Job 19:1-22 - 20:7 - Don’t Make Their Pain Your Debate (Session 23)

In this verse-by-verse Bible study of the second part of Job chapter 19, Reasoning Through the Bible examines a painful but familiar problem in Christian communities: what happens when suffering becomes everyone else’s theological business. Job’s friends believe they are helping by trying to expose hidden sin, but instead they torment him, crush him with their words, and turn his pain into a public debate. 

This session explores when Christians should mind their own business, when sin should actually be confronted, and how the process of Matthew 18 protects people from gossip, false accusations, and public humiliation. The study shows why Job’s friends were wrong: they had no evidence of actual sin, no compassion for Job’s suffering, and no willingness to remain silent when silence would have been wiser. 

The latter half of the episode turns to Job’s emotional collapse as he describes himself abandoned, shamed, and treated as an enemy. Even there, the transcript gives practical wisdom for the church today: suffering people do not need trite sayings or theological debates. They need presence, prayer, humility, and genuine compassion. 

Topics in this episode include:

•  Job 19 explained 
•  when sin becomes everyone’s business 
•  gossip in the church 
•  Matthew 18 and church discipline 
•  when to confront sin 
•  when to stay quiet 
•  Job’s isolation and despair 
•  why blaming God is dangerous 
•  what real help sounds like 

Reasoning Through the Bible is a verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry committed to careful exposition, biblical context, and faithful application.

Transcript

When Sin Becomes Everyone’s Business

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Christian Church is a family, a family of brothers and sisters that should view themselves as one group that is one body, it says in the New Testament. So what do we do if there's a member of the body that has sinned? How should we treat that? How should we react? When should we mind our own business? And when should we approach them and try to correct the sin? Well, today, way back in the book of Job, we're going to address that exact subject because Job's friends think he's sinning, and we'll see Job's response

Who We Are And How To Follow

SPEAKER_01 0:49

today. Hi, my name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We are reasoning through the Bible. We do chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and even phrase by phrase studies of the Word of God. And we don't mention this much, but if you go to our website, you'll see not only all of our audio and video lessons, but you'll also see lesson plans so that you can teach or your church can teach the same lessons that we do. We provide free materials for you to do that. So check us out, rtb.net. We also would appreciate your support. You'll notice if you've been here in any length of time, we don't talk about money or needs much, but we do have needs. We have needs for your prayer, we have needs for volunteers, even, and we could use your financial support. We have some financial needs that we do that we could grow the ministry from, several ideas. You could get on our newsletter and find out what some of those are. So check us out, rtb.net, and you'll see all of our materials.

Setting The Scene In Job 19

SPEAKER_01 1:49

If you have your Bible, turn to the book of Job, chapter 19. And if you've been following along with us, you'll see that Job was responding to one of his acquaintances, Bildad, who made some rather blunt accusations to him. So today we're going to see how Job responds to that. And as these conversations go on, they get more and more biting, more and more attacking each other. And Job is feeling very trapped. So let's go ahead and dive in and see what he says today.

Job Pushes Back On Accusations

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Steve, can you read Job 19, the first four verses?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Then Job responded, How long will you torment me and crush me with your words? These ten times you have insulted me. You are not ashamed to wrong me. Even if I have truly done wrong, my error stays with me.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Job here is saying that if he had sinned, it's really his responsibility to focus on it and not the friends. He's basically saying, My error is my business, so I'll mind my business and you mind yours. Remember, Job's friends have been approaching him because they originally thought that there was some sin in Job's life. They were trying to help him by correcting the sin, the hidden sin. And Job kept saying, I don't have any hidden sin. They think Job has this sin, and it was their duty to go and try to resolve that sin. I'm sure if you were to ask the three friends, they would say, Well, a good Christian friend would go and approach him and tell him how to repent because we're not to wink at sin. We're not to tolerate sin. We have to dig this out. The only way to help him is to get the sin out of his

The Urge To Police Others

SPEAKER_01 3:33

life. So that brings up, I think, a problem that occurs even in our churches today. So, Steve, do we ever see in our day church members who think it's their business to go and find and correct other people's sin?

