Eliphaz is still keeping with the theme that Job’s severe suffering is because of Job’s severe sin. He says to Job, “Is not your wickedness great, and your iniquity without end.” Then Eliphaz kindly makes a list for Job of all the potential sins Job could have committed including taking pledges from his brother without reason, stripping the naked of their clothing, not providing water or food for the weary, neglecting the widows, etc.😒 Job responds saying that he wishes he could take his case before the Lord – “Would He contend with me in His great power? No! But He would take note of me. There the upright could reason with Him, and I would be delivered forever from my Judge.”

The Lord is a just Judge and Job will soon have his chance to go before Him. But when Job stands before the Lord, Job will not talk about how upright and righteous he is…no, quite the opposite. Job will quickly recognize how sinful and disgusting he is next to the Holy God. However, God will show him mercy but not because of anything that Job has done to earn it by his good deeds. Nope…Job righteousness isn’t based on Job’s performance.

So Bildad asks, “How then can man be righteous before God? Or how can he be pure who is born of a woman?” In Genesis 15:6, God says about Abram that “he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” So Abram was called righteous solely based on his faith in the Lord. Hebrews 11:6 says “But without faith it is impossible to please Him…” So what pleases God? Faith. Job’s righteousness has nothing to do with his actions or prosperity but everything to do with his faith in God. We saw Job’s faith exhibited in the beginning of his story when he built an altar to the Lord. Job was approaching the Lord through the shedding of the blood and placing his faith in the promise of the Savior to come as a substitutionary atonement for our sins; the promise God gave to Adam and Eve back in the garden before He killed an innocent animal to cover the guilty (Genesis 3:15,21). There is going to be only one man born from a woman who is born pure in this Story and that is Jesus Christ. And the only way He is pure is that His seed will come from the outside, from the Lord. 

Later Paul will tell us that we are justified, our sins and penalty of sin removed, by the blood of Christ – “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:8-9). Our righteousness is found under the blood of Christ. Jesus, the ultimate Sacrifice, is coming later in the Story but for now, more animals will be killed pointing to the One to come so keep reading.

(Job 22:1-25:6)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Today Job says “How long will you torment my soul, and break me in pieces with words? These ten times you have reproached me.” Job’s friends’ further attempts at explaining Job’s suffering only adds more pain to Job.

Later in the Story, Jesus’ half-brother James will give us some good advice on how to respond to ones suffering – “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms…Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:13,16). Praying for Job would be way more beneficial than trying to reason or rationalize the suffering that is sometimes unexplainable. But that’s not the approach that Job’s friends took. Their words just lead to further pain in their already hurting friend’s life.

Job goes on to say “Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another, How my heart yearns within me!” At this point in Job’s life, could Job have known that his words would be written in a book that last forever? A book that we can read today and learn more about the Lord, the spiritual realm, Satan, suffering, waiting on God, origin of righteousness, etc…could Job of known that? No. But what he did know is that the day would come when his suffering would end and he would be face to face with the Lord. And we can have that same assurance because at the end of this Story, in the book of Revelation, God is going to tell us that one day we too will stand before the Lord and our faith will become sight – “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). But in the meantime, we must trust the Lord with our pain and suffering just like Job. I’m sure Job couldn’t even imagine the magnitude of the impact that his life would have on the world…but from Job’s story we can see that God wastes nothing and He uses all things for good and His glory.

The Lord is eventually going to appear before these men…and guess what?? God is going to tell Job to pray for his friends so that they may be healed, just as James said. But first, Eliphaz feels like he should list out for Job all the possible ways he has sinned resulting in his afflictions. 🙄 That’s up tomorrow, so keep reading.

