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Book of Jobstudy/resource/information guide

Why this book?

The book of Job has some of the most intriguing dialogue between God and Satan (Chapters 1-2), God and Man (Chapters 38-42), and mankind’s assumptions of how God actually works (Chapters 4-37). The book of Job gives insight into the differences between the things we assume about God and who God is in reality.

The book of Job is read most of the time to give perspective on people who suffer through life’s greatest tragedies. While this book offers perspective on suffering, it is important to look at it in the context of God’s redemptive story to seek and save mankind from our sin. When the book is kept in context of the whole of Scripture and the whole of God’s story, it is not simply a how-to-endure-life-tragedies guide but rather a gracious display of the power, goodness, grace, sovereignty, and glory of the God we worship.

As we study Job, I hope you begin to discover some very important questions that the book begins to unveil about the suffering we go through in life including:

• Why do bad things happen to good people? • What will God allow to happen to me? • Don’t we deserve an answer for the suffering we go through?

• How do you make sense of God in the midst of personal loss? • What truly makes someone righteous in the eyes of God? • How does God view human suffering?

But if/when you are willing to peel back the surface of these tough questions, I believe the book of Job provides some great insight into the reasons these questions are so important to us, such as:

• The Character of God: Is He really a good God? • The Righteousness of Man: How good are we?

• Theology that can only be developed in the midst of personal pain • Things we think we need for a “good life”• How to filter bad advice from good friends • Submitting to a plan that we did not create nor are the center of.

Questions for reflection...

Which theological implication causes you the most speculation about the Character of God?

Which theological implication do you have a hard time accepting?

Which personal implication do you feel God is calling you to apply right now in your life? How?

Why do you think studying about suffering and the sovereignty of God is important to a church?

Three reasons it is important for Catalyst to study suffering and the sovereignty of God.

1) Jesus said we would suffer. See: John 16:33, Matt 10:38.

2) Suffering has been our example by those who have gone before us down the road of faith. See: Phil 3:10, 2 Tim 1:8, 1 Peter 4:13.

3) Suffering is often the Catalyst for authentic gospel centered revival, conversion, and church planting. This is what we want of ourselves, our city, our nation and ultimately we want the whole world to come into a growing and thriving relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope your greatest take away from studying this book is Jesus. Jesus? Yes, Jesus. What you will discover very quickly as you read the book of Job is mankind’s inability to grasp the way the Almighty works. They use reason, piety, and even religion to explain how and why we experience God the ways that we do. The fact is, God knows that mankind cannot simply grasp who He is. So He bypasses our religious efforts to reach Him, our philosophical capacities to reason Him and comes to our world to reach us where we are and as we are.

I look forward to all of the lessons, tribulations, and graces God will lead us to discover as we endeavor to read God’s word these next months in the study of his

servant Job. - Bradley Reith, Lead Pastor

JOB 32–37 A Young Punk proves the wisestElihu denounces Job for claiming to be innocent and his friends for failing to

answer him well. Elihu argues that God does not condemn unfairly, and he calls Job arrogant for thinking he is righteous. Elihu says that God responds to us in his wisdom, and he condemns Job for questioning the Creator of the universe.

JOB 38–42 God Answers Job with questions The Lord humbles Job by asking him a series of questions about nature. Job

acknowledges his insignificance, but the Lord continues with questions about two imposing creatures, the behemoth and the leviathan. Job humbly repents of his complaints against God. The Lord rebukes the three friends and restores Job’s fortunes.

There are 3 Theological implications of the book of Job*

• Our enemy’s (Satan) goal is to destroy our joy, reliance, and ultimately our trust in the character of God.

• God grants Satan limited power to cause pain. • Satan’s work is ultimately allowed, controlled, and restricted by God.

There are 3 Personal implications of the book of Job*

• This book asks that you would affirm the absolute sovereignty of God.• This book gives you permission to fully grieve in times of troubling

loss.• This book begs that you would see God as your ultimate treasure and

joy.

*Adapted from John Piper’s 7 Theological Implications of the book of Job

Outline of Book of Job (Adapted from Outline Bible, by Harold Willmington)

JOB 1–2 Not a Total Loss but Close Job is introduced. God allows Satan to test Job’s faithfulness by taking all that

he has. Job responds with great sorrow, but he worships God. Satan accuses Job again and strikes him with boils. Job’s wife tells him to curse God and die, but Job remains faithful. Three of Job’s friends come and mourn with him.

JOB 3–7 Demonic Advice from a Good FriendJob breaks his silence and wishes that he had never been born. Eliphaz

responds and questions Job’s innocence. He urges Job to accept God’s discipline. Job maintains his innocence and asserts his right to complain. Job then asks God why he has bothered to make him his target.

JOB 8–14 Why Religion has no answer for SufferingBildad rebukes Job and asserts that sin brings punishment. Job longs for a

mediator to approach God with his complaints. Zophar rebukes Job and reminds him that God is beyond understanding. He urges Job to confess his sins, but Job reasserts his innocence. Job wants to argue his case with God himself.

JOB 15–19 Rubbing Salt in Religion’s WoundsEliphaz asserts that wise men have always believed that sin brings suffering. Job

is frustrated with his friends and God; he longs for a mediator between him and God. Bildad says that terrors await the wicked. Job accuses his friends and God of unfairness. He feels forsaken, yet he expresses hope that his Redeemer lives.

