The Gospel According to Job: The Untold Story

By W. Robert McClelland

"Those who are familiar with McClelland's other books know they are in for a thought provoking treat worth 'cussing and discussing!' 'Why' he asks, 'should anyone be interested in a GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOB? For the same reason that the Book of Job is included in the Bible,' he says. In the wisdom of the Church and under the guidan

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Jan 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781648956874

W. Robert McClelland

W. Robert McClelland, author of more than twenty books relating faith to life, is an ordained Presbyterian minister. He studied theology at McCormick Theological Seminary and the University of Edinburgh. He holds an earned doctoral degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary. Following a career of college and seminary teaching as well as parish ministry, he was invited to be a Merrill Fellow at Harvard University. He is a nationally exhibited, award winning watercolorist and holds Signature membership in the Missouri National Watercolor Society. Together, he and his wife have blessed the world with three magnificent children and nine incredible grandchildren; all of whom agree, are better looking and smarter than he is.

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Prologue

"So why, you ask, do we need a GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOB? We already have the Bible, and it gives us four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Why do we need another one? Besides, Job is in the Old Testament. He wouldn’t have anything to say about the Jesus of the New Testament. So why THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOB?"

My guess is for the same reason that the Book of Job is in the Bible. In the wisdom of the Church and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Book of Job is included in Sacred Scripture to keep the conversation about God honest!

Old Testament Faith had grown sure of itself. It was certain that good guys will be blessed, and bad guys will be sorry. The Mystery of God was all figured out, and God could remain safe on His sovereign pedestal in Heaven.

But then comes Job. He takes on both God and Religion. And he does it on the basis of his own humanity! He challenges God to take the mask of Omnipotence off, leave the safety and security of Heaven, and enter the fray of human Reality. Job stands tall in the Bible because he sees what is required of a Gospel Story when God and Man take each other seriously.

Why a GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOB? Well, here…

Let him tell you…!

W. Robert McClelland

St. Louis

Introduction

Hi! I’m Job…Nice to meet you!

I understand you want to know why we need my Gospel.

Actually, it was our Publisher’s idea. As you know, I make my home in the Bible along with a lot of other folks. We are all writers, and all of us are working for the same Publisher—Word of God Press. This whole neighborhood was developed by Him. He laid it all out—street by street, block by block—drew up all the plans, and had all the houses built. We were all invited to make our homes here. I’m sure you have met some of my neighbors. Isaiah and all his friends live just up the street. And of course, buying some of those newer homes in the next block are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Living next door to me are some musicians who are part of the cast rehearsing for the Song of Solomon, a sensuous and erotic Broadway musical. And of course, I know you must be familiar with some of the poetry written by the guys living in the Psalms Apartments. You probably remember me from my loud complaints to the Almighty about His unfair treatment of me and my family.

In any case, now that we’ve met, I want you to see where I live. I’ve invited a few of my neighbors to join us. As I said, all of us are writers working on the same anthology that our Publisher is producing titled, The Divine Initiative and the Human Response. It’s the Story of the Sovereign God’s Ego…the Big I-AM of the Bible. It traces God’s Ego’s development as He learns how to live with us. You may remember that when the Old Testament God reveals His name for the first time to Father Abraham (Genesis 15:1) and later to Moses (Exodus 3:14–15), He wants to be known as I-AM. Apparently, He wants everyone in the Bible to understand that He is the Big I-AM and will be known by whatever His Ego Decides to Do. Later, of course, He relaxes—no longer starches His underwear, I guess—and shares some of His more intimate pet nicknames. Those are the I-AM sayings of the New Testament Gospels. But only Jesus gets to use them.

As you can see, my house is located just about in the middle of the neighborhood. Our Publisher picked it out for me. He insisted that I live here because of its location. It has a unique perspective for viewing the events and characters in the epic development of GOD’S EGO. It offers a view you can’t get from anywhere else on the street and becomes the unifying perspective on which our Publisher wants His anthology to turn. You can see the Before and After of the Big I-AM’s developing personality very clearly. Without it, you miss the incredible significance of Jesus: His Ego’s Decision made flesh.

As I’m sure you have heard, I was facing some very difficult times a few years ago. Friends of mine from the Church came by to comfort me. But rather than comforting me, their visit left me wondering if their notion of God was as mistaken as their assumptions about the reasons for my suffering. They tried to pin my misfortune on me, insisting that I was at fault. They thought that somehow I had upset God and that He was punishing me. They insisted I had brought all the misfortune on myself.

I recognize that I have been a thorn in the side of religious folks for many years. I am talking, of course, about the kind of people who seem to think you have to flatter God when addressing Him or stroke His Divine Ego when you go to Church. Worship, for them, is singing happy hymns and approaching the Throne of Grace on your knees. You know…put on clean underwear before going to Church…that sort of thing.

But I think the Divine integrity of God demands that there be no pretense in our worship of Him. There must be no stonewalling at the altar. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is indifference. My accusations of God’s shameful behavior were anything but indifferent. I, for one, am grateful to your Karl Barth, who, at long last, saw so clearly that the Believer may curse God, but it is God he curses, not Karma or Bad Luck. My complaint of being unfairly treated by God takes up a lot of space in the Bible, and at times my prayers get pretty loud. But I believe my boldness is as much an affirmation of my Faith in God as the singing of the Doxology is by a mother whose sick child has been healed. The only difference is in the Decisions that I-AM’s Ego has made and how we experience His hand on our lives.

