Why Tim Allen Loves This Surprising Book of the Bible
By Movieguide® Contributor
When Tim Allen began to dig into the scripture, he found out one of his biggest questions couldn’t be answered, but that didn’t bother him after he learned the reason why.
“I’ve been a religious kid because I was forced to as a kid and then spent some time incarcerated, so I had to search…why do horrible things happen to good people? What is that all about?…Then I was given a little message, and it’s actually the Book of Job,” Allen told Mike Rowe on Rowe’s Feb. 20 podcast episode.
“The Book of Job is the one that affected me most…It’s this whole story about a guy who asked the emanation [God], why are you so mean to me? And I said this one time in a prison, you know…I was cleaning up, and I said I saw some of the meanest people that were treated well and some of the nicest people treated horribly,” the Teddy Bear Award® winner said.
But Allen realized that God doesn’t always reveal His ways to us, and He has reasons for that.
“It was a reminder of a short story I’d done [with a] magician when I was on the road early in doing comedy. We’d open for magicians…Mark Cornhouse, this magician, I said he would rip a newspaper and do all these pieces and then he goes [makes a gesture with his hands] ,and it’s all back together. And…that’s magic. He’s really a magician.”
“So I’d ask him, ‘Can you show me how you do that?’ He goes, ‘No.’” Allen said, “Come on, I’ll pay you.’” The magician said, “‘No, not paying. I’m not showing you the magic trick.’… He goes, ‘If I showed you several things are going to happen, you’re going to go that’s stupid, and then magic will no longer mean the same to you,’ and that story kept back with the story of Job,” Allen said.
READ MORE: TIM ALLEN READING THROUGH ENTIRE BIBLE: ‘WHAT A TREASURE’
Allen compared that to humans asking questions to God. He said:
If you ask the emanation “what, why’”this is like, it is first off you’re going to go, “What?” You won’t understand anything, and in that book of Job, one variation the emanation very rarely talks to humans because it’s like speaking to an ant. You can’t understand anything it says, and it said, “Listen, do you understand why the waves stop at the shore? Probably not. Do you understand why birds fly at a certain time of day but not others? No. You know, part of this planet is frozen solid… The stars all move in the same direction, do you know any of that? You weren’t here when I started it. You weren’t here when I created this. You weren’t here for any of this and this is the first question you want to know is why did you do this? I’m so angry I want to split you into little pieces, but my anger is mitigated by my amazement that you do that.”
That’s the thing about man. There’s something about Job I liked. That whole story that as dumb as we are, we do ask some amazing stubborn [questions].
Allen considers himself an “intellectual Christian.” He actively studies the scripture and appreciates the Bible. Besides “The Emanation,” he also calls God “The Builder.”
He once said, “I always do ask…The Builder, ‘What did You want me to do? And I do ask it, but you’ve got to be prepared for the answer.”
On Feb. 14, Allen shared, “I was considering what one means by the word faith…this quote arrived. ‘Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking. – Kahlil Gibran.”
READ MORE: TIM ALLEN DISHES ON TOY STORY 5: ‘BLESSED TO BE BUZZ’
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