Today’s passage: Job 33

Helpful thoughts:

• After his introduction in the previous chapter, Elihu begins his message to Job and his friends.
• Elihu details what Job has said and uses the same imagery to argue his position.  He has been listening and seems to have a desire to reason with Job on his behalf.
• However, even with a different approach, the end result is the same.  Elihu believes God is allowing all this suffering to bring Job to repentance.

Questions to consider:

1. What does Elihu say are the two ways God speaks to man (Verses 15, 19)?  What is the purpose for God’s speaking according to him?  How does this understanding fall short of what we know of God from Scripture?
2. Under this scenario (If God allowed Job to endure this suffering to cause him to turn in repentance), what would then be the “ransom” which God found in verse 24?  Could the loss of Job’s possessions and the death of his children pay the penalty of his sin?
3. What is the only ransom God receives for our sin (Matthew 20:28)?  How does Elihu’s view of sin, judgment, repentance and reward differ from what we know and enjoy through Christ and the gospel?

Today’s passage: Job 32

Helpful thoughts:

• Chapter 32 introduces the reader to Elihu, a man who has not been mentioned up to this point in the book.  He will also not be referred to again after his words are concluded by the end of chapter 37.
• He is the only man in the book who bears a Hebrew name.
• His discourse will convey a different perspective than any of the men thus far.  However, when God speaks, Elihu’s words will be ignored.

Questions to consider:

1. What do you think is the overall point of this first chapter for Elihu?  What message is he trying to convey?  What is he about to do?
2. Does age automatically make a person is wiser (Verses 7-9)?  Why or why not?  How can knowing the Word of God and then interpreting the experiences of life through the Scriptures increase wisdom in a far greater way?
3. What emotions does Elihu share he is experiencing?  How do you differentiate comments made under the control of emotions and comments made in measured response to emotional feelings?  Do emotions make statements right or wrong?  How would we know or discern whether what Elihu is about to say is true for not?

Today’s passage: Job 31

Helpful thoughts:

• This chapter will conclude Job’s appeal.
• Job recounts several areas of his life and service which could be inspected.
  • Before God and man, he believes he has lived wisely and righteously.
• He desires to give an account of all his steps (His actions in life) to the Lord.

Questions to consider:

1. If everything Job says about himself is true in this chapter, what kind of a man was he?  How did he perceive possessions/wealth?  How did he view other people (Even if they were poor or strangers)?  What motivated him to live righteously?
2. To whom had he understood he would be giving an answer for how he lived?  How are his words now revealing a countenance that expects the opposite?  Who needs to answer to Job now?
3. If Job did everything he speaks of in this chapter flawlessly, what do you think is his downfall?  What is true of all of us and necessary to understand if we are going to ask for grace (1 John 1:8-10)?

Today’s passage: Job 30

Helpful thoughts:

• Job’s testimony now moves back into the present.
• Job used to help the needy, now the needy mock him.
• In the previous chapter, Job recounted his own willingness to help those who were in need.  Now that he is the one in need, God seems unwilling to help him.  Job wants to know why God appears to be acting unjustly.

Questions to consider:

1. What can be true of earthly honor and prosperity?  How firm and long-lasting are they? (Verse 15) If those who respected Job only did so as long as he helped them financially, what was the true nature of the “respect” they gave him?  If we live to be pleasing to man, how hard will we have to try to stay in the world’s good favor?
2. Is it wrong to ask God to be fair?  What is often our view (Or the limitation of our viewpoint) to be able to discern fairness/justice?  How does starting from the belief that God is perfectly just help us to pray correctly concerning our desire to see God act justly?
3. What is the greatest appearance of injustice in history which brought about justice and provided for our eternal salvation?!?!  (Romans 3:21-26)

Today’s passage: Job 29

Helpful thoughts:

• Chapters 29-31 will go together as a unit.
  • In chapter 29, Job will remember with fondness the past.
  • In chapter 30, he will grieve the present.
  • In chapter 31, he will make his request for the future.
• Job believed the blessing on his life was a gift from the Lord, that God had chosen to look on him favorably.
• The kindness Job chose to extend in sharing God’s favor on him resulted in accumulating a great deal of respect from others who knew who him.

Questions to consider:

1. How does this description of Job’s life compare/contrast with what his friends have been assuming he was doing?  If all these things were true, what severity of sin would have been necessary of Job to deserve all the suffering under his friends’ view of wickedness and judgment?
2. What would be necessary for Job to remember concerning the blessing of the earlier years of his life?  Why were they truly blessed?  How could the wealth and the respect have become great temptations?  If verses 2-5 weren’t in this chapter, what might it sound like?
3. How does Job’s testimony give some example of what we learn from 1 Timothy 6:17-19?

