Contradictions or a Perfect Balance: Thoughts on Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes, Part I
A wrong understanding and application of Scripture can bring great confusion to one’s life and severely wound a soul. Shepherds who truly love their flock will make it a priority, then, to not only teach the Scriptures accurately, but also apply it to their people with great care and precision. The latter is just as important as the former, as we see in the case of Job and his supposed comforters. They came to him with orthodoxy, but misapplied the Word, only to inflame Job’s pain and kindle the anger of God (Job 42:7).
This becomes an urgent matter when we consider the apparent discrepancy between the wisdom of Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes. Derek Kidner likens the inconsistency of the books to three houses. Proverbs would be a “seven-pillared house of Wisdom, or better, that gracious, well-stocked home of the accomplished wife, whose virtues bring the book to its serene close.” On the other hand, Job would be a very different situation: “…perhaps the wreckage in which his family perished when a ‘great wind came across the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house,” or the ash heap to which Job had resigned himself.” Down the street would be the house of Ecclesiastes: a decaying and broken-down structure; barely a shadow of its former glory (The Wisdom of Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes, 116).
Proverbs offers reassuring, hopeful promises such as, “No ill befalls the righteous, but the wicked are filled with trouble” (Proverbs 12:21). The book of Job, however, portrays one of the most righteous of all men enduring a weight of suffering that exceeds the experience of most men (Job 1:8). Ecclesiastes further complicates the issue by declaring, in a desparingly stoic tone, that it does not really matter one way or the other.
Promises such as Proverbs 21:5, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty,” appear to not always be true; or at least, need some qualification. Job, no doubt, experienced the fulfillment of this promise for he was a man of great wealth; wealth that he apparently accumulated through righteous means. It was not his “hastiness,” however, that brought him to poverty; it was fire from heaven and a situation out of his control. Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, points out that an excess of wealth is nothing more than “vanity and striving after the wind,” so who cares if you have any or not?
So What are We Supposed to Think?
Is the wisdom of Proverbs, then, negated by the reality of Job and the pessimism of Ecclesiastes? Is it not a waste of time to invest faith in the promises of Proverbs and seek to live a life of wisdom? Why bother with righteousness if it may not bring the blessings it promises; and even worse, actually serves as an impetus for God to allow demonic forces to test the quality of that righteousness? Or even more discouraging: why even bother with the question at all?
Yet there is another potential danger here besides the possibility of neglecting the wisdom of Proverbs: it is wrongly applying the wisdom of Proverbs altogether. Certainly one does not need to go far to find this unfortunate tendency in well-meaning yet woefully ignorant saints. A fellow church member might find it necessary to question the fidelity of another member’s child rearing when they observe that couple’s child living a wanton life; far away from Christ and Biblical principles. “Does not the Bible say, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it?’ What is going on here? Did you not train up your child in the way he should go?” Instead of weeping with these parents, this self-endorsed protector of Biblical conformity drives the sword of despair even deeper into these parents by directly implying their lack of godly parenting. O how this person should have read and thought about their Bible more closely.
The reality of Job’s suffering and the pessimistic outlook of Ecclesiastes counter-balances the wisdom of Proverbs and adds the ever important qualification: “But it may not happen this way.” We live in a world where God reigns, and under that reign, the world functions in a certain way: hard work produces abundance and godly parenting produces a godly offspring. Nevertheless, we also live in a world that has been smitten by sin and a fall that has upset the equilibrium. Now hard work will probably bring abudance and good parenting beget faithful children; but it may not, and what wealth and children you do have could be wiped out by a firestorm. Not to mention that righteousness may not always have the temporal payoff we would expect from a bare reading of Proverbs.
The implications for pastoral preaching, counseling, and overall Christian living, then, are enormous. The question that shepherds must ask, and that has been alluded to already is, “How do we apply the bold and pleasant promises of Proverbs in light of the raw reality of Job and the unrelenting cynicism of Ecclesiastes?
Everyone ask this same question, but no one can answer it. Proverbs 12:21 contradicts the torture God put on a just man like Job. Evil does happen to the just and upright. God tortures the just and unjust alike. Being a good man of God does not bring blessings.
What’s worse is that God never answers Job, but rather boast of his power and evades answering why he put Job through hell for absolutely no reason.
Dan,
I want to reply to your statements paragraph by paragraph.
