Today’s passage: Job 9

Helpful thoughts:

• Job’s reply to Bildad covers both chapters 9 and 10.
• Bildad had said in 8:20, “God will not reject a blameless man…”  Job asks, “How can a man be in the right before God?”  No one is truly blameless.
• Job believes that Bildad has oversimplified the way God works, and he responds by reminding Bildad just how big and magnificent God is.
• Rahab (Verse 13) was the name of a mythological beast in the Ancient Near East.  This is not a reference to the woman Rahab from Jericho.

Questions to consider:

1. If we followed every person and charted out how “good” and how “evil” they had been, would their blessings and sufferings in life all work out with statistical precision?  Is that how God works?  Is that how good works work?  Why does blessing come on any of us?
2. If you know the conclusion of this book, how do verses 15-21 foreshadow the ending?  What does Job think would happen if he were to be able to have a conversation with God?  In what ways is he perplexed and why?
3. What has Job not yet accounted for?  Where does he think suffering comes from?  How is his limited thinking causing him to be in further distress?

Today’s passage: Job 8

Helpful thoughts:

• Eliphaz failed to convince Job, now it’s Bildad’s turn.
  • Right out of the gate, he tells Job the words of his mouth are a great wind.  He was being very direct.
  • He believed Job’s children died because of their own transgressions, though Job would need to repent as well.
• Bildad’s offer of repentance is found in verses 5-6.
• He believes Job has lost his way, having become distanced from God.  Therefore, Bildad compares Job to a plant that no longer has it’s root in the watered soil.
• In an effort to end his message with hope, Bildad assures Job that God will bless him again once he turns back to the Lord.

Questions to consider:

1. In what way was Bildad’s approach worthy of admiration?  What was he trying to accomplish?  How did he communicate it?
2. Even if the approach was flawless, what was Bildad still assuming?  How does assumption make even the best executed rebuke sound foolish (Proverbs 18:13)?
3. What would have been a better thing for Bildad to do before making accusations and telling Job what to do?  How would Job have known that Bildad (And his other friends) were really engaged in learning what all Job was going through and thinking?

Today’s passage: Job 7

Helpful thoughts:

• Job continues his response to Eliphaz in chapter 7.
• In verses 1-10, Job is speaking to Eliphaz.  In 12-21, he is speaking to God.  Verse 11 serves as the transition.
• Job is not asking for God’s attention.  He sees God’s attention as bringing him despair.  He wants God to leave him alone!

Questions to consider:

1. How would you summarize Job’s appeal to Eliphaz in verses 1-10?  His appeal to God in verses 12-21?
2. How does the heart behind what Job says in verse 17 differ from what we see in the context of Psalm 8:4?  What is Job actually asking God to do?  Is he right to say this? Why or why not?
3. Though Job does not believe his suffering is a result of any particular sin, what does he acknowledge in verse 21?  What is true of Job and true of all other people outside of Jesus Christ (Romans 3:23)?  What did God actually do to pardon our transgression and take away our iniquity (Isaiah 53:5)?

Today’s passage: Job 6

Helpful thoughts:

• Chapters 6 and 7 contain Job’s response to Eliphaz, who believes Job’s suffering is a form of discipline from God because of sin.
• It is clear from Job’s response, he feels that Eliphaz’s rebuke has now added to his suffering.
  • He had not withheld information.  He does not believe he is under discipline (Which, he wasn’t).
  • Therefore, Job returns rebuke to Eliphaz.
• With everything he is enduring, Job desires death and sees it as mercy from the Lord.  However, he knows that if it is to come, it must come from the Lord.

Questions to consider:

1. What kind of comfort does it appear Job needed and desired?  What does it look like Job wanted his friends to allow him to do in his suffering?
2. What does Job think Eliphaz is accusing him of doing (Verse 28)?  If these men were friends, what would Job have already told the men if this suffering was a consequence of his sin?  How might they have comforted Job even if that all were true?
3. With this challenge from his friends, and now with the conversation taking on a horizontal plane (Between people), what will Job need to be carful he doesn’t forget?  What is the most important relationship at stake here and in every conflict we have with others?

Today’s passage: Job 5

Helpful thoughts:

• Eliphaz reiterates what he believes to be the general cause of calamity, sin and foolishness.
• He speaks of God as bringing swift justice on the earth and help to those in need.
• Finally, he encourages Job to receive the discipline of the Lord as a blessing.  Eliphaz believes Job needs to repent of his sin so that God will give Him a long life and take away all the hardship.

Questions to consider:

1. What parts of Eliphaz’s counsel sounded right? What passages from elsewhere in Scripture came to mind as you read (Perhaps something like Hebrews 12:7-11)?
2. What is the general argument Eliphaz is making?  If you do good, then your life will be…what?  If you sin, then your life will be…what?  In what ways can this be true?  In what ways could this be wrong? If Job had sinned and repented, would that have guaranteed the return of wealth and health?
3. Read John 9:1-3.  Is everything as clear cut as Eliphaz is making it?  How could he have asked questions instead of making assertions in a way that could have helped him to give better counsel to Job?

