Unit 3: Job & Ecclesiastes
Lesson 1: Prologue Job 1-2
p. 73 in workbook
• Can anyone give me a
brief synopsis of the book
of Job?
Objectives:
①Trust in God’s sovereign power
②Worship him during adversity
③See him even when life doesn’t make sense
④Learn to deal with undeserved suffering.
Questions:
①Why do the righteous suffer?
②Why does evil happen to righteous people?
Theodicy: an attempt to offer a
satisfactory solution to the
problem of evil
Job QUIZ
Random deets:
• Uz: Northern Arabia
• Set at time of patriarchs: 2,000 BC
• Lived to be: about 140 years old (42:16)
• Served as priest to his own family
• Most renowned man of his time
• The OT teaches that God blesses those who bless him
and curses those who don’t obey him; true, but…
• Without cursing God, Job asks the proverbial question,
“WHY?
• Dramatic Reading!
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBIApb3Dwak
• Adventures in Odyssey
• If you were to unexpectedly lose important people or
things in your life, do you think you would react like
Job or more like his wife? Explain your answer
using at least two supporting ideas.
• If your friend were suddenly to suffer terrible losses,
would you react like Job’s friends? Explain your
answer including two supporting ideas.
• Why do you think we are studying the story of Job?
What difference could this study make in your own
life?
Intro to Job, Journal
Division of Job:
①Prologue: Job’s Dilemma, Job 1-2
②Job’s Suffering, Job 3
③3 Rounds of Debates with Three Friends, Job 4-31
④Elihu’s Lecture, Job 32-37
⑤God’s Answer, Job 38:1-42:6
⑥Epilogue: Holding On to Faith, Job 42:7-17
http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=
H347&t=KJV
JOB means “hated”
How to Read Job
①
②
③
④
⑤
Job is truthful about human suffering.
Orthodoxy of the day said: good behavior equals
prosperity. Job refutes this viewpoint.
God gives his perspective on suffering.
Understand the genre of Job: narrative & poetry
Read it over and over and learn to like the poetry
You have heard of God,
but have you seen Him?
How to Read Job continued:
⑥Know that Job accuses God and utters many things that
are untrue
⑦Job protests his innocence and God’s unfairness as his
friends say that Job needs to confess of his wrongdoing.
⑧In the prologue Job’s behavior is right, but he begins to
be defiant toward God.
⑨Don’t idealize Job from the prologue.
You have heard of God, but
have you seen Him?
Is there a question you have about your life?
Write it down.
Ask God to help you to
see him.
Job 1-2
• “And the Lord said to Stan, ‘Have you considered
my servant Job, that there is none like him on the
earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God
and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his
integrity althouh you incited me against him to
destroy him without reason.”
Job 2:3 (Memory verse)
• The reader is given information that Job does
not have. What is that information?
• Satan tells God that humans only love God or
fear Him in proportion to the amount of
blessing/stuff they are given from God. Think
about how that thought applies to you.
• Use your journal: What is your response to Job’s
reactions? His wife? His friends?
• If you had one sentence to say to God, and
you were experiencing this kind of adversity,
what would you say?
• What do you think Job’s friends were thinking
during their time of silence?
• Why do you think we are studying Job? What
difference could this unit make in your life?