Team Talk
Bible Heroes
The Life of Job
I always had a very soft spot for Job.
Job was an exceptionally righteous man. He carefully avoided acts of transgression against God’s
laws. He behaved blamelessly. But, like all of us, he had weaknesses Mark 14:38. He was
not perfect.
God decided to test Job’s character to see how his commitment to Him would bear up under
adversity. The account of Job is in Scripture to help righteous people, when they go through
discouraging and traumatic experiences, to learn to trust God patiently while awaiting the
resolution of their problems.
God boasted of Job’s righteous behavior to Satan. (Job 1:8). Satan responded, “. . . Stretch out Your
hand and touch all that he has, and [Job] will surely curse You to Your face!” (Job 1:9-11). Later
events proved Satan wrong. Job’s character was not that weak.
God granted Satan permission to strip Job of his possessions and his family and to afflict him with
excruciating boils (Job 1:12-19). Job at first accepted his plight, saying, “The LORD gave, and
the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).
Later “Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, [and] each one
came. . . [to] mourn with him, and to comfort him” (Job 2:11). After a week of lamenting with him,
they began to discuss his calamities and suffering. Job listed his complaints, showing the inequities
of life. Later God agreed with him. Not everything in this life is fair and equitable.
Job’s three friends, however, were certain that God was punishing Job for some secret sin,
something Job could hide from everyone but God. Job vehemently denied that such was the case,
and he was right. God later verified this also.
However, during his ordeal of loss and suffering, Job gradually came to resent God. This often
happens to people in the midst of inexplicable calamity.
Many chapters relate the faulty reasoning and accusations of Job’s three friends and Job’s denials.
Finally, one of Job’s younger friends, Elihu, spoke up. He recognized that Job’s perspective was
flawed and distorted. Job had convinced himself that his afflictions served no purpose. He decided
that God was simply not treating him fairly.
Elihu realized that Job was so obsessed with his innocence (Job 33:8-9) that he was finding fault
with God rather than looking for lessons to learn from his trials. To Job’s complaints Elihu replied:
“Do you think this is right? Do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s’?” (Job 35:2).
Instead of seeing his adversity as opportunity for patience and for letting God mold him, Job had
grown in his resentment toward his Creator. He closed his mind to the possibility that he could
learn something valuable from his suffering.
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