A Fresh Perspective

Job believed God was responsible for the good and the bad that happened to people on earth. So after the first series of catastrophes where he loses family and fortune he says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” When Job is afflicted with painful soars all over his body and when his wife questions his loyalty to a God who would do this to him, he says, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” When Job’s friends first hear of his troubles the text says “they met together to go and console and comfort him. . . They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” If only his friends had continued that course. If only they would have absorbed some of Job’s frustration and anxiety without trying to correct him or set him straight. But when Job opens...

There is a growing number of Christians today who are interpreting texts like John 14:6 (“I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me”) inclusively, rather than exclusively. Some interpreters apply this to the risen, cosmic Christ who they see working anonymously through many different mediums and mediators. The Gospels, they point out, were written from a post-Easter point of view. What others call by a different name they believe is actually the living Christ. Others interpret Jesus’ statement “except through me” to be a reference to the values and virtues Jesus incarnated. In other words, anyone who embraces the values and virtues of Jesus can know God regardless of their particular beliefs. Acts 10:34 supports this reading: “In every nation anyone who fears (reverences) God and does what is right is acceptable to God.” Still others, like me, emphasize that John was writing to his particular community. When John wrote “no one” he ...