8/28/09 Leader's Guide

Torn

Job 38 - 42

The Week of August 28th

Getting Started

On Sunday we played songs in which the title asked a question (example – Should I Stay our Should I Go). Think of another song that asks a question.

Reviewing the Book of Job

1. What did you learn about God from the book of Job? Maybe it was new insight, or something that was reinforced.

2. What did you learn about how to respond to suffering from the book of Job?

3. Has the book of Job changed how you view the question “Why do bad things happen to good people?”.

Digging Deeper

4. God challenges Job by asking at least three kinds of questions: (1) “do you know” questions, (2) “were you there” questions, and (3) “can you do” questions. Answer the following related questions:

• What are the things that God points out to exalt His knowledge and wisdom (38:4-5, 18-20; 39:1-4, 26-27)? How should God’s wisdom help us when we’re suffering?

• After God asked a series of tough questions about the origin and operation of creation, in 38:21 He sarcastically adds, “Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years?” What’s the point of this sarcasm? How might we succumb to a youthful arrogance even in an older age?

• In 40:4, Job declares, “I am unworthy-how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth?” How are silence and humility linked (Eccl. 5:5; Pro. 18:2)?

5) In 40:2, Job declares that God “can do all things” and that no plan of his “can be thwarted?” If God’s plans can’t be thwarted, does this mean that everything that happens is God’s will? If so, how does that help with human suffering? If not, how does that help with human suffering?

6) In Job 42:3 Job recognizes that what was happening was beyond his understanding. Can you think of something that happened to you that looking back, still doesn’t make sense. What response should a Christian have to something like that? For example, let’s say a parent loses a child, and several years later is wondering, “what possible God can come out of this?” What advice would you give them?

7) Job 42: 11 says that Job was comforted “over all the trouble the LORD had brought upon him.” Was it God or Satan that brought the trouble on God? What was God’s role? What part did Satan play?

8) In Job 42:12, it says that God blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first. Compare the number of sheep, camels in Job 42:12, to the numbers in Job 1:2. What do you notice?

Putting it Into Practice

9) Thinking over the book of Job as a whole, what the one lesson that has impacted you the most? How will this lesson impact your life?