Read Job 40:1–4 and Job 42:1–6. What was Job’s response to God’s revelation of Himself? Obviously Job was overwhelmed by what God had shown him. In fact, in Job 42:3, when he says, “ ‘ “Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?” ’ ” (NKJV), he was simply repeating God’s first question to him. … Continue reading –>
“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,” Job 38:1 This one verse from our lesson Out of the Whirlwind is so full of instruction that time will not allow for anything beyond that. The story of Job and his unexplained suffering is one we can all relate to on some level. While we may not … Continue reading –>
Key Thought: In the face of God, everyone is eventually wrong. Our ideas fade into insignificance, as He gives answers to our misdirected questions. Lesson 11, December 10, 2016 1. Have a volunteer read Job 38:1-4. a. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is. b. … Continue reading –>
You can view an in-depth discussion of “Out of the Whirlwind” in the Hope Sabbath School class led by Pastor Derek Morris. (Adobe Flash Player version.) A Youtube version of this week’s lesson at Hope Sabbath School is below. You can download the video, the MP3 audio, and the lesson outline from the HopeTV Sabbath … Continue reading –>
From our perspective today, it’s easy to look at the questions that God had asked Job and realize how little a man like Job, living thousands of years ago, could understand about the created world. It wasn’t until the A.D. 1500s, for instance, that humans (at least some of them) finally understood that the motion … Continue reading –>
Read Job 38:4–41. What questions does God ask Job, and what is the purpose of those questions? If Job expected some detailed explanation about why all these calamities happened to him, he didn’t get it. Instead, what he got was a flow of rhetorical questions contrasting the Lord in His creative might to the transience … Continue reading –>
God Speaks. Where has God been in the discussion so far? Why do you think Job and his friends spent so much of their energy and talking time dealing with the nature of God when He’s not even participating in their discussion? Since God caused the events to happen that affected Job, why do you think … Continue reading –>
After what must have seemed to Job like a very long silence, God finally speaks to him, even if what He first said might not have been what Job wanted to hear. What was the first question that God asked Job, and what was implied in that question? Job 38:2. All through the Bible we … Continue reading –>
Read Job 38:1. What happens here that is different from everything else in all the other dialogues? Suddenly and unexpectedly, the Lord now appears in the book of Job, the first time since Job 2:6—“And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life’ ” (NKJV). Nothing really prepares … Continue reading –>
Read for This Week’s Study: Job 38-39, John 1:29, Matt. 16:13, 1 Cor. 1:18–27, Job 40:1–4, Job 42:1–6, Luke 5:1–8. Memory Text: “ ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding’ ” (Job 38:4, NKJV). Whatever their differences, the characters in the book of Job had one … Continue reading –>
Further Thought: In a discussion concerning the question of faith and reason, author John Hedley Brooke wrote about the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and his attempt to understand the limits of human knowledge, especially when it came to the working of God. For Kant, “the question of justifying the ways of God to man … Continue reading –>
Certainly the primary characters in the book of Job, as mere mortals seeing “through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12), were working from a very limited perspective, a very limited understanding of the nature of the physical world, much less the spiritual one. Interesting, too, that in all these debates about the evil that befell … Continue reading –>
