years of thinking, and answered the riddle of the book of Job, replying "Neither has this man sinned nor his parents". John 9:3.

Now the book of Job portrays five characters trying to solve the riddle of Job's sufferings. They failed. There are no answers in Job, only questions. However they do ask some right questions, the real questions of life, and these are answered in Christ in the New Testament. The drama of Job brings Satan on stage challenging God to test Job. It was a new insight then, but it seems it still would be new now in the world. People ask why God allows this or that. Have they never heard of the devil? "Jesus Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the devil"

Job said something very right. "When he has tested me I shall come forth as gold". This is much misunderstood. Trials will not give you a golden character, only show it. Job's testing did not make him gold. He was gold in the first place and trial simply brought it out. Putting lead into a crucible will not transmute it into gold as the old alchemists hoped. Lead comes out as lead, and gold as gold. It does not evaporate. At the start of my ministry my church was invaded by malcontents thrown out of other churches. They brought me close to a breakdown. Then an old Anglican friend said "Well, I know you are a bigger man than to let them upset you". Was I? It challenged me as wise comfort.

That is why we read about the patience of Job. Chapter three doesn't sound as if Job was patient at all. He cursed the day he was born with eloquently lurid protest. Job was positively very furious over what had happened. Why not? Sickness is no blessing. Ministering to the sick as God called me, I rage within me and often scream rebukes against physical torments. I'm sick of sicknesses, I attack them in Christ's holy name as the unholy work of the devil like Jesus did (Acts 10:38), an offence and insult in God's creation. So, the patience of Job? What? Well, yes, but not patient with his calamities. He was patient with God. Job uttered no word against the Almighty, nor shook a fist at heaven.

Job's wife said "Curse God and die" but Job refused such suicidal unbelief. He didn't want to die and so didn't curse God. He could have done and died, but He knew God.. I remember a woman saying to me "God has not answered my prayer so I'm not going to church any more. I'll show Him!" I never heard that God sat down worried about it, but the Lord did remember Job's trusting patience.

In one speech Job asked how God could possibly be affected by an earthling, 'a maggot' as Bildad said. (25:6) But God is affected and chose to bless us 'maggots' and take upon Himself to care, passionately.

Calvary shows that. Fathom that deed if you can, but I can't. Preaching, aged 23, I could explain everything. Today I'm sure I never will. God is too big for our small minds, but I know Him, and that is everything.

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The first name on the Magna Charta was Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton, English theologian. Some 800 years ago he divided the Bible into chapters, which was useful but difficult. People often read just a chapter, but it contains only half the story. It is like answering the phone when you're enjoying dinner.

John 8 and 9 is the break I have in mind. The thought is broken off at the end of chapter 8, and continues in chapter 9. Take closer look. In chapter 8 Jesus deals with critics in the Jerusalem Temple. They were infuriated contending with Him in words. So, they turned to violence. "They picked up stones to stone him". Jesus wasn't ready to die then and as on other occasions eluded his enemies. "Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds … " John 8:58. Then what? Chapter 9:1 continues the story, "as he went along he saw a man blind from birth". Hurrying from murderous enemies Jesus stopped for a nameless blind beggar. There were plenty more around Jerusalem, but He could not pass this one, despite the danger.

What a revealing episode! It speaks volumes about Jesus and His healing ministry. It shows how He felt, that He healed as He felt. That was Him, wanting to heal, whatever the risk. It is still Him if there is any meaning in Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and for ever." If He didn't still heal, like He did, how could that verse be true?

The Gospels are full of healings to reveal what God was like, and what God was like, He IS, for ever. Interpretations of Scripture that make God one thing today and something different tomorrow, break down on the rock of God's faithful character and changelessness disposition. He would never let himself down. The French version of Psalm 111:3 says "He is for ever faithful to himself ". Nowhere in Scripture is there a single hint that the time would come when God would alter His attitude and stop healing. Theories are being imported into the Word of God that it never was meant to accommodate. The test is, do they match God, what He is? He is changeless, faithful to Himself, never failing. His works spring from His spontaneous, compassionate nature.

Some teach that Jesus worked miracles but only while here, as if He was merely carrying out a set programme limited to His earthly ministry. This is dangerous theology. Was Jesus like He was only for a specific purpose and time but now is a different Jesus? Are we believing in the wrong Jesus? And isn't God now like Jesus' miracles once revealed Him? God save us!

It is being taught that His miracle ministry was only to prove His identity as the Son of God or as the Messiah, or to confirm His teaching, or to establish the church, or to introduce a new era. Then He withdrew and no more miracles were needed to confirm the faith. So? Have we misunderstood? We naturally call Him the Great Physician and believe He still is. But are the scholars right that it only temporary, and the Gospels build up false hopes of His mercy?

Well, have I been ministering under an illusion? I think not. I read about Jesus as the great Healer, believed it, prayed and saw the sick healed. It was not because I had seen it first, for I had not, nor that I wanted to do it, for I feared failure, but the Word compelled me. I believed before anything happened, and the first miracle was in my own church after I had dared to proclaimed Jesus as the Healer. Some declare they preach Christ but they strip Him of His compassion for the sick. Which Christ do they preach? The Gospel Jesus, or non-miraculous Jesus, distorting His Bible portrait as millions see it?

