Know: Understand how God’s seemingly unrelated long list of questions relating to Creation ultimately provides an answer to Job.
Feel: Perceive some of Job’s utter self-abhorrence as he realizes how wrong he has been in this quest.
Do: Relinquish his or her conceptions of who God is and how He needs to solve his or her problems.
Learning Outline:
Know: Rhetorical Questions
A Is there anything that God’s questions in Job 38 and 39 can teach us about Job’s suffering? If so, what?
B What is the importance of the acceptance of the biblical doctrine of Creation in terms of our Christian worldview?
Feel: Self-abhorrence
A Was there really a reason for Job to repent in dust and ashes? After all, he was the righteous one. Explain.
B How does Job’s repentance eventually lead him to find even more than just an answer to his questions?
Do: Relinquish Our Wrong Ideas of God
A What is your reaction after reading God’s long list of questions? Did He miss the point? Explain.
B How can we relinquish our cherished (but sometimes wrong) ideas about who God is?
Summary: There is a good amount of surprise as one begins to read God’s answer out of the whirlwind to Job. Instead of a divinely ordained “they are wrong, and you are right,” everybody is eventually wrong, because in the face of the Almighty, all our ideas of Him fade into insignificance, and He who created the worlds often gives surprising answers to our misdirected questions.
Learning Cycle
STEP 1—Motivate
Spotlight on Scripture: Job 39:5, 6 and John 1:29
Key Concept for Spiritual Growth: Where Elihu’s speech promised to be different and is then utterly disappointing, God’s speech is startlingly different in that it does not answer the question that has been debated for the last 35 chapters. Instead, Yahweh’s long list of rhetorical questions opens a beautiful window onto a Creator-God who is intimately involved in the smallest and greatest miracles taking place every moment in the universe. Being in the presence of such a God can lead to the recognition of our own sinful state.
Just for Teachers: Someone once said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” Sometimes a Sabbath School lesson can turn out to be a second sermon. Sometimes, as Sabbath School teachers, we lack the ability to ask good questions. Sometimes we are in danger of being content with just listening to ourselves. Good questions call us to reflection and make us dig deeper into God’s Word. God’s long list of questions in the book of Job does just that. Let’s ask good questions!
Opening Discussion: Karl Barth (1886–1968), a Swiss Reformed theologian, greatly influenced Protestant theology during the twentieth century. He was trained in the German Protestant liberalism of the day. When he returned to Switzerland after his studies, he pastored a small church in the village of Safenwil, close to Basel. His members mainly consisted of blue-collar workers. He soon realized that his theological training had by no means prepared him to meet the spiritual needs of his congregation. In a reaction to that liberal theology, he decided to read anew through the Bible without the philosophical constraints of his training and came to the conclusion that there indeed was a risen Jesus Christ who was revealed in the Scriptures. He called for a return to the Bible and the Reformation, and his theology was later coined as neoorthodoxy.
While we as Seventh-day Adventists would not necessarily agree with everything Barth said, his life story is an inspiring testimony to the transforming power of God’s Word. One of Barth’s characteristic phrases was his understanding of God as the “wholly other,” which points to God’s complete distinctiveness from everything else. He meant that God is different from all our expectations, even from our well-formulated ideas about Him, and that He often surprises us when He appears. This surprise happens when God starts to speak in Job 38. He is, once more, the “wholly other” and surprises us with His questions. What would you have expected God to say in reply to Job and his friends?
STEP 2—Explore
Just for Teachers: Often our images of God are heavily influenced by what we see in the people who claim to represent Him. Sometimes they present a distorted version of who God is and claim their perspective to be the authorized one. It is best to let God reveal Himself as He does in Job 38 and 39 and not make ourselves His self-appointed spokespeople. Within a church context, we need to be aware that all we say and do portrays a picture of God to those around us.
Bible Commentary
When one begins to read chapter 38, one cannot but notice a certain disconnect between it and the previous chapters that record Elihu’s speech. Elihu claims at the end of his speeches that God is speaking out of the storm (Job 37:1–13) to correct Job, but when Yahweh really speaks, He bypasses all of Elihu’s rhetoric and responds to His servant Job. Elihu paints a picture of a distant God who only appears to correct and mete out justice, whereas Yahweh’s self-revelation is that of a personal God who is interested and involved in the smallest affairs of His universe, including the fate of Job.
