In the last blog I shared some introductory insights into this great Old Testament book. Now let me share a gleaning from each of the chapters.
- Verse 21 is one of the greatest proclamations of faith in the Bible. After losing everything, Job's first words were, "Blessed be the name of the Lord."
- I wonder how many spouses have been successful in leading their mates to turn away from the Lord.
- Job asks a question that is still prominent today: What's the point of life when it doesn't make sense?
- The first speech by Eliphaz suggests that Job must have done something wrong to have gone through the losses he did.
- "If I were in your shoes...." People suffering like Job usually don't need advice. They just need friendship and compassion.
- Job is brutally honest in expressing his disappointment in his friends.
- He is also brutally honest with God--"Don't you have better things to do than pick on me?"
- Bildad's turn--full of advice. He believed Job's woes had to come about as a result of sin.
- Job asks one of the most pertinent and profound questions ever asked: "How can mere mortals get right with God?"
- Job, why don't you tell us how you really feel?
- Job's friends meant well, even though a comfort, they really weren't.
- Job speaks tons of wisdom when he can say in the midst of his suffering that God is sovereign over the universe.
- Job has two requests for God: God, back off the trials. God, give me an audience so I can ask you some questions.
- One of his questions is still being asked today--one of life's ultimate questions: If we humans die, will we ever live again?
- Much of what Job's friends say is accurate. It's just that they act like they have life all figured out.
- Job relentlessly gives his friends, God, and the earth a tongue lashing.
- Job's mood seems to move from anger to desperate brokenness: "My spirit is broken, my days used up."
- Bildad, Round 2--He's a bottom-line kind of guy. Very simply, he says, "It is the wicked who go down."
- Even though Job has suffered pain, rejection, and hopelessness, he makes one of the most profound statements in the book--"Still, I know that God lives."
- Zophar's speech reminds me of someone who is more hipped up on analyzing a crisis instead of being a friend to one in a crisis.
- Job raises the age-old question: Why do the wicked prosper and the good suffer?
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