The Book of Job and the Mission of God

A Missional Reading

Tim J. Davy

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781498297400
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Crítica e interpretación bíblicas

The book of Job is famous for its complex and compelling exploration of suffering and faith. It is less well-known for its contribution to a biblical understanding of God's mission and the church's role within it. In this detailed study, Tim J. Davy provides the most in-depth treatment yet of a "missional" reading of Job, building on the great strides taken in recent years in the missional reading of Scripture. A number of missiologically framed questions are examined, including the function of the book's non-Israelite theme, the cultural encounter of Job with similar ancient Near Eastern literature, and questions of justice and the treatment of the poor. Ultimately Davy makes the bold claim that the book of Job lies, not at the periphery, but at the heart of our understanding of the mission of God.

1

An Introduction to the Book

“I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.” – Nicholas Wolterstorff1

In this book I develop and apply a missional hermeneutic to the book of Job; that is, I offer a reading of Job in the light of the missional nature of the Bible. Such a study can be located at the intersection of three scholarly trends that have been evident in recent decades. First, the Christian church’s understanding of “mission” developed considerably through the course of the twentieth century with the concepts of missio Dei and holistic mission being of particular relevance for this book. Also during the twentieth century and into the twenty-first is the well-documented rise, or resurgence, in scholarly interest in the Wisdom Literature.2 Finally, and most recently, the last two decades have witnessed the emergence of “missional hermeneutics,” an approach to biblical interpretation that seeks to read texts in the light of the missional nature of the Bible.

I will outline the first and third trends in more detail below. Regarding the resurgence of interest in wisdom, it is sufficient to say that this volume contributes to this welcome and sustained re-engagement with biblical wisdom with a particular study on the book of Job and mission. As I will demonstrate, particularly in my review in chapter 2 of the use of Job in Bible and mission scholarship, biblical theologies of mission and related works have tended to neglect the book of Job, and the Wisdom Literature more broadly. In this regard writing on the Bible and mission seems to be lagging behind more general biblical scholarship and so I hope that this book will contribute to a reimagining of how an understanding of the Wisdom Literature may be informed by, and contribute to the church’s missional thinking and practice.

I should explain at this stage what I mean by the term “mission.” Later in this chapter I will outline my understanding of mission as it relates to the concepts of missio Dei and holistic mission. Through this it will become clear that I consider “mission” to be, primarily, an act of God to restore creation to himself. Moreover, it is an activity in which the people of God (whether in the days of the Old or New Testaments or in our own day) are invited, indeed required, to participate. This participation is, I believe, a holistic endeavor, which addresses every aspect of human life in transformational ways. Therefore, while it certainly includes, for example, the traditional notion of “saving souls,” mission is not restricted to this.

By “missional” I follow Christopher Wright’s use of the term as “simply an adjective denoting something that is related to or characterized by mission, or has the qualities, attributes or dynamics of mission.”3 Apart from the fact that this term reflects current scholarly usage, an advantage of “missional,” as opposed to the more traditional adjective “missionary,” is that it allows me to speak, for example, of the missional relevance of aspects of Israel’s life or theology without necessarily implying that they had the same mandate to “evangelize” that is evident in the New Testament (NT) church.4 It therefore contributes towards a more nuanced understanding of how mission features in the Old Testament (OT), avoiding reductionist approaches that either dismiss prematurely the existence of mission in the OT or define it in anachronistic ways.5

In this introductory chapter I lay the groundwork for the book in several ways. First, I give a rationale for choosing the book of Job. After all, what has Job got to do with mission? In this section I aim to show why Job is not only legitimate as a subject of missional reflection, but compelling, urgent and necessary. I then address some important issues of context for subsequent discussions. In particular I clarify the notions of missio Dei and holistic mission, both of which contribute in significant ways to my understanding of mission, and therefore how texts might be read missionally. Finally, I provide a brief, initial orientation to missional hermeneutics, which points to a fuller treatment in chapter 3.

Why Job?

I am convinced that the book of Job is a rich and compelling source of material for biblical reflection on the mission of God, making an important and distinct contribution to missionally relevant questions. My aim in writing this book is, therefore, to demonstrate that by including the book of Job more intentionally and more substantially in our biblical reflection on mission, our appreciation of and engagement with the mission of God can be more enriched.

I will also show how a greater sensitivity to missional questions will lead to an enriched understanding of the biblical text. However, not all scholars connecting the Bible and mission appear to share this optimism concerning Job. In chapter 2 I examine the limited ways in which the book of Job has been referred to by writers working on the relationship between the Bible...