1. Yahweh’s Speech (Review Job 38, 39; and 40:1, 2 with the class.)
Job 38:1 connects directly to Job 38:35, finally turning Job’s monologue into a dialogue with God. We have seen how the question of suffering is really about the character of God. The following two chapters provide a beautiful self-revelation of who God is. By sobering contrast, this revelation also answers God’s question, “ ‘Who is this?’ ” (Job 38:2). In God’s light, we see a realistic picture of ourselves.
By way of direct questions, God now focuses on His creation and humankind’s absence from the primordial event (Job 38:4–7). Then God moves through the different aspects of His dominion over heaven and earth, from the sea (Job 38:8–11) to the daily cycle (Job 38:12–15), even to the realms of death (Job 38:17), and beyond the earth to the elements (Job 38:18–21) and the heavens (Job 38:31–38). The beginning of chapter 39 moves to God’s care for the animal kingdom. God gives freedom, speed, strength, and so on, to His creation.
The final words of God’s first speech are in Job 40:2. He ends His words with the rhetorical question: Is there anybody who can instruct “Shaddai”? using the divine name that mostly underlines His supreme sovereignty. He is the Almighty, and, by contrast, who is Job? God is using questions throughout, and Job is not able to answer. It is the method of the teacher, the instructor, who teaches torah (“instruction”) to his pupil. Job has to admit more than seventy times that he does not know, and his finite mind cannot grasp Yahweh’s infinite wisdom.
Consider This: Even with our scientific knowledge of the natural world, what would you have answered to God’s questions?
II. Intelligent Design (Review Job 38 and 39 with the class.)
Yahweh’s questions in Job 38 and 39 provide a breathtaking glimpse of the created cosmos. While they were not intended to be a proof for divine Creation (nobody needed proof in Job’s times), they nevertheless point to the presence of Intelligent Design (ID) in the universe.
ID refers to the argument that features of the universe are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than by the Darwinian model of natural selection. As a matter of fact, Darwin himself stated that “if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down” (Darwin quoted by Jim Gibson, “Is There Design in Nature?”—accessed online: https://grisda.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/is-there-design-in-nature/).
While ID has been called pseudoscientific, a growing number of scientists are engaging the topic. They also are referring to it as the argument of perfection or irreducible complexity, which states: “Living organisms exhibit features that have such complex interdependency of parts that an open-minded observer will recognize them as the product of an intelligent creator” (compare Gibson’s article above).
However, not all come to the conclusion that the intelligent designer is the God of the Bible but, rather, search for a naturalistic cause of design or, of course, for another philosophical avenue of explanation, such as pantheism, theosophy, New Age, and so on. Nevertheless, the recognition of design provides an important impetus for the search for the designer. God’s speech in the book of Job reminds us of the complex beauty of the divinely created order. Though, as Romans 1 and 2 demonstrate, natural revelation certainly points to the Creator-God, it does not provide a full picture of the Savior-God, which is necessary for our redemption.
Consider This: Why could rationalizing sin and suffering eventually lead us into sin ourselves?
III. Humility and Truth (Review Psalm 45:4 and James 4:6 with the class.)
A beautiful coronation psalm wishes the following characteristics onto the newly crowned king: “truth, humility and justice” (Ps. 45:4, NIV). The pursuit of truth needs to be connected to humility, and only the humble will find truth, because he stands ready to be corrected. Elihu displays the opposite quality; that is, arrogance and pride; and it is exactly these that hinder him (and the three other friends) from coming any closer to truth. God gives grace to the humble but strongly opposes the proud (James 4:6). Pride brings us right back to the fallen cherub.
Consider This: Why is it so important for us as Seventh-day Adventists to uphold the biblical account of recent creation of life on earth?
STEP 3—Apply
Just for Teachers: God’s speech is so different from our expectations, yet so powerful in its practical application to every single problem we face. He could give the same answer to us as to Job, whatever our questions are.
