This section is on the tasks of elders and their remuneration.
Times of prosperity and of suffering are likely to be spiritually dangerous – Prov.30:8-9. Job feels pursued by both God and man – 19:21-22. There is a hint of resurrection (14:14-15). Job is struggling but utters one of the most remarkable expressions of faith found in Scripture – 19:25-27.…
There are three cycles of speeches by Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, with replies by Job. Eliphaz speaks in 4-5, 15, and 22; Job replies in 6-7, 16-17, and 23-24; Bildad speaks in 8, 18, and 25; Job replies in 9-10, 19, and 26-27; Zophar speaks in 11 and 20; …
Two things might help us here: (a) The widows are to receive support from the Church, and presumably to minister in some way for the Church. (b) Some of this is surely specific to the situation in Ephesus e.g. verse 9. Calvin considered that the widows of 1 Timothy …
John Hartley calls Job 3 ‘a curse-lament’. Note the oft-repeated ‘Why?’ (3:11, 12, 16, 20, 23). (a) Job never loses his faith. (b) Job’s words were nevertheless rash – 38:2; 40:1-4.
Nancy Guthrie’s What Grieving People Wish You Knew, written after two of her children died, is very helpful.
– at the end we find that it is rather mixed, but Job is more right than wrong, and his three friends more wrong than right.
Job is an extreme book, but suffering can come in waves. Recall again that Job knows nothing of the role of Satan in all this.
Mark 3:31-35. Bonhoeffer refers to four creation mandates for all humanity: labour, marriage, government, and the Church as the community of believers.
Satan only appears four times in the Old Testament – Genesis 3; 1 Chronicles 21:1; Zechariah 3:1; and Job 3. The exchange in Job 1:6-12 is never revealed to Job.
Luther called it ‘magnificent and sublime as no other book of Scripture’. Calvin preached 159 sermons on it during 1554-1555. Joseph Caryl gave 424 lectures on it over 24 years.