SPEAKER_00 3:47

I think there are situations where that happens. People get to a point where they're more interested in what other people are doing than what they're doing themselves. So, yeah, I do think that that does happen maybe a little bit too often in churches today.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I'm reminded of the passage in the Gospels where Jesus felt that the Jewish leaders were hypocrites. And he told them, get the log out of your own eye before you go get the speck out of somebody else's eye. He says, then you will see clearly to get the speck out of the friend's eye. He's he's saying, don't be hypocritical. He wasn't saying don't judge. He said, don't judge hypocritically. So we should indeed look around our churches and our own lives and try to get the sin out. But we should not go and judge other people first without first examining ourselves. That's the problem here is that Job's friends didn't examine themselves. And on top of that, as Job hints here, his business in this case was his business. If he did have some secret sin, it was just that. It was a secret. There was no public sin. The friends were not aware of any sin. They're making accusations and they never once have any specifics. They just keep these broad accusations saying, Job, there has to be something down under there, but they didn't know of any sin. They're going and accusing someone who has problems of having hidden sin and saying you have to admit this when they knew of no sin. So that brings up kind of the next little nuance to this question. We see the church as a body and we don't want to tolerate sin in it. But at the same time, there's some things that are just not our business. It's the business of the other people in the church. So when should we, as Christians, mind our own business and be silent when we may suspect that there's sin? And when should we then go confront that person and say, I suspect there's sin here, so let's try to deal with

Gossip Turns Suspicion Into “Facts”

SPEAKER_01 5:56

it?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I think we should never miss an opportunity to keep our mouths shut. I think that's a principle that we should live by. Where I see mainly things like this cropping up is through gossip. And people don't necessarily look at it as being gossip, but somebody will come with some sort of a idea or premise of something that they might think is happening based off of somebody's behavior or something that is going on. And so then they'll start speculating what is happening or what is going on. And before you know it, this speculation turns into some sort of an accusation or at least talked about secretly amongst a group of people. So we should be quiet on some things that we think might be happening within our church family. And the last thing that we should say to anyone is you know, all I'm gonna tell you is something that I just believe, I don't have any evidence for it, but I'm just telling it to you. And I don't want you to tell anyone else because you know that as soon as you say that, they're gonna go tell somebody else. So we need to keep that in mind that whatever we tell someone else is probably gonna be told to someone else and then it's gonna be propagated. But to answer your question, what should we do?

Loving Correction Versus Condemnation

SPEAKER_00 7:10

I think that we should not only take the advice of Matthew 18, but I think we should also take the advice of James. At the very last chapter of James, James mentions there if we go to a fellow brother and turn him back from sin, that we're doing him a great service and keeping him from a multitude of sins. And whenever we went through James, we talked about that. And that particular point, James is talking about privately going to somebody and talking to them out of concern and care, not out of condemnation, not out of judgment from the standpoint of looking at someone and accusing them of doing something. You're doing it out of love and you're doing it because you have genuine concern of whatever situation that they're in. You're trying to turn them back from that sinful situation so that they would be better off from it. And it's not done like Bildad and his friends are doing to Job. It's done in a very loving manner.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

I'm reminded over in the New Testament of places like the Corinthian church had a member there that was having relations with his stepmother, and Paul disciplined this person, put him out of the church. There was times where, for example, in Galatians, where Paul confronted Peter, he said, before them all, because of some wrong doctrine. So there's times for a public accusation and a public dealing with these things, but there's also times where the New Testament speaks loud, long about not gossiping. Gossip, I think, as you rightly mentioned, Steve, is kind of the root of a lot of false accusations. If we do not know, and these friends of Job's did not know, that's what they're hinting at is there has to be something down under here somewhere. Well, they didn't know. So they really should have kept their mouth shut, maybe gone to him privately and said, Job, I feel for you. If there's anything I could do, I'm here for you. But they should not make accusations of sin when they have no evidence of sin. And you mentioned Steve Matthew 18, we're actually given a process, are we not? That is a three or four step process for how we should deal with somebody inside the church that may have some sort of sin in their life. So let's talk about that for a minute.