Thought/Application Questions:
Did God’s speech really provide no answer for Job, or did it actually? Explain.
How could God’s speech in the book of Job provide an answer to our questions?
STEP 4—Create
Just for Teachers: The book of nature is an incredible resource for our knowledge of God. It can also provide healing to our ailments and diseases.
Class/Individual Activities:
Invite class members to deliberately spend one hour in nature (rain or shine) every day next week. Ask them to journal their observations as to how their daily nature experience changed the way they lived through their week.
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Key Texts: Job 42:1–6
The Student Will:
Learning Outline:
Summary: There is a good amount of surprise as one begins to read God’s answer out of the whirlwind to Job. Instead of a divinely ordained “they are wrong, and you are right,” everybody is eventually wrong, because in the face of the Almighty, all our ideas of Him fade into insignificance, and He who created the worlds often gives surprising answers to our misdirected questions.
Learning Cycle
STEP 1—Motivate
Spotlight on Scripture: Job 39:5, 6 and John 1:29
Key Concept for Spiritual Growth: Where Elihu’s speech promised to be different and is then utterly disappointing, God’s speech is startlingly different in that it does not answer the question that has been debated for the last 35 chapters. Instead, Yahweh’s long list of rhetorical questions opens a beautiful window onto a Creator-God who is intimately involved in the smallest and greatest miracles taking place every moment in the universe. Being in the presence of such a God can lead to the recognition of our own sinful state.
Just for Teachers: Someone once said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” Sometimes a Sabbath School lesson can turn out to be a second sermon. Sometimes, as Sabbath School teachers, we lack the ability to ask good questions. Sometimes we are in danger of being content with just listening to ourselves. Good questions call us to reflection and make us dig deeper into God’s Word. God’s long list of questions in the book of Job does just that. Let’s ask good questions!
Opening Discussion: Karl Barth (1886–1968), a Swiss Reformed theologian, greatly influenced Protestant theology during the twentieth century. He was trained in the German Protestant liberalism of the day. When he returned to Switzerland after his studies, he pastored a small church in the village of Safenwil, close to Basel. His members mainly consisted of blue-collar workers. He soon realized that his theological training had by no means prepared him to meet the spiritual needs of his congregation. In a reaction to that liberal theology, he decided to read anew through the Bible without the philosophical constraints of his training and came to the conclusion that there indeed was a risen Jesus Christ who was revealed in the Scriptures. He called for a return to the Bible and the Reformation, and his theology was later coined as neoorthodoxy.
While we as Seventh-day Adventists would not necessarily agree with everything Barth said, his life story is an inspiring testimony to the transforming power of God’s Word. One of Barth’s characteristic phrases was his understanding of God as the “wholly other,” which points to God’s complete distinctiveness from everything else. He meant that God is different from all our expectations, even from our well-formulated ideas about Him, and that He often surprises us when He appears. This surprise happens when God starts to speak in Job 38. He is, once more, the “wholly other” and surprises us with His questions. What would you have expected God to say in reply to Job and his friends?
STEP 2—Explore
Just for Teachers: Often our images of God are heavily influenced by what we see in the people who claim to represent Him. Sometimes they present a distorted version of who God is and claim their perspective to be the authorized one. It is best to let God reveal Himself as He does in Job 38 and 39 and not make ourselves His self-appointed spokespeople. Within a church context, we need to be aware that all we say and do portrays a picture of God to those around us.
Bible Commentary
When one begins to read chapter 38, one cannot but notice a certain disconnect between it and the previous chapters that record Elihu’s speech. Elihu claims at the end of his speeches that God is speaking out of the storm (Job 37:1–13) to correct Job, but when Yahweh really speaks, He bypasses all of Elihu’s rhetoric and responds to His servant Job. Elihu paints a picture of a distant God who only appears to correct and mete out justice, whereas Yahweh’s self-revelation is that of a personal God who is interested and involved in the smallest affairs of His universe, including the fate of Job.
