Considering the Steadfastness of Job

The New Testament writer exhorts his readers who are suffering to keep in mind the steadfastness (endurance/ patience) of Job (James 5:11). What is his point? If we consider both the similarities and the dissimilarities between Job and the recipients of James’s exhortation we find an answer. Job suffered innocently as did James’s readers. However, the readers were suffering under the hand of the rich and powerful (James 5:1-6). On the other hand, Job was a prosperous man (Job 29:12-17). However, he suffered not as a victim of the rich and powerful as James’s readers did but neither was he guilty as a rich man of perpetrating such oppression. It is here we establish one key difference in the respective sufferings of Job and James’s readers. Namely, those to whom James wrote could point to a cause for their suffering (rich and powerful). Job could not point to a cause for his suffering.

What we learn from James’s exhortation is that the greater challenge to our faith in suffering is not the suffering itself but, rather, our view and the judgments we make about it. Putting it simply, it is not what happens to us that messes us up; it is how we handle it that messes us up. When we consider the steadfastness (endurance/patience) of Job in suffering, we learn that suffering, whether we understand its causes or not, comes to rich and poor alike. To consider the steadfastness of Job is to understand that God provided for Job in his suffering the one thing he needed in order to endure. Namely, that God was there suffering with him. In other words, it was in Job’s suffering that he was made aware of God’s abiding presence. For this reason, Job came to know and see God in a compassionate and merciful way he never could have apart from his suffering (read Job 42:2-6, note especially verse 5). Consequently, James’s exhortation to his readers is this very point when he wrote: “Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” (James 5:11).