Job 1:1–5 Explained: Why Do the Righteous Suffer? (Session 1)

In this opening study of the book of Job, Reasoning Through the Bible begins a verse-by-verse examination of Job 1:1–5 and the Bible’s teaching on suffering, God’s sovereignty, and the life of a righteous man who endured intense loss. This session introduces Job as blameless and upright, explores why the book of Job matters for believers today, and considers the difficult question of why bad things happen to godly people.

This Bible study also examines Job’s family, wealth, worship, and intercession for his children, while laying the groundwork for the larger themes of the book: undeserved suffering, the silence of God, human pain, false accusations, and whether suffering is always connected to personal sin. The discussion also previews the role of Job’s friends and the danger of bad spiritual counsel during seasons of hardship.

Topics in this episode include:

•  Job 1:1–5 explained 
•  why righteous people suffer 
•  the problem of evil and suffering 
•  God’s sovereignty in pain 
•  Job as a blameless man 
•  intercessory prayer for children 
•  trusting God when life hurts 
•  the danger of false counsel in suffering 
•  verse-by-verse Bible study through Job 

Reasoning Through the Bible offers verse-by-verse Bible teaching designed to help listeners understand Scripture in context and apply it faithfully.

Transcript

Welcome And Study Resources

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hello and welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. My name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. If you're new to our ministry, we do verse-by-verse Bible studies through the Word of God. We'd ask that you check out our website. We have materials there for every book we've ever done and lesson plans so that you can then teach those in your church or small group. You can listen to our programs or watch our programs and then follow along verse by verse, question by question, in our lesson plans and use it for teacher training materials in your church or small group. Go to rtb.net or reasoning through the Bible.com and you'll see all our materials and you'll find out a little bit more about us. But today we're starting the book of Job. And Steve, it's as always, it's going to be a great book. This book answers a lot of pressing questions that are really perennial questions, does it not?

Why The Book Of Job

SPEAKER_01 1:19

There has been some speculation as to why the book of Job is even in Scripture, because it's not the most uplifting book that there is compared to a lot of other things that are going on in Scripture. But yes, it does answer some pressing questions of why certain things might happen, what to do whenever we come across suffering. And we'll get into the specifics as we go through each of the verses. But I think one of the general things to look at, and we'll talk about a little bit further in our introduction here, and especially as we go through, are the characteristics of the friends that Job has and the advice that he gets. I think that's a major theme as part of Job as well.

Poetry And Unknown Origins

SPEAKER_00 2:04

And it is, and we'll find that this book is a poetic book that deals with this calamity that has befallen our man Job here. We're going to see the beginning of the book opens with an introduction to who Job is and what's going on in the background in heaven between God and Satan. Then the bulk of the book has these conversations between Job and three or four friends of his. It follows the literary style of ancient Hebrew poetry, which is very good for translating into multiple languages because it's not done on meter or word rhyming, things like that, but on ideas. And the ideas can be very well translated. The period that Job lives in is unknown. We don't really know anything about him personally. We don't know about the land that he lives in. The scholars, at least most of them, believe that Job was written earlier than most of the other books. Some believe it's the earliest book. And there's a few reasons for that. Job mentions nothing of the Mosaic law or other key features or names of people. There's no mention in here of Abraham or any of the sacrificial system that's given by Moses. There's no mention of Israel as a nation. Job sacrifices for himself and his family, and with no mention of a priest. Job's wealth was measured in livestock and family, not in any kind of a national coin or currency. So we don't really know the author. We don't know the date. We don't know the location. What we do know is that it raises some issues that are very pressing for us today, does it not?

The Big Questions Of Suffering

SPEAKER_01 5:00

One of the most prominent things is suffering. You mentioned it just a while ago, Glenn. That's something that people look to Job to try and give an answer to. I'm not sure that there's a complete answer that's given, but it's something that affects us daily. We either have some sort of suffering in our life or we have friends or family that have some sort of suffering that's going on. And if they're believers, like we are, then there comes up a question of, well, why does God allow that? I'm not sure that we'll get to a definite answer as we go through Job. But one thing to keep clear is that suffering is related to our physical bodies here on earth and what we are going through now. This body that we have is not the ultimate body that we're going to have. This world that we're living in is not the ultimate world that we're going to live in. So what's ahead of us is so much better than what we have now, that when the question of suffering comes up and why does it happen in this world and in this body, really, we need to look to where we're going and where we're heading, the body we have where there won't be suffering anymore, and a world that we're going to be living in, that there won't be suffering anymore. That's the ultimate destination for us. And so whatever suffering that we experience here is on a temporary basis. But that is one of the prominent issues of the book of Job. That's one of the things that we'll be looking at as we go through.

Story Outline And Key Themes

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Of course, the basic story, most of our listeners would know, but we'll go ahead and summarize it here. We have at the beginning of the book, we're introduced to this man Job, and he's listed as blameless and upright and very wealthy. Then there's a conversation that goes on in heaven between God and Satan. Satan ends up attacking Job, taking away his wealth, his family, and his health. And then most of the book is this Hebrew poetry with Job's so-called friends trying to blame Job for Job's problems. And Job keeps saying, Well, if I could just get God down here, we could have a conversation and I could show you that my problems are not because of my sin. Well, at the end of the book, God shows up and Job kind of doesn't wish God would be so strong in his face because God shows up at the end and Job realizes how small he is compared to God and how much he needs to submit to God's will. The themes in Job, as we've hinted so far, the ideas presented here are ones that are ideas that get wrestled with in all countries, in all cultures, in all ages. If God is all powerful and he's all good, then why do evil things happen in the world? That's one of the pressing questions that ha that occurs to people in all times. Another question: if a person does right, if they obey the Lord and do good things, will bad things still happen to them? If bad things are happening, who's responsible? Is it always my fault or is it always God's fault? What happens when bad things do happen to me? If I'm suffering, whose fault is it really? Does God care if I'm suffering? That's a question that arises many times. Really, anybody that's suffering, we don't see an end to it. Is God aware that I'm in all this pain? Or why would he leave me here? Can we trust God even when he is silent? Can we trust God even when pain is happening to me and God is silent? Do we serve God because of who he is, or because of what God does for us? These questions, these issues are ones that occur to all people in all cultures in all times. Job teaches us some very important things about God and evil. It teaches us some things about God's sovereignty, what he is in control of. It teaches us some things about human suffering. It teaches a lot of questions about the need for a mediator between God and mankind. And it teaches us about God's ultimate justice, how we should expect to experience things, what we should see in God at the end of time, at the end of our suffering. Are we just forgotten about and lost? Or does God possibly have a purpose for all of the pain that I'm going through in my life and suffering? The opening scene is with Job's prosperity. Then we have Job's calamity and all of his disaster. We see Job's comforters. We then see Job's lament. He laments for most of the book. There's dialogues with his friends. There's uh Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu. And they all take their turn at trying to give answers and reasons for why Job might be suffering. So, Steve, do we need friends like these in our lives?

A Warning About Bad Counsel

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Well, we need the type of friends like they start off with Job at first. They're very sympathetic as to what's going on. But I think we can see a little bit of a character study through all of these friends that he has. And as we go through, like I've said before, we'll look at more detail of it. But we see that Eliphaz kind of comes to Job speaking from experience, and he ends up applying the advice that he's giving to Job very rigidly, kind of a general truth, objective truth. And the question comes up well, is it really objective or is it subjective truth? That's some of the things we'll talk about. Then his other friend, Bildad, he comes at it from an angle of tradition. His responses to Job are with cold orthodoxy. Here's the reason why this is happening to you. His third friend, Zophar, he comes at it with certainty. This is the really reason why it's going on. He's very presumptuous in the tone that he has. And then the fourth friend is towards the end of the book itself, Elihu. And he basically says, God has full authority, and he's very presumptuous as he gives the advice as to what's going on with Job. So I think that we can look at those characters and each one of those emphases that they put on the advice that they give to Job and talk about that as far as what type of friends do we have, is the advice that they give to us, sound advice, and the way that they give it to us, is the background of what they're giving to us as that advice. Is it actually something that we should listen to? So that's something that we'll talk about as we go through each one of his friends and the advice that they are giving to Job.

What Job Teaches Believers

Real History Or Allegory

SPEAKER_00 12:17

I just want to emphasize up here at the front, before we really just get into exegeting the text, this book, way back here in the Old Testament, teaches us some extremely important lessons. And it's lessons that continually keep coming up in our lives. The book of Job helps us deal with undeserved suffering. We see suffering in our lives and in the lives of those around us, and we scream out, where is God? That's what's happening in this book. And it gives answers to these questions. Job teaches us that when we trust God and endure to the end, we will be blessed. But we have to realize God's in control. Otherwise, if it's just suffering, then we would be of all people in most despair if God doesn't exist and we're down here suffering. But because we know that God exists and we know that God is in control, then in the midst of suffering, we know that if we just endure to the end, then we will be blessed. That God has a greater purpose for this. He just doesn't share with us what that purpose is. Notice in this book, Job meets God while he was still suffering. While he was still suffering is when he had his greatest experience at meeting God. The book of Job teaches us that we will not always understand God. We have finite human minds. The finite's never going to understand the infinite. So we are not going to completely understand God. Doesn't mean God doesn't have a reason for what he does. We learn that in the midst of suffering, asking why is not wrong. It's okay to ask why. What's wrong is to demand that God answer why. That's what gets Job in trouble at the end, is he's making demands of God that God must answer him why. We also learn that even in the midst of suffering, we are to trust God and not make demands of him. We are to just trust him and realize that he's in control and he has a greater purpose, that I should praise him in the midst of suffering. And in the end, if I endure through that, then I will see God's hand, I will get to meet him and uh will get blessings in the end. Now, Steve, before we just jump into the text, one last thing I have is that I think we should deal with this book. Again, we don't really know who wrote it or the date or even this land of us. But the conservative view is that this is a real person in a real place and that these are real events that actually happened, and it's the inspired word of God. The liberal and the progressive take books like this and say, well, it's just a made-up story. It's a poem. I remember hearing a quite liberal Jewish rabbi that said, Well, this was just a poem that somebody later came along and stuck a story on the front and the back and kind of made it into a nice little literary book. We would reject that. There's really no evidence in this book to show us that it's anything other than a real historical event. Any conclusion that it's anything other than a real historical person is bringing a viewpoint to the text and interpreting it that way. Would you uh care to comment?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Just with this, if we take this as something that is allegorical, then when we come to the situation that's going to start the book in chapter one out regarding Satan and the sons of God there with God Himself and the exchange that happens with them, then what are we to do with that? Are we to say that Satan himself is just an allegorical figure, or even that God himself is allegorical? So I think that I'm right along with you, Glenn, is that this is an actual person. I think it's here for a purpose, the book itself. And as you and I believe, all of these books, this what we call scripture, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. So when we have that as a thought, then there's a reason why this book of Job is here. And I think that it's clear that it's an actual person with actual events.

Reading Job 1 Through 5

SPEAKER_00 16:49

And it's one of the books that answers some of the most profound questions that are, again, as we said several times now, it's pressing on the lives of many of us today. Let's go ahead and dive in. I want to read the first five verses of Job chapter one, says this There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. And that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil. Seven sons and three daughters were born to him. His possessions were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and very many servants. And that man was the greatest of all the men of the East. His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send word and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send word to them and consecrate them, getting up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Job did so continually. So, Steve, what do these verses tell us about this man Job? What do we know about him?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Well, first of all, he is worshiping Yahweh. That's not the name given here, but we find out later through Scripture that's what his name is. He's worshiping God Almighty, the one and only God, the one true God. And he's also giving sacrifices there at the latter part of the verses you read, burnt offering sacrifices. So he's sacrificing to God. His wealth is great, less all of those animals and servants that he has. So he's tremendously wealthy. It says there that he is blameless and upright, fearing God and turning away from evil. So we get this character of who Job is and the relationship that he has with God Yahweh. So those are the basic things that we get in these first five verses.

