Bible Study 2018 – Week 2 Learnings

Continuing with my sharing of Bible Study learnings, I’m sharing with you week 2.  I don’t have much thoughts but my notes are mostly comprised of key verses of each chapter.  I’m also going to share some learnings my sisters in Christ have passed on to me.

Week 2 (January 8-14, 2018) covering the following chapters: Job 17-39

• Job 17 is about Job saying that he has become a byword.

  Job says, “my spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me.

  “But He has made me a byword of the people, and I am one at whom men spit.”

  “Where now is my hope? And who regards my hope? Will it go down with me to Sheol? Shall we together go down into the dust?”

• Job 18 is Bildad speaking of the Wicked.

  Bildad says, “how long will you hunt for words? Show understanding and then we can talk”

  “O you who tear yourself in your anger- for your sake is the earth to be abandoned, or the rock to be moved from its place? Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out, and the flame of his fire gives no light.”

  “Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him who does not know God.”

• Job 19 is Job feeling insulted, feeling everything is against him but says that “my redeemer lives”

  “How long will you torment me and crush me with words? These 10 Times you have insulted me; you are not ashamed to wring me. If indeed you vaunt yourselves against me and prove my disgrace to me, know then that God has wronged me and has closed His net around me.”

  “Behold, I cry, ‘violence!’ But I get no answer; I shout for help, but there is no justice. He breaks me down on every side, and I’m gone; and He has uprooted my hope like a tree. Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me.”

  “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!”

• In Job 20, Zophar says that the triumph of the wicked is short.

  “That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless momentary”

  “The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him. This is the wicked man’s portion from God, even the heritage decreed to him by God.”

• Somehow I feel comforted by Zophar’s words. I really hope it’s true as it pains my heart to see evil people continue to be blessed and not facing any punishment for all the things that they’ve done
• Job 21 is Job saying God will deal with the wicked

  “Why do the wicked still live, continue on, also become very powerful?”

  “How often is the lamp of the wicked put out, or does their calamity fall on them? Does God apportion destruction in His anger?”

  “Can anyone teach God knowledge, in that He judges those on high? One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and satisfied; while another dies with a bitter soul, never even tasting anything good. Together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them.”

• Job 22 is Eliphaz accusing and exhorting Job.

  “Is there any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous, or profit if you make your ways perfect? Is not your wickedness great, and your iniquities without end?”

  “You say, “what does God know? Can He judge through the thick darkness? Clouds are a hiding place for Him, so that He cannot see; and He walks on the vault of heaven.”

  “Yield now and be at peace with Him; thereby good will come to you. Please receive instruction from His mouth and establish His words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored. You will pray to Him and He will hear you. And you will pay your vows.”

• Job is blessed to have friends who are there for him and patiently giving some sense to him. Helping him get back to the Lord.
• Job 23 is Job saying that he longs for God.

  “Even today my complaint is rebellion; His hand is heavy despite my groaning. I would learn the words which He would answer, and perceive what He would say to me.”

  “I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.”

  “It is God who has made my heart faint, and the Almighty who has dismayed me, but I am not silenced by the darkness, nor deep gloom which covers me.”

• So timely, maybe this is fate that I get to read Job’s chapters during this difficult time. I feel like I’m in Job’s shoes rebelling the same about the Lord yet continues to long for Him.
• From my sister in Christ 😍 For Job 14 to 23, i found a very concise summary as folllows:

  Job’s three friends thought that Job was being disciplined for his sins. They thought that Jehovah was absolutely right, and that God would not harm Job if he was not sinful. However, Job refuted his three friends. The first friend said that Job was sinful, but Job said that he was not sinful; the second friend said that Job had erred, but Job said that he had not erred; and the third friend said that Job had iniquities and faults, but Job said, “I desire to argue with God”. Job wanted to ask God, “Where am I wrong?”

  Then the three friends of Job began a second round of debate with him. The first friend thought that Job had erred because God would never discipline a faultless person, but Job said that he had not erred. The second friend came and said the same thing, but Job insisted that he had not erred. Then the third friend came and said the same thing, but Job repeated that he had not erred. All these friends were debating the matter of right and wrong. The concept of Job’s friends reflects our concept. However, Job was not any better than his friends in regard to his concept. His friends said that Job was afflicted because he had erred, but Job said that he had not erred. On the negative side, Job’s friends said that he had erred, whereas on the positive side, Job said that he had not erred. Job’s friends were not delivered from the concept that suffering means there must be mistakes, and Job said, “Cause me to understand how I have erred”. Both parties had a concept that a person is stricken only when he errs.

