Job 1-2

  • Similar to the phenomena I noticed in Genesis 9 and 10–where individuals and what they did within their families will later impact nations—here in Job 1 we get a picture of God’s (relatively) righteous man over all the earth, and see special attention given to his faithfulness towards leading his family spiritually, especially in bringing Gods atonement upon them. All to say, the picture is focused again on how a man conducts himself within his family. This seems to be of special note to God.
  • I was struck anew by the fact that God initiates the topic of Job with Satan. You definitely don’t get a picture of God sitting there quietly thinking, “I hope he doesn’t notice Job…” Instead, God is initiating the conversation about Job. And indeed God is overseeing the whole story, as Job points out (1:21) and as the narrator points out at the end of the book (Job 42:11). It reminds me of Hebrews 12, and the whole book of Hebrews, where the discipline of the father is a picture of God‘s loving care. And it’s not punitive sometimes. In Job, he did nothing especially wicked to deserve the discipline. And in Hebrews, Jesus is given as an example of one who learned through suffering… clearly not because he sinned! Instead the suffering and discipline of God is refining and character building… Not always a response to specific wrongdoing.

Job 3-4

  • I’m consoled to read that Job, a righteous man, freely expresses his wish that he never lived. I find it beautiful that he could be so emotionally “naked”. I also like that these feelings did not determine his actions (ie he didn’t make plans to kill himself). He just felt it raw, and God records it.
  • 4:15-16 – never realized how clearly a spirit gave these ideas to Eliphaz. There is a sense where they sound right, but you see the origin here seems demonic. How many demonic doctrines do we deal with today that “sound right” see 1 Tim 4:1; 1 John 4:1

Job 5-6

  • 5:1 – Eliphaz continues pointing to spiritual beings for answers, instead of God above them. Perhaps it’s a reference to the “sons of God” (angelic beings) who appear before God in Job 1-2
  • 5:13 is quoted by Paul via the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 3:19 as an authority concerning the futility of man’s wisdom outside God. Thus truth can be found even when Eliphaz may have been demonically inspired (4:15-16) and is rebuked at the end (42:7). We can use truth found anywhere for Gods glory without siding with the totality of bad sources.
  • 6:8-10 – again I am really blessed to see how raw Job is in wanting to die, yet taking it to the Lord (not taking matters in his own hand). He seems to recognize his life is not his own to do what he pleases with it, but belongs to the Lord.

Job 7-8

  • 7:11-21 – Again, Job is very raw: “I loathe my life.” (7:16) Yet—beautifully—there remains a closeness to the Lord. He goes from talking to his friends to addressing God here: “You watcher of mankind.” (7:20). He recognizes that God is boss and could change any/all of this, and so gives all his anguish and confusion directly to God.
  • 8 – I don’t think it ever occurred to me before now that Bildad here (and the other friends elsewhere) sound remarkably like Pharisees (of whom Im a recovering addict that still goes back there more than I like to admit). They have the formula for Job, and if Job just lives it out he’d be healed. God have mercy for all the times I’ve done exactly that.

Job 9-10

  • Here you see Job, I believe, laying undue blame with God (which he will later be rebuked by God for doing), saying things like, “He destroys both the blameless and the wicked…he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.” 9:22-23. Or “Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise…?”. And God just stays silent letting him assert all this. At least for now.