The Good Book Club: Week 5 - and Merch Available Now! 🎉
Job 13-39: Job continues to suffer, and God finally responds
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This Week
We are reading:
Job 13-39
Psalm 17, 44-49
Note: If you have fallen behind in the reading, do not despair! Simply jump in to where we are today. If you start the readings at any point this week, all you need to know is that Job is having a bad time despite being a good guy.
Pro-tip: If you’re having trouble keeping up, there is an audiobook version of the Bible available in the youversion Bible app!
Summary
What a week for Job.
Many people find the Book of Job a difficult and frustrating read. The first time I read Job was in the depths of my health crisis. Some might say it’s ill-advised to read Job during a period of your life when you, too, have lost your health and the support of your friends — but honestly, there’s truly no better time to gain wisdom from the lessons in Job. And ultimately, it helped me with some of the bigger questions I was grappling with around God.
The Book of Job refuses to offer the kind of moral clarity we all instinctively want. Job’s suffering feels unwarranted and excessive, his arguments appear abrasive and disrespectful, and God’s silence can seem evasive and frustrating.
The story of Job defies cause-and-effect theology. Job is not secretly wicked, and we do not get a clear resolution or explanation for his plight, no matter how much his friends try to place fault with him.
The book of Job demands that the reader suffer alongside Job in order to gain the wisdom of these circumstances.
The lesson here is not instructional, but formative: we can trust in God when we lack understanding. We can lament our circumstances while remaining faithful. Divine wisdom exceeds human understanding.
The Book of Job is not about why bad things happen to good people.
The Book of Job is about whether God can be trusted when the world stops making sense.
Here is the daily breakdown from our annual plan:
Day 26 — Monday, 1/26 — Job 13-16, Psalm 17
Day 27 — Tuesday, 1/27 — Job 17-20, Psalm 44
Day 28 — Wednesday, 1/28 — Job 21-24, Psalm 45
Day 29 — Thursday, 1/29 — Job 25-28, Psalm 46
Day 30 — Friday, 1/30 — Job 29-32, Psalm 47
Day 31 — Saturday, 1/31 — Job 33-36, Psalm 48
Day 32 — Sunday, 2/1 — Job 37-39, Psalm 48
Day 26 — Monday, 1/26 — Job 13-16, Psalm 17
Job wants to take God to court.
God might kill me, but I have no other hope.
I am going to argue my case with him.
Job 13:15 NLT
Day 27 — Tuesday, 1/27 — Job 17-20, Psalm 44
Jobs friends double-down, continuing to insist that Job must have done something to deserve this; Job tells them their attitude deserves punishment.
I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
Job 19:25 NIV
Day 28 — Wednesday, 1/28 — Job 21-24, Psalm 45
Job’s irritation with his friends grow, as does mine. Job asks why wicked people are not punished while he, a righteous man, despairs.
Day 29 — Thursday, 1/29 — Job 25-28, Psalm 46
Job embarks on his final speech.
I will never concede that you are right;
I will defend my integrity until I die.
Job 27:5 NLT
Day 30 — Friday, 1/30 — Job 29-32, Psalm 47
Job continues his final protest of innocence.
Day 31 — Saturday, 1/31 — Job 33-36, Psalm 48
Finally, one of Job’s friends — who has been silent until now — rebukes Job’s friends for blaming Job for his circumstances. He’s also mad at Job for the way he is accusing God of injustice. He is the first to point out that God can speak through suffering.
Day 32 — Sunday, 2/1 — Job 37-39, Psalm 48
God shows up in the form of a storm — with more questions rather than answers. He speaks from the whirlwind:
Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words?
Brace yourself like a man,
because I have some questions for you,
and you must answer them.
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me, if you know so much.
Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line?
What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone
as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
Job 38:2-7 NLT
In Job 38:7, we once again have bene elohim — Hebrew for “sons of God,” consistently understood to mean angels in this verse.
Note: God’s voice is described as thunder, and his presence is from within a storm—this story may be why nearly every subsequent mythology has a storm and/or thunder god. They are often dragon/serpent slayers. But I’m sure it’s just a coincidence and all these myths developed independently, apropos of nothing.
Next week we will wrap up Job, catch back up with Enoch’s exploration of the cosmos, and start our journey out of Egypt.
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The end of the summary has me in tears. I'm definitely at a point in my life where I needed to be reading Job. I do not understand my world right now and I'm tired of trying to. I just want to trust in God. 💖
While reading Job’s friends insisting he must have brought this upon himself, it reminded me of John 9:1-3 where the disciples asked Jesus if the blind man’s parents or if the blind man himself sinned to make him blind. And Jesus said “neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life”
Sometimes God is doing something with our story that we can’t understand but ultimately is used to reveal His glory. Like Job’s story becoming part of the literal Bible.