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Monday, June 6, 2011

Review 54: A Biblical Approach to Personal Suffering (Walter C. Kaiser)

Partly commentary, partly application of the book of Lamentations. This is short enough to read in a couple of hours, and would form a good intro to the much neglected book of Lamentations. The book itself is organized around a program for recovering from suffering, following the outline of the book of Lamentations. Especially good is Kaiser's discussion of God's anger (59-62), and his description of various kinds of suffering, "Suffering in the OT (121ff)": 1) retributive (ie. punish. for sin), 2)educational (Pr. 3:11), 3)vicarious (Is. 42-53), 4)empathetic (weep with those who weep, and of God: Is. 63:9), 5)doxological (cf. John 9:3), testimonial (God, not Job was on trial: Job 1), 6)revelational (Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel), 7) eschatological (period of intense suffering that fxn as birth pangs). I don't know if suffering can be divided up into neat categories, and sometimes the categories overlap; also, there may be a few categories Kaiser misses. Still, I think such categories are helpful knowledge in times of affliction.

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