Today’s passage: Job 42
Helpful thoughts:
- When Job tried to enter into God’s realm of wisdom and expectation of justice, he stepped into a territory that was above his ability to fully comprehend.
- The more Job saw of who God is, the more he realized the vast difference between the Lord and his creation (Job included).
- Immediately after Job’s repentance, God makes him and intercessor for his friends. God is willing to hear his prayer.
- In rebuking Job’s friends, God confirms that the counsel they gave to Job was full of error (Verse 7).
- This is why it is so important to read the Scriptures correctly in their context!
- After Job’s repentance and after his willingness to intercede for those who had caused him suffering, God blesses Job with a double-portion of what he had before (1:1-3).
- The fact that he didn’t have twenty more children gives evidence to the significance of mankind in God’s creation. In total, Job had twenty children, the death of the first ten did not render him as having none.
Questions to consider:
- For what did Job actually repent? There wasn’t a sin that caused his initial suffering, so what did he need to turn from by the end of this book?
- When God confronted Job, why didn’t Job throw his friends under the bus first? What did being in the presence of God do in Job’s mind concerning the actions of others versus his own? What truly mattered at that point? For whom was he accountable?
- Keeping in mind that Job’s friends often misrepresented God, why do you think the Lord gave Job this “double-blessing” for the remaining 140 years of his life? Did Job get all that because he was such a righteous guy? What was God communicating to the world through Job?