(Job 19:1-21:34)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Today Job’s friend Eliphaz continues to try to convince Job that his suffering is a direct result of his wickedness. He accuses Job of being a hypocrite, briber, troublemaker, and liar – “For the company of hypocrites will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of bribery. They conceive trouble and bring forth futility; their womb prepares deceit.” 😒 Not sure how Eliphaz thinks this is beneficial…

Job is suffering greatly and is surrounded by people who add to his misery due to their total lack of understanding of suffering and the Lord. So Job says to his friends “miserable comforters are you all!” Job could use an encouraging word from his friends but that is not going to happen from this bunch. Job explains to them that if he was in their place he could heap up words against them but he wouldn’t. He would “strengthen you with my mouth, and the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.” However, the constant berating leads Job to cry out, “My friends scorn me; My eyes pour out tears to God.”

Although Job’s friends don’t understand his suffering and are terrible comforters, God always understands and always provides comfort. The hard part is waiting on the Lord to act on our behalf. Later in the Story a prophet named Isaiah will say, “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, who acts for the one who waits for Him” (Isaiah 64:4). We have seen through studying the lives of the patriarchs, Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, as well as the life of Joseph, that God doesn’t always act quickly but He does always act on behalf of His people. And His timing is always perfect! 

Soon we will see the Lord act on Job’s behalf but in the meantime we have to wait it out with suffering Job. Keep reading.

(Job 15:1-18:21)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

After Job responds to Zophar’s unhelpful input he cries out “You are all worthless physicians. Oh, that you would be silent.” Job understands who the Great Physician is and that is God. And although Job is suffering greatly, he still puts his trust in the Lord saying, “Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him.” Job doesn’t understand that it’s Satan at work, but Job does understand enough to know that he can trust God regardless of his inflictions.

Then Job says, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one!” Job is aware that he is a sinner in need of a Savior. But in the midst of his pain, Job is longing for death and wrestling with the thought of afterlife – “Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, that You would conceal me until Your wrath is past, that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes.You shall call, and I will answer You.” Job doesn’t understand the reason for his pain nor does he understand all about life after death; but he does long for a change and he trust that the Lord will somehow or someway bring that change.

And thankfully, God is sending the One who will provide a change. Job only had a few stories from Scriptures to gain his hope from. We have the privilege of having the beginning all the way till the end of God’s amazing Story laid out for us in the Bible. Therefore, we can be certain that there is life after death. Those who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ will live forever in heaven where there will be no more pain and suffering. And one day we will receive new bodies that are not accessible to illness and decay. Later in the Story, Paul will explain how Jesus’s death and resurrection gives final victory over death and the change Job is longing for – “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’”

For those in Christ, there is a guaranteed expiration date to all suffering. Keep reading.

(Job 12:1-14:22)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Bildad is the next friend to try to cheer up Job. He tells Job to repent of all of his wrong doings and then the Lord will restore his prosperous state – “If you would earnestly seek God and make your supplication to the Almighty, if you were pure and upright, surely now He would awake for you, and prosper your rightful dwelling place.” Bildad falsely believes that living a morally good life is directly related to material wealth. 

Job responds saying, “But how can a man be righteous before God? If one wished to contend with Him, He could not answer Him one time out of a thousand. God is wise in heart and mighty in strength.” Job goes on to say, “For He is not a man, as I am, that I may answer Him, and that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between us, who may lay his hand on us both.” Job is right. Man can not contend with God; we need a mediator. And that mediator is on the way!  Jesus Christ is coming to be the final sacrifice who will die on the cross for our sins and restore us into right relationship with the Lord. Later in the Story after Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to heaven, Paul will say, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). But that Mediator hasn’t arrived on the scene just yet…and Job has another friend eager to share some discouragement. 

Next up is buddy #3, Zophar. He is tired of Job proclaiming his innocence and says, “And should a man full of talk be vindicated? Should your empty talk make men hold their peace?” Zophar goes on to tell Job that he deserves worse than what he got – “Know therefore that God exacts from you less than your iniquity deserves.” Wow! This is really an encouraging bunch. 😏 Since the fall in the garden with Adam and Eve, we are all born sinners deserving of death, including Job and his 3 discouraging friends. However, God is merciful and is sending a Savior, His Son, to pay the price for our sin – “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). The people in the Old Testament are saved by faith in the Lord and His promise to send a Savior just as we are saved today by faith in what that Savior did on the cross for us. God does not operate by handing out rewards to those who act right and punishing the ones who don’t. Our worth and value is not based on performance; it is solely based on our standing with the Lord. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purposes” (Romans 8:28). And we also know, from reading the book of Job, that there is always more at play than the eye can see or our minds can process, so we have to walk by faith and not by sight trusting the Lord with our lives.