Today’s passage: Job 28

Helpful thoughts:

• Job addresses the source of wisdom.
• Mankind has gone to great lengths to discover and mine precious stones and metals for thousands of years.  The question Job asks is, “Where can man go to find precious wisdom?”
• The answer is given in verse 28, wisdom comes from God.  Fearing Him is wisdom and results in gaining wisdom.

Questions to consider:

1. Where does mankind go to try to find wisdom in this world?  Who/What are we told to trust implicitly in our day and culture?
2. What is the result of man thinking wisdom is found within our own hearts?  How hard do we have to dig and search for this “wisdom?”  What happens when two people’s hearts disagree?  Why is man prone to prefer digging into their own heart than to look to God and His Word for true wisdom?
3. What does the end of verse 28 confirm that wisdom and a right fear of God result in?  How does the wisdom of God’s Word change our thinking and how does that change our actions?

Today’s passage: Job 27

Helpful thoughts:

• Job would rather continue to suffer under the ridicule and false rebuke of his friends than give up his integrity.
  • The “you” in verse 5 is plural.  Job is speaking now to all three friends.
• Job agrees with his friends that judgment comes on the wicked, but with some differences.  I think we can make these observations from Job’s comments:
  • The rich may accumulate wealth in this life but he will die just like everyone else. After this he will not take any delight in the Almighty, just as he didn’t during his lifetime.
  • Job, however terrible his current condition, still longs for the day when the hardships of life are over and he is in the presence of the Lord.
• It’s possible here that Job is wishing this bitter end of the wicked on his friends (Or at least firing a verbal warning shot), if he in fact is now calling them, “My enemy” in verse 7.

Questions to consider:

1. What is the major difference between Job’s view of what comes to the wicked versus what his friends have been arguing so far?
2. How would Romans 12:14-21 give Job guidance as he speaks to his friends (And us if we find ourselves under fire)?
3. What is it that brings us righteousness and the hope of one day delighting in the presence of the Almighty? (Ephesians 2:4-7)

Today’s passage: Job 26

Helpful thoughts:

• Job answers Bildad’s final argument.
  • This monologue will continue through the end of chapter 31.
• There is sarcasm in his first words in verses 2 and 3.  In verse 4, Job calls into question on whose behalf his friends are actually speaking.  They would have assumed they were on God’s side…Job begs to differ.
• Verses 5-14 serve to remind Job’s friends just how much knowledge, power and sovereignty God has, and how little man knows of all that God knows and does.  For them to think they have full knowledge of the source of Job’s suffering is prideful and foolish.
  • Rahab (Verse 12) is another lesser used name for Egypt.

Questions to consider:

1. If Job’s friends were feeling confident about all they had said, how would they have responded to him or what would they have been thinking in this moment?  How might we catch ourselves in these times of self-assurance so that we are able to truly hear the hearts of people in their suffering?
2. What aspects of the greatness of God stuck out to you as you read?  What is Job’s view of God as expressed in these verses?  Is He seeking to make little of God to seek comfort or is he trembling before His greatness?
3. In what way is Job “stuck between a rock and a hard place?”  Who does he know has allowed his suffering?  What is he trying to convince his friends is not the cause of his suffering?  How does simply looking to God and looking to Jesus help us in the midst of hardship when we do not know the answers to WHY the hardships have come?

Today’s passage: Job 25

Helpful thoughts:

• Bildad gives the final argument of the three friends.
• He believes Job’s claim to innocence is an impossibility before a holy God.
  • Any claim to utter and complete righteousness is surely wrong.  However, Bildad’s argument puts all four of the men we see in this book so far in a place where they should also be seeing judgment.
  • If no one is righteous, and if Job deserved what he got from God…then all three of Job’s friends had better buckle up, because they would be next.
• The friends have agreed to this argument.  They have taken a hard line against Job.  They have not taken into consideration the mercy, grace and patience of God.  Nor, of course, the reality of Satan.

Questions to consider:

1. If the argument of these three friends was accurate, what would be happening to every person who ever lived (Except for Jesus Himself)?  What might their view have been toward their own sin?  What room would the gospel have to fit into this theology?
2. In what way are verses 2-4 correct?  If Bildad understood the plan of God’s redemption of sinful man, what would be the conclusion of his statement following verse 4?