Jan 4: Job 1-5

Jan 4: Job 1-5

The author of the poetical book of Job (pronounced Jôb) is unknown, but we do know that whoever wrote it was very well educated in all walks of life. Victor Hugo said, “The book of Job is perhaps the greatest masterpiece of the human mind.”  Jewish tradition holds that Moses was the author. I personally find it great that we don't know who some of the authors of the Bible are, as they were inspired by God and direct us toward Him.

Since we are doing a chronological survey of the Bible, historians hold that the life of Job occurred around 2,000 B.C. around the time of Jacob.

The story of Job offers us a global perspective proving that suffering is not a result of Karma, omens, luck, chance, fate, coincidence, works or anything besides the results of the hands of God. 

This book asks the question, Why do the righteous suffer? My simple answer, Regardless of what is going on, to Glorify God and make His name great.

Chapter 1 and 2. We are introduced to Job, who was blameless and upright and feared God and turned away from evil. Job was very wealthy, had a great family, lots of servants, and a lot of animals. He was the greatest in the land, and he protected his family. After this brief introduction, we get a behind the scenes peak in Heaven where on a couple of occasions Satan and God are having a conversation about Job. God is bragging about Job (a dream of mine!) and Satan reminds God that Job loves God because his life is so plush. Satan says, “Take away his stuff and he will curse you..”  And God agrees to let Satan have a run at this. Note - the power that Satan has is given to him by God, not on his own accord and can not do anything without the permission of Yahweh. In the span of one day, Job has everything literally taken away from him, except his wife. He is also given boils all over his body. Job’s wife encourages Job to curse God and die, only for Job to remind her that we are to accept the good and the bad from the Lord. In all of this, Job did not sin. Then he has three ‘friends’ that come and sit by his side, saying nothing to each other for a week.

Chapter 3. After a week of not talking, and that is a long time, Job curses the day of his birth. He spends the entire chapter basically complaining about his situation, starting from birth, wishing that he would die. (Notice that since Job didn’t sin in his reaction to what was going on, that complaining or having emotions isn’t a sin. It’s what we do with those emotions that show our obedience and love for Yahweh.) Have you ever been in that spot, maybe you are right now? When life’s circumstance seems so dire, that you wish it would all just end? Well, we serve a Sovereign (In Control of Everything) God with a plan in place, and we only see in part - we never really get to see the whole picture and we must trust that the Lord has us right where he wants us. God chooses when we are born and when we die. Now back to Job…

Chapter 4-5 we get to hear from Eliphaz, one of the ‘friends’ of Job. He actually has some what seems to be ‘good’ things to say, but it is filled with elements of truth, not complete truth. Though he starts out sympathetic, it quickly turns accusatory. He receives a ‘word’ (here referred to as a vision) that came fast to him. He is right on some things, like God does care and God heals, but I think that Eliphaz was confusing the words of Satan with the words of God, and not discerning (good spiritual judgement) between the two. Eliphaz suggest that if Job repents, his troubles would just simply disappear. But we learn later that Eliphaz isn’t correct and that repenting or turning to God doesn’t just take away all the problems. Instead, you can be close to the Lord and still have a hard life. Remember that this was not Job’s sin that caused all of this… this was an attack of Satan. 

To sum it all up:

• God was bragging about Job - something that we should all aspire for in our daily lives. I couldn't imagine anything greater. To steal from the Ford dealers with a different spin… “Have you considered my servant __________ lately?” Can you fill in your name? Does your life have God bragging about you?
• Remember that both good and bad come from the Lord for His purpose and Glory, as He is God.
• We can talk all day long about having ‘our best life now’ and that is not always true. Sometimes life is hard, extremely hard, and that is where God has us. We must learn to rely on God in all seasons of life and not forget that we have a God we can turn to and lean on! And now we can have a relationship with Jesus Christ…