Well, we have a few more days of listening to Job’s three unhelpful friends before a young fella steps forward with some wise insight. Keep reading.

(Job 8:1-11:20)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Today Eliphaz continues with all of his words of discouragement to Job. Eliphaz wrongly believes that Job’s suffering is directly related to his sin. He says to Job, “For wrath kills a foolish man, and envy slays a simple one. I have seen the foolish taking root.” Eliphaz is trying to reason Job’s suffering based on his own understanding and what he has seen. Then he says to Job, “Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.” 🙄 Well, I’m sure this cheered ol’ suffering Job right up! Oh wait…no, no, that didn’t help. Job says “To him who is afflicted, kindness should be shown by his friends…But what does your arguing prove?” We will learn that their arguing will prove nothing profitable. 

Not all suffering is directly related to our own personal sin as we see here with Job. There is always way more going on behind the scenes that our finite minds can not interpret. Although Eliphaz is speaking truth that God does correct His children, as Hebrews 12:10-11 says, this truth is not helpful to suffering Job. 

Sometimes it can be very hard to see God’s good plans and purposes for us in the midst of our suffering, but it doesn’t mean that He is not working for our good and His glory. Job just can’t see that right now so he cries out to the Lord, “I loathe my life…Let me alone.” Job doesn’t know that his afflictions are from Satan, and that the Lord is allowing it. Job is going to have to trust God in the midst of his pain and wait on the Lord to act on his behalf. And He will! So keep reading.

(Job 5:1-7:21)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

“The account of Job is traditionally thought to have taken place around the time of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob (2200-1800 BC), or shortly thereafter. However, it could have occurred as late as the Exile (during the sixth century BC)” – (Note from the OYCB).

The story of Job answers several questions:

1) Can bad things happen to good people? Yes
2) Is God capable of doing evil? No
3) Is Satan the real enemy? Yes
4) Does God allow evil to accomplish His purposes and for His glory? Yes
5) Can the enemy only do what God allows? Yes
6) Is walking with the Lord always easy? No
7) Will it be worth it in the end? Yes

“There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil.” Also, he is a man of great possessions. Right out of the gate we see that Job is a righteous man as he comes to the Lord His way, through substitutionary atonement – “he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, ‘It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.’ Thus Job did regularly.” But we also see a conversation taking place in the heavenly realm that Job is unaware of. God allows Job to be tested by Satan and just like that Job loses everything and is covered in painful boils! 😰 However, God puts a limit on what Satan can do to Job; Satan can not take Job’s life.

Job’s suffering is so great that his own wife says to him, “Curse God and die.” But Job responds, “‘You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?’ In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

Then Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, show up with good intentions of comforting him. However, their words end up bringing discouragement rather than encouragement to the already suffering Job. 😏 See, Job’s friends try to rationalize Job’s pain and they wrongly believe that Job’s suffering must be directly related to his sinful actions. Being clueless about what is going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm, Job’s friends will spend the remainder of their time with Job trying to convince him of this false truth.

So we will have to bear along with Job listening to his discouraging buddies for the next several days; but in the end the Lord is going to appear and shed some light on Job’s situation…so keep reading!

(Job 1:1-4:21)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Jacob is at the end of his life when Joseph brings his boys to his bedside for a blessing. Jacob tells Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people, and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.’ And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine.” Then Jacob blesses the younger brother, Ephraim, over the older brother, Manasseh, saying that the younger shall become greater than the older. Joseph tries to get his father to bless the older one instead but Jacob is adamant about his blessing. Although blessing the younger brother above the older brother would not of been the cultural norm, we have already seen with the story of Esau and Jacob that God is not concerned with doing the cultural norm.