Blameless Job Versus Blame Games

SPEAKER_00 19:02

What's interesting is that the very first verse in the entire book tells us that Job was blameless, upright, he was fearing God, and he turned away from evil. It starts out with that as an established foundation for the entire book. And it's going to repeat this in the next chapter that he is blameless. And the reason I bring that up is because the rest of the book has this horrible calamity that is dealing with whether Job is sinful. So the inspired word of God establishes from the very first verse that Job was blameless and upright. I remember years ago, I got invited to this workplace Bible study. It was people I was not familiar with, but I go into this, there was a new group of Christians that I didn't know. And the very first time I went to this Bible study, there was a lady teaching it. And she was, turns out, from some of these prosperity kind of name it, claim it sort of crowd. And she pulled a verse out of the middle of the book of Job saying that, well, see, Job didn't have faith, and all this calamity that happens to him was his fault. I was a little surprised because I raised my hand and brought up the fact that the very first verse of the entire book says he's blameless, upright, and turns away from evil. Well, she didn't like that so much. And I didn't really come back to that study very much because I feel that was a major miss. Because if we just start at the beginning and read through the book, the major theme of the book is that these friends are falsely accusing Job of the fault lying with Job. And the point to the book is it's not Job's fault. That God is doing an effort here. He's doing a work in Job's life and with Job for a reason. And it's not because of Job. And he starts this off with the very first verse in the entire book that the problems that are happening to Job are not his fault. I mean, that that's one of the major things here, Steve. So when we run into problems, that's one of the questions we're going to deal with as we go through this book. Just because I have problems in my life, or I have someone I know that's having problems in their life, is it always because of our sin or lack of faith?

SPEAKER_01 21:27

No, I don't believe so. She sounds much like his friend Zophar, who assumes that there's some sort of hidden sin that Job is hiding from everybody else, and this is why God is punishing him. And he's very dogmatic in his accusations, and he speaks with certainty. So she sounds very much like that type of a friend Zophar that Job has. And I think I don't want to broad brush this theology of this prosperity, God. Gospel as it's known as. But I do believe that that is one area that at least some of them harp on is that if you're not prosperous and blessed, then there's something sinful in your life because God wants to bless you and wants to be you to be prosperous. And if you don't have those things, then therefore there's something still wrong in your life that you need to correct. And that often then works into some sort of works or some type of a formula of giving money or saying prayers or sending something in of a prayer cloth or something to have a ministry pray for. And that just leads to a lot of fraud that can take place. So I don't think that if you don't necessarily have prosperity, and I'm using air quotes for that, whatever that might mean to somebody, Paul actually tells us we just need to learn to be content with our lives and what we have. I believe he states that in Colossians. Being content in the Lord and Jesus Christ, what we have, then that is what we should strive for. And when we strive for that and realize that we're just content where God has us at the point in time, then we can live our Christian lives out, not having to worry if we're missing out on something or if we're doing something wrong or have this guilt that's hanging over our head. You know, one of the things that Paul also brings out in the first chapter of Colossians is that through the belief in Jesus Christ, one of the things that we get is that we are presented to God as blameless and beyond reproach. That's what is noted here in verse one that Job was blameless and upright. He was blameless and beyond reproach. So we see that there's very much consistency with God. And I totally agree with you. In fact, we'll see here as we dig into it, Job is prosperous, but it's not because of something that he has done. It's because of his attitude and his relationship with God.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Next, we have verse two and three that tell us about Job's family and uh has these lists of livestock in here. So, so how many sons and daughters and livestock does he have? And and what does that tell us about this man?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Well, I think it's telling that it starts off in verse two. It says he has seven sons and three daughters. So family was very important to somebody that had an aggregarian society or dealt with livestock, such as what Job did, because that is how the livestock was taken care of, was from your family members. So, first off, he has 10 children, and the majority of them are sons. Second is that he now gives a listing of all these thousands of sheep and camel that he has, all of this livestock that Job has. And it says there in verse 3 that the man was the greatest of all the men of the east. This tremendous wealth that he had in this livestock. Now, he also had to have a lot of land along with that, because it takes a lot of land to graze all of these different animals he had. So I think it gives us a description here of Job as being somebody that is very blessed and is very wealthy.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

