God doesn’t say his “faith” in God is the reason for his righteousness. The righteousness of God ony comes by faith and is a gift to us (plenty of NT passages confirming this point). Where does God declare Job’s faithfulness – the quote says blameless upright fear of God and turning away from evil. This was being achieved by Job in his own strength. Abraham Moses David – the great men of faith along with all the others mentioned in Hebrews by their story are not blameless totally upright and sinless and turning away from evil. They were all sinful men who gained God’s righteousness by their faith and their faith alone not by their self righteousness actions.

Haven’t you ever wondered if Job was seeminly in an even better position with God than all the others(none like him on the earth) why Job isn’t mentioned in Hebrews?

What on earth do you mean by “if God isn’t responsible for suffering is he even a god? Why where who says that to be omnipotent God you have to be the source of suffering? James says Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Now forgive me if I am wrong but when did suffering become a good and perfect gift? Jesus quite clearly distinguishes between good gifts (food) and nasty gifts (scorpion) and then confirms that God only sends good. Otherwise that would make God worse that the evil people Jesus speaks of who know to do good.

Do you believe that had Adam and Eve not given in to temptation – that they would have experienced suffering in the Garden of Eden anyway?

I don’t get this fixation with the quote of a cosmic cash machine – that is certainly not how I see God. But I would love to know your definition of grace if it isn’t the most amazing free gift of all time? We don’t “demand” blessings – but accept humbly it’s what God wants to give us because HE SAYS SO!

Job 1:12 – And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

Again, Job 2:6 – And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.”

I don’t think it’s right to say Job was self-righteous because he was following the word of God diligently. And does not God declare his righteousness?

And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” (Job 1:8)

If that’s not righteousness, I don’t know what is! God himself declares Job’s faithfulness, and how he fears the Lord.

If God is not responsible for suffering, is he even a god? As i said above: if we only accept the good things of life as being from God we are suggesting that God is some sort of ‘cosmic cash machine’ from which we can withdraw all the time. God then becomes our servant. Our magical shower of blessing.

There is suffering simply and plainly because there is sin. There is sin because God granted free will. God granted free will because he loved us too much to force us to follow him (even though he knew that following him would be the very best thing we could do for our own benefit). Satan is responsible for ALL the suffering in this world – not God. Once we have established this point perhaps suffering can be talked about in rational terms instead of blaming God. Lets talk healthly about blaming Satan shall we – and the damage and mess and distress and sin and suffering caused by allowing Satan to dominate our lives.

Yes God can and indeed does work through suffering because he is Love and hates to see his people (or actually Ben – any people suffer – that’s why Jesus came.) And of course we learn through suffering but actually if we just learn through scripture (which is what we are told to do in Timothy) – we wouldn’t HAVE to learn through suffering. A child has two ways of learning a) it can choose to obey – it learns that obeying is good and doesn’t bring stress and continues to choose to walk in this way or b) it chooses to disobey – reaps the consequences – and eventually through a lot of struggle finally learns to obey and then realises that it would have been a lot simpler to obey in the first place!! I would strongly maintain that a child who chooses to obey rather than disobey maintains a much healthier and closer relationship with its parents than one who chooses to disobey and holds its parents at arms length rather than submitting.

To read Job as God allowing satan to work is to misread Job. Firstly Job was written before the law was given (and actually Ian Job wasn’t “quoting” proverbs as proverbs hadn’t been written when Job was alive – so maybe Proverbs was quoting job!!). Secondly the righteousness described of Job was in fact in the best possible sense self-righteousness – he was doing all the right things. No-where in Job does it tell us that Job had been accounted righteous because of his faith (unlike Abraham and all the saints mentioned in Hebrews 11). What God showed him at the end was the message of Grace – that we can’t earn ourselves a place in heaven. Job had it partly right – but his statement – God gives and God takes away blessed be the name of the Lord was in fact incorrect theology. The bible wanted to show us that any attempt to get ourselves right with God doesn’t work. We can only receive as a gift the righteousness of God given to us through Grace.

God’s purpose for his people is always that they should bring glory to him. Thus in blessing the point of blessing is not the good stuff it brings but rather that God would be glorified. Blessing can become idolatry if we elevate the gifts above the giver.

In suffering, the point is that God’s people should bring glory to him, in that when Christians encounter suffering they have opportunity to share with the world something of the truth of their God.