  Here we can see that Job is a person of very strong character, had a superiority complex, and his friends are teaching Job by rebuking and warning him according to the principle of good and evil. Truly we are like Job, we always complain to the Lord and always in the realm of rigth and wrong. We tend to forget that Christ lives inside of us.

• Job 24 is where Job is saying that God seems to ignore wrongs.

  “Why are times not stored up by the Almighty, and why do those who know Him not see His days?”
  “From the city men groan, and the souls of the wounded cry out; Yet God does not pay attention to folly.”

• I feel like this is me again talking. I always feel that God is too unfair. Most evil people live happy lives while most good people aren’t.
• Job 25 is where Bildad saying that Man is inferior.

  “Dominion and awe belong to Him who establishes peace in His heights.”
  “How then can a man be just with God? Or how can he be clean who is born of woman”

• I guess I got my answer. We have no right to question God in His judgment as we are sinners ourselves.
• Job 26 is where Job rebukes Bildad and where it shows the Greatness of God.

  “What counsel you have given to one without wisdom! What helpful insight you have abundantly provided!”

  “By His breath, the heavens are cleared; His hand has pierced the fleeing serpent. Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; and how faint a word we hear of Him! But His mighty thunder, who can understand?”

• Job 27 is Job affirming his righteousness and the state of the Godless

  “As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has embittered my soul”
  “I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go. My heart does not reproach any of my days”

  “May my enemy be as the wicked and my opponent as the unjust. For what is the hope of the godless when he is cut off, when Gid requires his life?”
  “Will he take delight in the Almighty? Will he call on God at all times?”

• Job 27 is Job felling of Earth’s treasures and the search for wisdom is harder

  “The earth, from it comes food, and underneath it is turned up as fire. Its rocks are the source of sapphires, and its dust contains gold.”

  “But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?”
  “God understands its way, and He knows its place. And to man He said, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

• Job 28 might be my favorite chapter in Job because of this – “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

  I hope and pray that all of us will have wisdom and understanding

• In Job 29, Job describes his glorious past

  “Oh that I were as in months gone by, as in the days when God watched over me;”
  “As I was in the prime of my days, when the friendship of God was over my tent;”
  “For when the ear heard, it called me blessed, and when the eye saw, it gave witness of me, because I delivered the poor who cried for help, and the orphan who had no helper.”
  “I chose a way for them and sat as chief, and dwelt as a king among the troops, as one who comforted the mourners.”

• Job 30 is about Job’s present state being humiliating.

  “But now those younger than I mock me, whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock. They break up my path, they profit from my destruction; no one restrains them.”
  “And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have seized me. I cry out to You for help, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You turn Your attention against me. You lift me up to the wind and cause me to ride; and You dissolve me in a storm.”
  “When I expected good, then evil came; when I waited for light, then darkness came.”

• Job 31 is where Job asserts his integrity

  “If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hastened after deceit, let Him weigh me with accurate scales, and let God know my integrity.”
  “For calamity from God is a terror to me, and because of His majesty I can do nothing.”

• Job 32 is Elihu in anger rebuking Job

  Then these three men ceased answering Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. So Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite spoke out and said, “I am young in tears and you are old; therefore I was shy and afraid to tell you what I think. I thought age should speak, and increased years should teach wisdom. But if is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.”
  “Let me now be partial to no one, not flatter any man. For I do not know how to flatter, else my Maker would soon take me away.”

• In Job 33, Elihu claims to speak for God

  “Behold, I belong to God like you; I too have been formed out of the clay. Surely you have spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sound of your words: I am pure, without transgression; I am innocent and there is no guilt in me”
  “Behold, let me tell you, you are not right in this, For God is greater than man. Indeed God speaks once or twice, yet no one notices it.”
  “He has redeemed my soul from going to the pit, and my life shall see the light. Behold, God does all these oftentimes with men, to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life”

• Job 34 – Elihu vindicates God’s justice

  “Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the almighty to do wrong. If He should determine to do so, if He should gather to Himself His spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.”