Matthew 18 And Church Discipline

SPEAKER_01 9:36

And first of all, this is for public sins, ones that we know about, not ones that we, well, there might be kind of thing that that's just gossip. So what does Matthew 18 line out for a process for dealing with members of the church that have significant sin in their life?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Well, the first thing is to go to the person privately and talk with them about it. If their behavior doesn't change, then it says to go to that person again with a couple of other friends. And if their behavior still doesn't change, then they are to make it public within the church. And that's the quick version of what that process there is in Matthew 18. It's a progression. It's something that is done over a period of time. It's not something that is done just within a matter of days.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

That's exactly it. It's really a four-step process, really. You go to them one-on-one. If they don't repent, you go with two or three friends, confront them privately. If they still don't repent, you take it to the church leadership. The church leadership would approach them. If they still don't repent, then the fourth step is to put them out of the church. Now, the implied assumption in there is that there are times when I've made a mistake. My judgment is wrong, and the sin is either non-existent or it's not as bad as what I thought it was. And there are things, again, Romans 14 talks about wrong doctrines, wrong teachings that he says we should not split churches over, not divide between brothers. So even when people are wrong about certain things in the Bible, Romans 14 tells us do not split a church over things that are minor. So it's very possible that I've made a mistake. When I go to confront them, somewhere in those three or four steps, it's going to fall apart. The church leadership is going to wisely say, no, I was the one at wrong, or they'll take it from here and deal with it behind closed doors. But that four-step process really keeps things private, keeps the gossip out of it, and allows us a mechanism for confronting sin without taking it into an ugly scene where I make gossip accusations in public. So the word of God is always wiser. If, like Job says in here in his book, it's something that the friends should mind their own business about, then you're going to be told as you go through that Matthew 18 process, it's time to let it go. And that's the hidden assumption before you get to that last step. Let's go ahead and read the next section.

Job’s Pain And Isolation Spill Out

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Job is very frustrated with his friends, and we'll be able to kind of feel the frustration come out in these next words. Steve, can you start at verse five and read down to verse 22?

SPEAKER_00 12:22

If indeed you exalt yourselves against me and prove my disgrace to me, know then that God has wronged me and has surrounded me with his net. Behold, I cry, violence, but I get no answer. I shout for help, but there is no justice. He has blocked my way so that I cannot pass, and he has put darkness on my path. He has stripped my honor from me and removed the crown from my head. He breaks me down on every side and I am gone. And he has uprooted my hope like a tree. He has also kindled his anger against me and considered me as his enemy. His troops come together and build up their way against me and camp around my tent. He has removed my brothers far from me, and my acquaintances have completely turned away from me. My relatives have failed, and my close friends have forgotten me. Those who live in my house and my servant women consider me a stranger. I am a foreigner in their sight. I call to my servant, but he does not answer. I have to implore his favor with my mouth. My breath is offensive to my wife, and I am loathsome to my own brothers. Even young children despise me. I stand up and they speak against me. All my associates loathe me, and those I love have turned against me. My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, and I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth. Pity me, pity me, you friends of mine, for the hand of God has struck me. Why do you persecute me as God does and are not satisfied with my flesh?

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Very emotional scene. Job is quite frustrated at this point. He is calling out for help and he gets no response. In verses seven and eight, Job feels that God is actively against him. And he starts a section where he tells God, he is the one who is doing all these things to me. Ten times in this section that we just read, Job lays his suffering at the feet of God, saying that God is actively against him, thinking that God is causing his pain and suffering. Again, go through this section. He has blocked my way, he put darkness in my path, he stripped my honor, he breaks me down on every side, he uprooted my hope like a tree, he kindled his anger against me, his troops come together and build their way against me. He's very clearly saying that God caused these things. Job is wallowing in self-pity. In verse 17, he even thinks his wife thinks he has bad breath. So Job is wallowing in these problems, and his perspective is biased. He does not see clearly. Yes, Job has a great, grand tragedy, but Job thinks people are against him when there is no evidence that this is the case. And Steve, that's what I see. Do you see similar

When Community Withdraws From Sufferers

SPEAKER_01 15:36

to this?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah, what I see is that suffering multiplies whenever the community withdraws support rather than drawing near to the person that's suffering. Job is outlining that he's now not just suffering himself, but everybody is abandoned him, his servant. He has to beg to serve him. He goes and all of the children and everybody that he meets, they all look down on him. They have nothing to do with him. Now Job is not only alone within his own suffering, but he's alone within his own community. And that is not something that is good. A community, especially a Christian community, should draw near to the people that are suffering, not abandon them.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

We mentioned this before, but it's come up again here. So we'll bring it up again.