Jesus did create an impression of His profound concern for the afflicted. But teachers have suggested that His true aims were theological, and relief of sufferers only a means to that end, secondary to proving something or other. To think of Jesus making sick people well but with some other primary interest, that horrifies me.

Jesus always acted out what He was. He healed because He pitied the weak and sickly. That is how I think of Him. Is there a Bible text to say I should not? Where are we told He would change? He loved them, then. Why not us, now? He loved people, always did. He always will.

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First, I've looked again at the story of the born-blind man. Why really was he blind? It is important to ask as several Bible versions indicate the man was born blind to be healed.

The disciples asked if the man had been born blind because of sin. Jesus said not and the NIV reads but "SO that the work of God might be displayed", and the AV reads "that the works of God should be made manifest in him". Translated like that it means God made him blind to heal him, setting up a staged demonstration of His power to bring Him glory.

Somehow this doesn't sound a bit like God to deprive a man of sight for 40 years just to give him eyes later? The plan would not capture my admiration. There were plenty of sightless folk without making another man blind for forty years just as a convenient example.

Now the test of all theology is whether it reflect what God really is. Scripture itself has its own integral control of interpretation, namely its revealed character of God, what God says about Himself. So, would the Bible God blind somebody just to show He could heal them? Well, not the God whose face I see in the Word, and certainly not the Jesus of the Gospels. .

So, what does John 9 really say? The operative word in many translations is 'so that'' - the man was born blind "so that the works of God could be manifest". The original Bible word for 'so that', or 'in order that' is the Greek 'hina'. It usually does mean 'so that' and translators have more or less used it in this fixed form. However, in fact 'hina' also carries a different sense and has been used in another way even in Scriptures. It can be translated as an imperative, 'let it be'. The word 'hina' is used in John several times and can be written as 'let it be' in some places..

So now, how does the verse sound with the meaning 'Let it be'? Here's the translation of what Jesus really said "Neither has this man sinned nor his parents but let the works of God be manifested in him. I must works the works of him that sent me, while it is day." Then Jesus healed him. He was blind, had a human right to see and God restored his sight.

The disciples had asked Jesus why the man was born blind, but He did not say why. The disciples saw Jesus notice this blind man, and they just have to say something, if only to ask a silly question whether the man sinned before he was born. Jesus gave no explanation. The Lord did not come to discuss suffering and solve philosophical conundrums. He came to suffer for us, redemptively.

I once prayed for a group of six sick Sikhs. Well, let's be honest about why the sick are sick? Most reasons are too obvious. often sickness is self-inflicted. The Government at present is warning people that they are eating themselves into an early death, obese, meaning too fat. Lack of hygiene, drugs, alcohol, nicotine, overeating, idleness, poisoning the system with bitterness and hatred are all killers as well as injuries, circumstances or assaults. Why does God allow sickness? Why do WE? Not everyone wants to get better, It doesn't suit their circumstances. One woman healed of osteo-arthritis told me she wished she had never met me, it so unsettled her settled future programme.

Sickness was all once a mystery credited to the will of God. Science has shown it never was. God doesn't make people ill. If He did, nobody could cure them, but they are now being cured. Eventually most physical disorders will be treatable. I pray God much to show medical science the cure for cancers.

Suffering is never God's designed will, though He may give us grace and not healing sometimes as with Paul's thorn in the flesh, an affliction that did not come from God but was "a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him" – perhaps recurrent malaria. The Lord often wraps evils, anything the devil himself can do, and hides it in the bosom of His purposes. He makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and "ALL THINGS work together for good to them who love the Lord and are call according to His purpose."

At present there is a hard core of suffering that I can't explain and only God understands, despite our pleadings in prayer. What then? The works of God still remain what Jesus showed them to be. The Father has everything in hand.

Jesus in Matthew 10:29 said two sparrows are sold for one penny, then in Luke 12:6, five sparrows for two pennies, an extra one thrown in, the poorest and most worthless little bird. But that poor one is the very one Jesus spoke about falling from the housetop (Matthew 10:29) saying our Father is 'in it', and that we are worth more than many sparrows.

I've seen a woman nurse such a tiny bird scrap that had fallen prematurely from the nest and shed a tear when it died. From where does such an instinct of gentleness come, if not from the God who created women, and birds? Well, if He sets a woman caring for a tiny fledging, how does He feel about us?

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ABOUT "I WAS THINKING"This folder is my personal venture of 10500 copies bi-monthly, costing about £7000 a year. Gifts have been sent to me spontaneously (I have never ask) and when amounting to £750 used for an extra 6000 distribution. I work as a Bible theologian and professional writer and IWT takes the spill over of thought, with original consideration of Bible passages and questions, and of course the current scene. IWT may be used or reprinted freely if my authorship is credited. This issue and number 10 were late as I did not have time to write them. I greatly value and am very grateful for encouragements constantly received. I particularly owe thanks to Elim pastor Jamys Carter and Emma his wife who edit and prepare IWT for the printers and look after the website: < www.canty.org.uk > I could increase insertion in other magazines but it would have to be by sponsorship. George Canty. (Revd)