Today’s passage: Job 4

Helpful thoughts:

• The rebuke from Eliphaz is this: Job instructed others to endure suffering in the past, and now that he was suffering himself, he was personally unwilling to endure.
• As Eliphaz develops his argument in chapter 4, he makes these arguments:
  • Bad things always happen to bad people (Verse 7).
    • Asaph might have another opinion concerning this matter (Psalm 73:4-12).
  • Everyone has sinned (There is no one who is truly righteous before God) (Verses 12-21).
• In order to speak with authority, Eliphaz claims to have received these statements in a vision (Verses 12-16).

Questions to consider:

1. What has Eliphaz said so far that is correct?  What has he said that seems short-sighted, like there is more to the topic than what he is allowing for?
2. Where does it sound like his argument is going?  On what or whom do you think Eliphaz is going to blame Job’s suffering?
3. Why does Eliphaz think everyone should listen to him and quickly agree?  How is he utilizing this idea of having a vision?  Why is that so dangerous?  How could that method be abused and misused today in religious contexts?  From where do we get authoritative truth (2 Timothy 3:16-17)?

Today’s passage: Job 3

Helpful thoughts:

• With chapter 3, we begin to hear Job, his friends, and eventually the Lord speak.  These chapters (The majority of the book) are written as Hebrew poetry.
• As Job breaks the silence, he laments his own birth and life.  He is in great distress, grieving, mourning.
  • Job expresses his belief in this moment that it would be easier to be dead (To be at rest) than to continue to endure the pain he was in.
• In his lament, Job certainly confirms that the “hedge” Satan had accused God of surrounding him with was gone.  He was now well acquainted with pain and suffering.

Questions to consider:

1. What does Job understand to be true of those who have already died?  Do they carry their social and economic status with them beyond this life?  Why might death look better to him at this point as opposed to the days prior to all these calamities?
2. What did Satan say Job would do if all was taken away?  Has Job cursed God?
3. If you were Job’s friend, what might have been your response to this lament?  What is the right response, and what (at different times in your life) might you have been prone to do or say?  What would have been the most helpful to him? (Romans 12:9-16)

Today’s passage: Job 2

Helpful thoughts:

• Satan accuses God of not playing fair (Even though Satan agreed to the testing in chapter 1).  He believed that Job’s testing had been insufficient because his own health was preserved.
• Had Job died, there would be no test.  It would have been mercy to allow him to perish.  The “saving” of his life allowed him to suffer in a prolonged fashion.
  • Job was willing to allow this testing and suffering even under the sad encouragement of his own wife.
• Job’s friends come to bring him comfort and to grieve with him.  They did a great job…for one week.

Questions to consider:

1. Why shouldn’t we be surprised when we see Satan bringing accusations, even against God (Revelation 12:10)?  What is our hope and security when Satan brings accusation against us (Romans 8:34-39)?
2. Why would God want Job’s life to be spared?  He certainly would not have gotten a kick out of seeing Job suffer!  What would be the end result of Job’s testing?  What is the purpose of our existence and life on this earth (1 Corinthians 10:31)?
3. We will eventually see things we might wish Job’s friends hadn’t said.  But at this point, how is their attempt at kindness and sympathy being shown?  How hard would it be to remain silent for seven days and nights just to mourn with your friend?  How could your presence speak more than any words?

Today’s passage: Job 1

Helpful thoughts:

• There are different ideas as to when the events of the book of Job occurred and when they were put in writing.  Because of the nature of the information surrounding the events and due to the use of other Scripture references, it is possible the events took place during the patriarchal period (Near the time of Abraham, which means Job was not a Hebrew) and that Job was written around the time of the exile.
• Job is the first book in the collection of the books of poetry and wisdom literature in the Old Testament.  Knowing this genre will help us to interpret what we read as we move along through the book.
  • Job is going to get a great deal of counsel from his friends in this book.  Not all their advice is good, and we are to read it in the context of the book as a whole.  So, as we read the book of Job, we will be careful not to come to conclusions and application that are not meant to be.
• In this first chapter, we see the Lord allow Job to be tested, and up to this point Job remains faithful.

Questions to consider:

1. What part does Satan play in this narrative portion of the book?  Is he in charge of what’s happening?  What were “his” demons doing (Verse 6)?  Why was Job right to say, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away” if Satan was the one orchestrating these tragedies?  What does this teach us about Satan’s “authority?”
2. Is Job going to be the real focus of this book?  Why isn’t the story about his children, or the servants who died?  To whom do Satan’s actions, Job’s reactions, and all of the other dialogue point?
3. Job’s offerings in verse 5 show he was aware of our problem of sin and the need for intercession.  What is God’s way (The only Way – John 14:6) of interceding for our sin?  Instead of burning sacrifices for our children, what must we tell people (Our children included) they need to do to have forgiveness of sin (Acts 16:30-31)?