After blessing his grandsons, Jacob blesses all of his sons. Pay special attention to Judah’s blessing in Genesis 49:10 – “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people.” This blessing is a prophecy that the Messiah, the one God promised to send back in the garden (Genesis 3:15), will come through Judah. In the Kingdom Era, the Lord is going to make a promise to King David, a descendant of Judah, that his throne shall be established forever pointing to the ultimate King, Jesus Christ, who is coming through this lineage. 

Before Jacob dies, he commands his sons to bury him in the cave Abraham bought in the land of Canaan where Abraham, Sarah, Issac, Rebekah, and Leah are buried. “So the sons did for him just as he had commanded them. For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave.”

Now that Jacob is dead, the brothers begin to worry that Joseph is going to take revenge on them. But Joseph assures them by saying, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.” 

That’s our God…turns evil into good! Joseph dies and next we will enter the Exodus Era but not before reading the book of Job. Keep reading…you almost have 2 out of 14 eras under your belt!

(Genesis 47:28-50:26)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

When Pharaoh hears that Joseph’s brothers have come to Egypt, he is pleased and says to Joseph ”Bring your father and your households and come to me; I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you will eat the fat of the land.” So the brothers return to Canaan to retrieve their families. When they tell Jacob that Joseph is alive, “the spirit of Jacob their father revived. Then Israel said, ‘It is enough. Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.’” 

On the journey to Egypt, Jacob stops at Beersheba to offer sacrifices to the Lord. God speaks to Jacob saying, “do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again.” The Lord is going to hold true to this promise but it isn’t going to be a quick and easy process. So all of Jacob’s family, 70 Israelites, move to Egypt. 

Joseph says to his brothers to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds “that you may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.” The brothers do as instructed and Pharaoh gives them the fertile land in Goshen…but it’s not the promised land. Paul Benware says in the Survey of the Old Testament that the land of Canaan was the womb where the Israelites were born and Egypt was their incubator that protected them physically from attacks by other kings and morally from the perverse Canaanite people. Benware also noted that Egypt protected the Israelites racial purity as the Egyptians would not intermarry with them because of their occupation as shepherds. So we can see that God is still behind the scenes working His plan to build a great nation from Abraham’s descendants.

We end the reading with Joseph’s family settling in Goshen “and they had possessions there and grew and multiplied exceedingly.” 🤔 Will this become a problem to the Egyptians? Keep reading to find out. 

(Genesis 45:16-47:27)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching

Food is scarce in the land, so Jacob sends all of his sons except Benjamin, Joseph’s younger brother by Rachel, to Egypt to buy grain. When Jacob’s sons arrive in Egypt, they are brought before Joseph. None of the brothers recognize Jacob but they bow down before him bringing to fruition the dream Joseph had many years ago. Joseph recognizes them; however, he keeps his identity silent as he questions them about their family. Then Joseph asks them to go and get their youngest brother, Benjamin, while leaving one of them, Simeon, in prison in Egypt until the brothers return with Benjamin. 

When the brothers go back to Canaan and tell Jacob all that happened, Jacob refuses to send his beloved Benjamin to Egypt until Judah steps in and says, ”I myself will be surety for him.” Remember that it was Judah’s idea to take away Joseph’s life by selling him off as a slave…and now, Judah is the one offering to take responsibility for Benjamin’s life. Judah knows what it is like to lose two sons and has compassion for his father who already believes that one of his sons is dead. The Lord uses all the pain and chaos in Judah’s life to mature him into a man who is now willing to lay down his own life so his dad doesn’t have to bear the loss of another son and to save his family from starvation. 

So the brothers return to Egypt with Benjamin and bow down before Joseph again as predicted in the earlier dreams. While Judah is pleading for Benjamin’s life in exchange for his own, Joseph can’t take it any longer. He weeps loudly and tells his brothers “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God.” 

How is Joseph able to endure all that hardship?! He trusts the Lord! See, God’s plans aren’t always easy but they are always good! It’s just that God’s good isn’t defined the same as the world’s definition of good. Keep reading because tomorrow Jacob’s family moves to Egypt.

(Genesis 42:1-45:15)

#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching