Bible Study Guide for Sunday, October 3, 2021

• Job 1:1, 2:1-10
• Psalm 26
• Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
• Mark 10:2-16

            The story of Job is unique and a difficult one to wrap my head around. It’s one of the few Bible stories where Satan himself is actually a character present in the story, and man, is it hard to understand why God lets him mess around with one of God’s favorite humans. Why does God give Satan permission to torment such a blameless and upright man? Don’t we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil?” Many theologians both Jewish and Christian have formed theories about why God gives Satan free rein over Job. Job’s own reasoning in this passage shows his remarkable patience: everything comes from God, both bad and good, and we don’t really have the option to decline the bad things when they come our way. Therefore, he simply accepts it and continues to live an upright life. As God later says Himself in this book, His purposes are inscrutable to humans; we should not even dare to understand.

            In comparison, the letter to the Hebrews describes a new and different relationship between humans and God. God has chosen a new way of speaking to humanity: His own Son. The writer also talks about angels, who play a part in the Old Testament as well, but they are compared to Jesus as a new means for humans to relate and come in contact with the divine. God’s goal now is to bring all His beloved children into his embrace, and to purify their imperfections through sanctification. In this new relationship, God does not put human imperfections to the test. Rather, He removes them once and for all through Jesus – through Himself – not through human suffering, but through divine sacrifice. I wouldn’t say that “Old Testament God” is different from the God that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews describes, but through Jesus, God has formed a new covenant with us to resolve the separation that sin causes. What God wants, then as now, is simply to draw us near to Him. - Lindy Noecker

• Some times in life can feel like the suffering of Job, when terrible things are happening for no apparent reason. What times in your life have you had to deal with suffering without explanation? Did you, like Job’s wife suggests, just throw your hands up and get mad at God?
• If you have given up and gotten mad at God in the past, what did you do next? Are you still mad?