Job 4-31

Main Idea: Because God is ultimately right, powerful, and perfect, our response to suffering should reflect humility and trust.

Head Change: To know that it is right to admit we do not understand all of God’s reasons for allowing us to suffer.

Heart Change: To feel secure in God’s righteousness and love despite the pain we are enduring.

Life Change: To respond to difficult circumstances by acknowledging our limited understanding and speaking humbly—or not at all—about God’s role in our suffering.

Would you call yourself a researcher or risk-taker? How do you approach choices that involve some mystery?

This session covers Job 4–31. Due to the length of this session’s text, we have picked out specific points of conversation between Job and his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.

Read Job 4:4–9 (Eliphaz), 5:6–8 (Eliphaz); 7:20 (Job to Eliphaz); 8:20–22 (Bildad); 9:4–10 (Job to Bildad); 10:8–12 (Job to Bildad); 11:13–18 (Zophar); 29:1–8 (Job to his friends); 31:3–4, 35–37 (Job to his friends) for a general overview of this section.

What do Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar think they know about Job? About God?

How much did Job and his friends understand about God’s role in Job’s suffering?

To what degree does God care about the words we use when we talk about him?

Read Job 4:4–9 and 5:6–8.

Have you ever approached God in an effort to prove him wrong? Do you think that is the right approach to God’s choices? Why, or why not?

Read Job 7:20.

In what ways can you relate to Job? Do you think he was right? Why, or why not?

Read Job 8:20–22.

Given that the readers know God indeed allowed Job’s trials, what are we to think of Bildad’s conclusion?

What do you base your ideas of God’s morality on? How do you know your beliefs are accurate?

Read 9:4–10.

How vast is God’s power, according to Job’s vivid metaphors? If Job’s description was the only information you had of God, to what degree would you be drawn to him or frightened by him?

Read Job 10:8–12.

In what ways can you identify with Job’s back-and-forth outburst? Where have you experienced God’s apparent anger yet also remember his love?

Read Job 11:13–18.

In what ways can this line of thinking isolate a person, pushing them away from God and their church community?

What alternative answer to suffering can the church offer those who only hear our society’s harsh response to their pain?

Read Job 22:4–11.

In what ways can we, like Eliphaz, blame people for their pain? What might be a better way to help them?

Read Job 29:1–8; 31:4–8, 35–40.

What does he get wrong in his belief about God? To what extent can pain skew our perspective of God?

What is the risk of talking about God’s thoughts and motives for acting? How do you know you are correct? What influence could speculation have on our relationship with God?

What sort of well-meaning advice can hurt someone? What seemingly self-evident speculation is not helpful to talk about with someone in pain?

In your speculations about God, how well do you balance your convictions with humility? To what extent are you teachable and willing to be wrong?

How can your faith-centered conversations take a more gracious tone or be handled more humbly?