• Job 35 is where Elihu sharply reproves Job

  “Do you think this is according to justice? Do you say, ‘‘My righteousness is more than God’s? Look at the heavens and see; and behold the clouds-they are higher than you. Surely God will not listen to an empty cry, nor will the Almighty regard it”

• I feel like even though I don’t understand part of Job’s chapters, it really struck me. I’m at the point where I question God a lot and here I am learning that this is a sign of being righteous and we don’t have a right to judge. Somehow, my takeaway is to really just let God
• In Job 36, Elihu speaks of God’s dealings with men

  “Behold, God is mighty but does not despise any; He is mighty in strength of understanding. He does not keep the wicked alive, but gives justice to the afflicted. He opens their ear to instruction, and commands that they return from evil. If they hear and serve Him, they will end their days in prosperity and their years in pleasures. But if they do not hear, they shall perish by the sword and they will die without knowledge. But the godless in heart lay up anger; they do not cry for help when He binds them. They die in youth, and their life perishes anong the cult prostitutes.

• Job 37 where Elihu says God is back of the storm

  “Listen closely to the thunder of His voice, and the rumbling that goes out from His mouth. Under the whole heaven He lets it loose, and His lightning to the ends of the earth. God thunders with His voice wondrously, doing great things which we cannot comprehend. The Almighty- we cannot find Him;?He is exalted in power and He will not do violence to justice and abundant righteousness. Therefore men fear Him; He does not regard any who are wise of heart.

• From my sister in Christ 😍 Job 24 to 31

  Through his eight times of speaking to his three friends, Job exposed himself, unveiling many negative things concerning himself, including his being self-righteous; his being full of reasons; his blaming his friends for not understanding him and for not sympathizing with him in love; his complaining that God was not fair in treating him in an unexplainable, severe way; his having a legal case between him and God; his knowing God only in the vain, objective knowledge inherited from tradition; his having not received the divine revelation, as unveiled in the New Testament, concerning God’s eternal economy; his being darkened by the success and attainments of his natural being; his being blinded by the concept of his natural understanding; his groping in darkness and in blindness concerning his relationship with God according to what God wants; his being content with what he had become; and his being unaware of his miserable situation before God in not being saturated with God, mingled with God, filled with God, and one with God.

  Job 32 to 37

  Not only Job thinks highly of himself, Elihu was also quite proud. The speaking of Job , of his three friends and of Elihu was altogether lacking in the exercise of the spirit to contact God. They spoke concerning God and they also referred to their spirit, but in all their debates there is no hint that they were exercising their spirit. Rather, they exercised their mind to make a display of their knowledge. In this matter Elihu followed the example of the older ones and spoke in the same way. Elihu was a person who was full of the knowledge of good and evil. He was not a person in the spirit.

  In all these chapters, my takeaway is that we need the Lords presence. We may have the knowledge of Him but may miss His presence. May we be like Mary sitting on the Lords feet, spending time with Him and loving Him to the uttermost. Spontaneously, we will those who will give our all to Him for the building of Gods house

• Job 38 is where God speaks to Job and where God’s mighty power is described.

  “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “who is this that darkens counsel by word without knowledge? Now grid up your loins like a man, and I will ask you and you instruct me! “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”
  “Who has put wisdom in the innermost being or given understanding to the mind?”
  “Who prepares for the raven its nourishment when its young cry to God and wander about without food?”

• Job 39 is where God speaks of nature and its beings

  “Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer?”
  “Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? From there he spies out food; his eyes see it from afar. His young ones also suck up blood; and where the slain are, there is he.”

• From my sisters in Christ 😍 In Job 38 and 39, God appeared to Job! Before, I always envied the Old Testament and New Testament people as they can see God and Lord Jesus face to face. But as I grow in the Lord, I realized that we are much blessed since the Lord is now dwelling in our hearts. We just turn our hearts to Him. Like Job, we are at times proud of what we knew, we question God for His plans for us, we thought we have the right to dictate what should be or should not.

  Because we are fallen, we hardly can recognize that what we have been putting out are all because of “self”. Not low or desperate enough to depend on God. That is why sometimes, God will continue to strip away of all we have in order for us to make it room for Him in our being.

  Here, God utterly questioned Job on how the universe was created and come into being and on the living of the animals to show his vulnerability, to humble and silence Job. For when we are humbled and stripped of all we have that we become closer and really intimate with God.