As I’m sure you know, my honesty in addressing God has been called blasphemous by some of the good upstanding folks in the Church. I admit that I did shake my fist in God’s face and wanted to know why… Why was He treating me so badly? But the only blasphemy that I can see is where God clips me with His sucker punch. The fact that I, along with my tirade, was invited to come live in Sacred Scripture by our Publisher is, I think, the real problem for my Churchy friends. They try to change the subject or disguise my honesty by telling their Sunday School children that "nobody was as patient as Job!" Well, I guess you could say that, as long as you see the ironic humor in it. Certainly, most folks don’t express their patience as loudly as I did.

But I digress! All you really need to know about me is that I was the guy who drew the short straw when the Big I-AM’s Ego was challenged! So please come in and meet my friends. Let us show you the view from my window! We call it THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOB.

Chapter One

The Big I-AM of the Bible

My Gospel really begins with what was probably a slow day in Heaven. Not much on God’s agenda. God wasn’t busy creating stuff, I guess. In any case, He had time on His hands. At least He had time to think about things. That’s when God’s Alter Ego, the Accuser—or as some say, the Adversary—sneaks in under the radar of God’s Omnipotence and points out to Him that maybe the reason I read my Bible every day and sing His praises in Church every Sunday is because it pays off.

To be sure, I had done very well in the stock market, and my income taxes always reported very generous giving to deductible charities. My kids all had braces on their teeth and were doing well in school. Life was good! So of course I was singing God’s praises in Church! You would too! But God’s Adversary challenged His Ego by insinuating that maybe I was a stand-up kind of guy—regular in my Church attendance and keeping my pledge paid up to date—all that because God was bribing me to sing in His choir. Maybe I was blameless and upright only to get the perks!

Well, that got the Big I-AM’s attention. He was caught off guard, surprised by a thought that had never occurred to Him before…caught, in fact, when He had time to wonder about it. And because He had nothing else to do that day, God not only wonders about it but starts to worry about it. Do I really like Him…not just because He has put me on his payroll…but do I really like Him as God? Now do you see why I wanted you to come in and see the view from my living room? God’s Ego had never been challenged before! It’s the reason our Publisher wanted my perspective in the middle of the Story.

Well, the more God thinks about all this, the more He wonders about it…and the more it worries Him. Maybe it might be true! The Big I-AM has to know! His Ego is shaken, and He has to find out. So God gives in to His Adversary’s challenge and makes a bet with Himself. Even if He strips all my good fortune from me, I will still be in Church on Sunday to sing in the choir.

Now, I don’t know if that means God has a gambling habit or an insecure Ego, but whatever it was, the wager was agreed to, and I was caught right in the middle of its crosshairs! Lucky me!

My Story in the Book of Job is beginning to come back to you, right? Well, the roof falls in on me! I end up losing my hair, my teeth, my job, my health, and finally, all my family. But the worst of it is that my wife refuses to go to Church with me and gives God the finger! That’s when my Church friends came by to commiserate with me, but instead of just holding my hand and sitting with me quietly, they tried to cheer me up. It’s like a well person trying to talk to a sick person. They had no idea. If they had just suggested that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and with God’s help we can make lemonade with the lemons, that, at least, would have given me some comfort and a sense of purpose to it all. Of course, that would have raised the more basic question and essentially the only question that really matters: Who’s in charge here anyway?! Is God Sovereign, or is Chaos running the Show? Is there any rhyme or reason to Life, or is it all just an accident, the result of Chance? A sick joke with us as the victims of its sense of humor.

Well, from my living room window, you can see that Life is not a random throw of the dice. Nor was I to blame for my troubles. It was not Chaos. It was the Great I-AM and His troubled Ego that was driving my bus. There were Reasons for my suffering. But they were Reasons—about which I knew nothing at the time—Reasons that were located in God’s character, not mine. The Great I-AM had issues He had to deal with!

I don’t know why it is that religious folks feel they have to provide answers to Life’s Mystery while keeping God’s hands clean. But they seem driven to create reasons that make sense of all the undeserved suffering in the world—mine as well as others—reasons that totally ignore the Sovereignty of the Great I-AM’s Ego, send you down the wrong path, and end up misconstruing the significance of Christ. I guess they are afraid that if the blame can’t be laid at our feet, which will give them some sense of its meaning and their culpability, then the whole affair of Life is a meaningless joke told by a laughing god whose face is too horrid to behold.

In any case, instead of just quietly sitting with me, my friends insisted that I had brought this all on myself. I was to blame for my misery! I had offended God somehow. All my misery, they were sure, was to punish me for some undisclosed sin and teach me some kind of lesson. Of course, from my living room window, you can now see how totally mistaken they were. Their explanation makes no sense at all! It was not that I had dung under my fingernails or had committed some secret nastiness behind the bathroom door, nor was I in the wrong place at the wrong time when Life’s random Caprice came my way. I was simply the victim of a bet that God had made with Himself! The Big I-AM’s Decision was the reason for my woes, and I was the fall guy for His Ego’s insecurity.

Well, you know me! Angels fear to tread where only fools like me dare to go. So there I am, right in the middle of the Bible, going toe to toe with God, duking it out with the Almighty, challenging Him, demanding to know why He was treating me and my family so badly. Little did I realize then that the chain of events that my challenge for fair