JOB 20–24 The Self-Focus that suffering brings Zophar tells Job that the wicked will be destroyed. Job insists that evil people

prosper. Eliphaz lists sins Job may have committed and suggests that he repent. Job desires to find God and plead his case before him. Job asks why the ungodly continue to prosper.

JOB 25–31 Theology that is True(ish) Bildad argues that no one can stand before God. Job maintains his innocence

and tells how God possesses wisdom. Job longs to return to his former days of blessing and contrasts them with his current bitter situation. Job names many sins and challenges his friends to find him guilty of any of them.

Literary Style

Literary Style. The Book of Job has been heralded as a masterpiece unequaled in all literature. Thomas Carlyle’s often-quoted statement about Job bears repeating: “There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit” (“The Hero as a Prophet,” Our Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. Boston: Ginn, 1901, p. 56).

The Book of Job has a unique structure. It is a mixture of prose and poetry, and of monologue and dialogue. The prologue (chaps. 1-2) and the epilogue (42:7-17) are narrative prose; the lengthy material in between is poetry (except the opening verse in each chapter that introduces a new speech, and 32:1-6a). This prose-poetry-prose pattern, though seen in other compositions of the ancient Near East, is unique among the books of the Bible. Another way of viewing the structure of the book is seen in the chart “Parallels in the Structure of the Book of Job”

Job is an outstanding literary production also because of its rich vocabulary. Dozens of words in this book occur nowhere else in the Old Testament. Five different words are used for lions (4:10-11), six synonyms are used for traps (18:8-10), and six for darkness (3:4-6; 10:21-22). The vocabulary of the Book of Job reveals influences from several languages besides Hebrew, including Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Sumerian, and Ugaritic (cf. R. Laird Harris, “The Book of Job and Its Doctrine of God,” Grace Journal 13. Fall 1976:10-4).1

Key people God: Triune ruler, and governor of the entire universe. Satan: Created being who fell from his heavenly position and now makes war

against God’s people. Job The righteous sufferer tormented by the question, “Why?” Eliphaz: A comforter who sees Job as a good man gone astray.Bildad: A comforter who argues from traditional wisdom in his effort to

prove that Job and his family got only what they deserved.Zophar: A comforter who urges Job to repent or die the death that God

reserves for the wicked.Elihu: A young observer who breaks the cycle of futile reasoning engaged in

by Job and his three friends and prepares Job to hear a personal word from God.2

1 Bible Knowledge Commentary 2. Bible Readers Commentary

Job’s Speeches

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Job’s Painful Cry

*Do not misunderstand this chapter; Job did not curse God as Satan predicted he would do (1:11; 2:5) or as his wife suggested he do (2:9). It is good to know that Satan cannot predict the future. What Job did curse was his birthday; he wished he had never been born. He felt he would have been better off to have died at birth than to live and endure such grief. Job’s description of the grave in vv. 13–19 must be supplemented with the revelation we have in the NT. Certainly Job is not suggesting that all men, sinners and saints alike, go to one place of rest and blessing; for we know that the lost die and go to a place of punishment, while believers go immediately to the presence of God. “Surely I was born for something better than this!” Job is saying. He was perplexed; he did not know the purpose of God in this suffering.

In vv. 20–24, Job asks, “Why should miserable people such as I have to live at all? Is our misery accomplishing anything? I long to die, but death will not come.” Does suffering accomplish anything? When we yield to God, yes, it does. Suffering works for us, not against us (read 2 Cor. 3:7–5:9). Job could not see the “end [purpose] of the Lord” (James 5:11); we can see it because we have had a glimpse into the court of heaven.

Verses 25–26 indicate that Job had often thought about trials and feared he might have to face them. He was a prosperous man, and he wondered what he would do if he lost his wealth and health. He was not living in carnal security or false peace, for his faith was in the Lord and not in his possessions. “Yet trouble came!” Until we have “sat where he sat,” let us not be too hard on Job. In the midst of prosperity, it is easy to trust God, but when we lose everything and our pain is so intense we want to die, exercising faith is another matter. Please remember that Job did not curse God; nowhere in the book does Job deny the Lord or question His holiness or His power. In fact, God’s justice was Job’s real problem: how could such a holy God permit such awful calamity?

For a godly man to wish he were dead should not be a surprise to us. Moses asked God to take his life (Num. 11:10–15) because of the persistent rebellion of the nation, and Elijah prayed to die after his escape from Jezebel (1 Kings 19). Jonah also wanted to die (Jonah 4:3). Please note in chapter 3 that Job asks “Why?” five times (vv. 11–12, 23). Job could have endured the pain and grief had he only understood why God was permitting it.

“Why?” is an easy question to ask, but it is not always a question that

God immediately answers. Job should have realized that God was in control, that these events were part of a loving plan, and that one day God would make His purposes known.

When you become perplexed over the trials of life, remember that God is still on the throne. See Job 23:10 for an expression of Job’s faith: “But he knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold” (nkjv). Job was going through the furnace. But when one of God’s children is in the furnace, God is there with him (Isa. 43:1–2 and Dan. 3:25).

This 19th century work is a portrait of Job after he has been stripped of everything except his humanity. By revealing the depletion of the body as its in old age, the artist draws a parallel between Job’s loss and the human condition.

Having been reduced to piteous circumstances, Job discourses with his friends, all of whom believe he must have sinned. The artist has captured Job's dynamic character as he expresses the range of human emotions

*Wiersbe’s Expository Outline on the Old Testament/ Pics from GLO Bible resource