8/2 Bankrupt: The Story of Job (Job 1-2)

Every week we will post an outline from our Sunday morning BFC Bible Studies.  This series, beginning on August 2 is covering the life of Job.

Job 1

On earth:

• V. 1-3:  Job known for his wealth.  Being the greatest man meant being the richest of the rich.
•  V. 4-5: He was also a good man, very devoted to God

In Heaven

•  V. 6-7: Satan, the “Adversary” went to and fro on the earth testing God’s people to try to get them to act disobediently, break God’s commandments, etc.
• V. 9-11: Why does Satan say Job is so blessed?  Because he is protected and has everything he could have ever dreamt of. Do we fit the build of the person Satan is talking about here?  We are all “yay God” when things are going good, but when things sour what is our faith like?
• Job was unaware of all this happening

The First Test of Job

• V. 13-17: Oxen, sheep, and camels are all taken from him. Job was losing his material things first.
• V. 18-19: Now Job has lost his family as well. Put yourself in this situation, what would be going through your mind?
•  V. 20-22: Instead what does Job do? It’s easy to sing praises to God, “He gives and takes away, Blessed be the Name”. But it is awfully hard to live it out when it happens to us

Job 2

The Second Test of Job

• V. 1-3: God basically tells Satan I told you so
• V. 4-6: Why does Satan say that Job was still remaining faithful? Because it’s a me first society, and as long as we are not harmed it doesn’t matter.
• V. 7-8: Now Job has been afflicted with sores. We see here that remaining faithful to God is not helping Job, instead it is causing everything to be worse.

JA MOTYER:

• In A Grief Observed, CS Lewis, struggling agonizingly with God (whom at one point he calls ‘the Cosmic Sadist’) in the face of the death of his wife says, ‘Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to be about the consolations of religion, or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.’  We the readers have been let into a little of the secret behind the scenes in the heavenly court. But there is much we do not understand. That is true for Christian faith also. Even though God has disclosed to us much more of his purposes in Christ than Job could even dream of, there is a hidden world of divine purposes of which we know only a part. For us, too, ‘the secret things belong to the Lord our God.’ Faith is learning to trust God in the dark, in unknowing, in apparent failure. Faith is what God gives us to help us live with uncertainties. We can only watch in anguish as Job and those near him, who have nothing to go on but their faith and their experience, struggle with the question of how to keep faith and experience together. The great onslaught of destruction paralyses all platitudes and forces us to the edge of meaning. Are we willing to come and stand there with Job, and with all the Jobs?

Job’s wife

•  See this as the camera view widening.  Now we see others who are affected by all that has gone on.
• “Foolish” actually means having more of a moral deficiency than being unwise.
• What is good about the wife’s complaint? At least she knows it is from God and nothing that they did.
• Job still refuses to sin, even when his wife is out of step with him.

Application:

• What lessons can we learn from this passage?