Too Dogmatic

Whenever I realize that I am in transition in life, I spontaneously turn to wisdom literature. In my mind, transition means that I have something important before me, but I cannot rush to get there. From here to there, it is easy to lose sight of what is before me. I always believe that what is significant is not so urgent. Rather, what is urgent is not so important (e.g. Answering a phone call). Because most people lack of that urgency to do the things that are significant in life, they do a lot of insignificant things in life by reacting to their surrounding. Always keep the main things the main things. Don't succumb too much time to things that contribute nothing to the main things in life. I remind of myself. 

I am reading the Book of Job at Starbucks in San Francisco. Sue is still sleeping in the hotel. And I woke up earlier to worship my iPad with my coffee. This is our fundamental difference. After a while, I need to go back and wake her up. We then go to a church around this area. I love to fulfill my marital obligations. I just love doing them.

I read Job 3-14. This is not a story. This is not a parable. This is a debate--a theological conversation. From chapters 3-27, Job exchanges conversations with his three friends. Then Elihu, a young guy, jumps in (Job 32-37; Job's monologue, chapters 28-31). Thus, all these chapters are about conversations, dialogues, debate, clarification, argument, and edification. Job's experiential and existential view is beyond what he used to believe about God. He is looking for a better paradigm to make sense out of his experiences. His three friends, however, force Job to interpret his radical experiences based on conventional belief.  His three friends' dogmatic theology denies Job's process theology. (of course, the Book of Job does not promote process theology. God's two discourses deny just that at the end of the book.) 

However, Job is definitely in the process of reforming his old faith and reconstructing a new faith through which God is not understood as a Greek god who is up there without getting involved with human affairs, and human experiences, including its radicalness, are not downplayed. Job is looking for a bridge to put theology and living together while his three friends, including Elihu, are protecting conventional theology at all costs, even forsaking one's own existential experience.

Job's life seems to be stopped, but his theological search has just begun. Job's three friends and Elihu seem to know God and the truth about God, but they may not experience God in their experiences.  

The Book of Job, as a piece of wisdom literature, has a long pause between the speakings of God (Job1-2, 38-41). Wisdom literature deals with different intensities of life: its ordinariness (Proverbs), its vanity (Ecclesiastes), and its radicalness (Job). 

The Book of Job doesn't deal with life's smoothness and ordinariness, but its ambiguity and radicalness. Readers cannot jump into any conclusion without finish listening to them. It requires listening and engagement. These conversations are made up of human interpretations, even speculation, of God. But the readers must listen to each interpretation, which is not the whole truth and yet points to the whole truth.  

God doesn't intervene their conversations. Rather, He listens. He then says in 38:2:“Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words?" After hearing their talks, this is the first question that God raises in the text. To converse with one another is our earthly activity, especially conversing about God. In the midst of our conversations, we see that Job and his friends deeply converse and engage with one another. They sound theological, but they then find out that their languages are ignorant words. But it's only through their intense engagement through which they understand what God means by "ignorant words." 

To be able to understand God's question and be convicted by it, it's a spiritual formation.