“Everyone ask this same question, but no one can answer it. Proverbs 12:21 contradicts the torture God put on a just man like Job. Evil does happen to the just and upright. God tortures the just and unjust alike. Being a good man of God does not bring blessings.”
It is essential when interpreting the Proverbs that one understand their genre: the Proverbs are not intended to be taken as absolute promises, but as general “truisms” – statements about the nature of life and the world that are true most of the time. Proverbs 12:21 says, “No will befalls the righteous, but the wicked are filled with trouble.” Job’s suffering would contradict this statement if Proverbs 12:21 was meant to be taken as an unfailing promise – Job suffered terribly while being “righteous” (Job 1:8) – but they are not intended to be taken this way so there is no actual contradiction. In fact, the burden of the above three-part essay was to understand how statements from Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes fit together in the same Bible. This is an excerpt from part II:
“What are the implications, then, as we deal with each text? In Proverbs, this means that we present the life of wisdom in all its unapologetic glory and blessing, and the rejection of wisdom in all its gloom. A diligent man will gain riches (Proverbs 13:4) and a wise father beget a wise son (Proverbs 22:15, 23:14-15, 29:15); while the sluggard will inherit poverty (Proverbs 13:4) and a negligent father will raise a rebellious son (Proverbs 29:15). A life of wisdom is not only pleasant (Proverbs 2:10), it stems from a right relationship with God (Proverbs 1:7).
In Job, we show our hearers that it is possible that a good and godly man may suffer in this life–and suffer grievously–but that God is in complete control of the situation. We demonstrate that when a man suffers, it may not be as a result of his sin; in fact, it may be a result of his righteousness (Job 1:8).
In Ecclesiastes, we bring our hearers into the world of the man without God and invite them to walk around in his pointless, vain existence, in order to show them that without God, life has little or no meaning. But we also portray the brutal, but true reality that both the wise and the foolish will die (Ecclesiastes 2:12-17), and in a fallen world, it is possible that one will find wickedness in place of justice and righteousness (Ecclesiastes 3:16).”
Your statement, “Being a good man of God does not bring blessings,” needs some qualification. What kind of blessings do you mean? Temporal riches, a good reputation, friends, earthly comfort? Or spiritual blessings: eternal life, peace, joy, perseverance? Whatever you mean by “blessings,” the whole of Scripture would undermine the absoluteness of your statement: being a good man of God does bring blessings, sometimes temporal, always spiritual.
“What’s worse is that God never answers Job, but rather boast of his power and evades answering why he put Job through hell for absolutely no reason.”
In fact, God does answer Job, and Job realizes exactly what that answer is – it is “Shut your mouth. I am God. You have no right to sit in judgment over my dealings with the world and the people I have created. And you are doubly wrong for questing my goodness and righteousness.” That is why Job said, at the end of his encounter with God,
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of your s can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you bu the hearing of the ear, but no my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:2-6).
And what’s important to remember here is God did not put Job through hell – his suffering was great, indeed, but it was not hell. Hell is a place of eternal death and punishment for our sin and high-handed rebellion against God which comes after death. Hell is infinitely worse than anything we could experience on earth. But Job was able to find joy, rest and peace in God’s stern rebuke because he knew God was not going to send Job to hell (Job 19:25). At the beginning of the book, we find Job making sacrifices for his sins and for the sins of his family. These sacrifices – which had to be conducted regularly – were a shadow of the coming Final Sacrifice; the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins. God punished all of Job’s sin on Jesus Christ 2000 years ago. Job had trusted in this coming Sacrifice so God did not count his sins against him. Therefore, knowing he was right with God, Job could endure God’s rebuke and say, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15).
Given your previous statements about God and suffering, I wonder if you have trusted Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and found rescue from hell – a rescue which enables us to see our present suffering as “slight momentary affliction [which] is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen” (II Corinthians 4:17-18).
If you have not, I would encourage you to turn from your sin, realizing not only your actual sins, but the propensity of your heart to rage against God is worthy of eternal punishment, and place all your trust in Jesus Christ and the His Work on the cross, where he bore the infinite and eternal penalty of you sin, died, was buried, and rose again so you might be made right with God.
Wow! I thank God for you and your persistent efforts to understand his will and fulfill his purpose for your life. May he continue to bless you and keep you.
P.S. I am looking forward to parts II and III. Please forward or post immediately.