1. Yahweh’s Speech (Review Job 38, 39; and 40:1, 2 with the class.)
Job 38:1 connects directly to Job 38:35, finally turning Job’s monologue into a dialogue with God. We have seen how the question of suffering is really about the character of God. The following two chapters provide a beautiful self-revelation of who God is. By sobering contrast, this revelation also answers God’s question, “ ‘Who is this?’ ” (Job 38:2). In God’s light, we see a realistic picture of ourselves.
By way of direct questions, God now focuses on His creation and humankind’s absence from the primordial event (Job 38:4–7). Then God moves through the different aspects of His dominion over heaven and earth, from the sea (Job 38:8–11) to the daily cycle (Job 38:12–15), even to the realms of death (Job 38:17), and beyond the earth to the elements (Job 38:18–21) and the heavens (Job 38:31–38). The beginning of chapter 39 moves to God’s care for the animal kingdom. God gives freedom, speed, strength, and so on, to His creation.
The final words of God’s first speech are in Job 40:2. He ends His words with the rhetorical question: Is there anybody who can instruct “Shaddai”? using the divine name that mostly underlines His supreme sovereignty. He is the Almighty, and, by contrast, who is Job? God is using questions throughout, and Job is not able to answer. It is the method of the teacher, the instructor, who teaches torah (“instruction”) to his pupil. Job has to admit more than seventy times that he does not know, and his finite mind cannot grasp Yahweh’s infinite wisdom.
Consider This: Even with our scientific knowledge of the natural world, what would you have answered to God’s questions?
Yahweh’s questions in Job 38 and 39 provide a breathtaking glimpse of the created cosmos. While they were not intended to be a proof for divine Creation (nobody needed proof in Job’s times), they nevertheless point to the presence of Intelligent Design (ID) in the universe.
ID refers to the argument that features of the universe are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than by the Darwinian model of natural selection. As a matter of fact, Darwin himself stated that “if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down” (Darwin quoted by Jim Gibson, “Is There Design in Nature?”—accessed online: https://grisda.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/is-there-design-in-nature/).
While ID has been called pseudoscientific, a growing number of scientists are engaging the topic. They also are referring to it as the argument of perfection or irreducible complexity, which states: “Living organisms exhibit features that have such complex interdependency of parts that an open-minded observer will recognize them as the product of an intelligent creator” (compare Gibson’s article above).
However, not all come to the conclusion that the intelligent designer is the God of the Bible but, rather, search for a naturalistic cause of design or, of course, for another philosophical avenue of explanation, such as pantheism, theosophy, New Age, and so on. Nevertheless, the recognition of design provides an important impetus for the search for the designer. God’s speech in the book of Job reminds us of the complex beauty of the divinely created order. Though, as Romans 1 and 2 demonstrate, natural revelation certainly points to the Creator-God, it does not provide a full picture of the Savior-God, which is necessary for our redemption.
Consider This: Why could rationalizing sin and suffering eventually lead us into sin ourselves?
A beautiful coronation psalm wishes the following characteristics onto the newly crowned king: “truth, humility and justice” (Ps. 45:4, NIV). The pursuit of truth needs to be connected to humility, and only the humble will find truth, because he stands ready to be corrected. Elihu displays the opposite quality; that is, arrogance and pride; and it is exactly these that hinder him (and the three other friends) from coming any closer to truth. God gives grace to the humble but strongly opposes the proud (James 4:6). Pride brings us right back to the fallen cherub.
Consider This: Why is it so important for us as Seventh-day Adventists to uphold the biblical account of recent creation of life on earth?
STEP 3—Apply
Just for Teachers: God’s speech is so different from our expectations, yet so powerful in its practical application to every single problem we face. He could give the same answer to us as to Job, whatever our questions are.
Thought/Application Questions:
Did God’s speech really provide no answer for Job, or did it actually? Explain.How could God’s speech in the book of Job provide an answer to our questions?STEP 4—Create
Just for Teachers: The book of nature is an incredible resource for our knowledge of God. It can also provide healing to our ailments and diseases.
Class/Individual Activities:
Invite class members to deliberately spend one hour in nature (rain or shine) every day next week. Ask them to journal their observations as to how their daily nature experience changed the way they lived through their week.