The sheep, of course, gives you wool and meat. The camels were used for trade. A camel was not a something you'd eat. A camel is for carrying loads long distances across the desert. So you could carry and buy and sell things with neighboring countries and faraway lands. And with that many camels, you could be quite wealthy by being able to carry things and trade things and buy and sell things from foreign places. Very many servants. It says at the end of verse 3, he was the greatest of all the men in the east. It means he's more powerful, more influence, and more wealth. And so that tells us a lot about this man. He was quite prosperous, and we were just told that he's God-fearing and blameless. So we have a very godly man that's very wealthy, very powerful. With that, verse 5, what does Job do and why did he do it?

Interceding For Your Children

SPEAKER_01 26:38

So it describes there in verse 4 that the sons and daughters, family, would get together and they'd kind of have a rotation of gatherings between them. And at the end of that cycle, Job then would come and he would give an offering on behalf of all of his children, saying perhaps they had sinned against God. So he offered up a burnt offering on their behalf. He did some interceding for them on behalf of his children. So I think that's something that we can take away from it. Intercede for our children, but not just our children, but also friends and family.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

I take it the sacrifice here. And again, there's no mention of a mosaic sacrifice or a priest in the sense of a sin sacrifice in that sense. What I think he's doing here is this is Job's way of worship. It's his way of prayer. It's his way of going to the Lord, and I'm going to pray in an intercessory way in case my sons and daughters are have sinned. I'm going to lift up them in prayer and sacrifice. I don't see in here the idea that, well, the father Job sacrificing this is going to take away the sins of his sons. That's not the way the sacrificial system worked. What it does tell us is that Job cared a lot about his sons and daughters. What he's doing is that even though they may have been upright in their outward actions, I'm going to pray for them. I'm going to worship before God and lift them up in prayer because perhaps they've sinned in their hearts. So that brings the question: what should we do with our children? People that are true believers, we always want to see our children follow the Lord. What should we be doing? Even if, okay, maybe my children are on an okay path with the Lord, what should I be doing to ensure their long-term trust of the Lord?

SPEAKER_01 28:44

I think just that, interceding for them, wanting a hedge of protection to be put around them, wanting them to stay in the fellowship with God, getting a relationship with Jesus Christ, obviously having a belief and salvation in and through Jesus Christ, and for their marriages, their spouses, and then their children, our grandchildren. I think that we should pray continually because the world that we live in is one which is always trying to intercede between us and God. Therefore, if we're not interceding to God and petitioning God on their behalf, then there's always a potential for them to fall into ways of the world. Now, that doesn't mean that what we do as far as intercessory prayer is going to keep them from that. But our prayer is actually one of wanting to keep God's presence in their life and that they themselves will want to keep God's presence in their life. So it's a little bit of a dual question, or at least that's my approach. Something that we pray on behalf of our children. Because part of it is what we look back on our experiences that we had. There's some things that we look back on and say, I wish we hadn't have done that. We would have handled it differently. Those things that are in our life, we naturally don't want to happen to our children, nor our grandchildren in their lives either.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Yes, I would agree. What we should be doing is following Job's example in praying to God as an intercessory prayer for our children. Perhaps our children will wander and we should be praying for them that God would keep them in his fellowship, that they would be saved people. We should pray for their salvation and we should always lift them up that God would use them and God would keep them in his fold. Let's go ahead and stop here for now. We've seen what's happening on the ground. Next time we're gonna get a peek behind the curtain, God's gonna show us a glimpse of what goes on, at least in this case, behind the curtain in heaven. And we're gonna see some quite amazing things as God has a conversation with Satan. And we'll reason through that next time. Thank you so much for watching and listening.

Preview Of Heaven’s Curtain

SPEAKER_01 31:13

May God bless you.