Where People Aim Their Anger

SPEAKER_01 16:30

He is obviously saying God caused these things. This is the point of frustration for many people. They get into a tragic situation today, and we say, God, why are you doing this to me? Or why didn't you fix this is another way of putting it. What do we say to people like that today? Because we see tragedies that I found it drives some people away from God and it other people it attracts to it. I had a professor once that said, the same sun that melts wax hardens clay. That happens. The condition of our heart is what really is what will either draw us to God or push us away from God, not the actions of God. Am I right?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

I think that was very wise of your professor saying that. It's something that you do really don't think about, that the sun can have opposite reactions on different types of material. Yes, I think that we need to be aware of what's going on in our community. We need to be sensitive to it, and we need to be supportive in a spiritual way. And as we've talked about before, in that we need to be sensitive to the internal relationship that somebody has, not just look at the external things that are happening to them. We talked about that a little bit of length in our last session. So dealing with somebody that is going through this type of suffering, we're seeing in our study of Job all the different dynamics that go into it. So some people just kind of wave Job off and go, oh, yeah, that's that book about suffering. They might want to rush to the latter parts of Job in this chapter where later on he's going to talk about his Redeemer living and things like that. But we can get so much from what is happening with Job's friends and his interaction to them and the theology that they're putting forth, Job's pushback.

God Is Not Your Servant

SPEAKER_00 18:29

And again, the backdrop to all of this is that God is not causing this to happen. Satan is causing this to happen on Job. Now, I think this is a unique situation. This isn't something that everybody that has suffering is Satan oppressing them, but it does give us the ideas of how we are to address and comfort people that are in suffering. We need to take the lessons learned from Job's friends and not repeat them with friends that we might have that are going through suffering.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

And as we're going to see by the end of the book, the Lord comes in at the end and he is quite frustrated with Job, almost to the point of anger against Job. He ends up blessing Job in the end. But because of the way Job was laying all these problems at the feet of God, God comes in the end and says, basically, who you think you are questioning me? We know from what we read here that Satan was causing it, not God. Nevertheless, Job lays his suffering at the feet of God. Many people today lay their suffering, God, why didn't you correct this? And I think it's it's a hard lesson, but it's a lesson, nevertheless, that the why the book is here is that the issues are larger than us. The issue of what God is doing with him and his world and his family is larger than my suffering. He has things that he's doing, and I am here to please him. He is not here to make my life comfortable. I am here to honor him and praise him. And if his role for me is to suffer, then that is my role, and I should have faith in that, and I should still do what the Lord has for me because that is the way to glorify him. He is not here to glorify me. I am here to glorify him. He goes on in this last part of what we just read, he cries out a couple of times, pity me, pity me. He's wallowing in self-pity and his perspective is biased. Yes, Job has had this tragedy, but Job thinks people are against him and are not pitying him. Part of it is true. The friends are just using this as a theological debate topic, but he's saying, I need help as a person.

What Real Help Sounds Like

SPEAKER_01 20:45

I need pity. So if we had to ask that in a human relations sense, will pity help Job? Or what can the friends do that would actually help him?

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Pity on its own will not help Job. What will actually help him is action of the people to go to him and say, Job, what is it that you need? Through all of these chapters so far, Glenn, we have not once heard his friend say, Job, what is it that you need? What is it that we can do for you? We haven't heard them say that at all. We've just heard them come out against him and say, You're doing something wrong. You've sinned against God and you need to repent from it. Because you won't acknowledge that, you're going to continue to be punished. Why won't you just acknowledge it? Why won't you just go ahead and admit that you've done something wrong? In fact, in the very first chapters, his wife said, Why don't you just curse God and get it over with? So that's the exact opposite. We haven't seen anybody so far in Job ever ask, Job, what is it that you need?

SPEAKER_01 21:51

They could do things as simple as go to Job and say, Job, I am so sorry that this is happening to you. I feel Feel for you. I can't do anything to help you, but I'm going to sit out here with you, help pray, and just be with you. Job, if you need to talk, I'm here. And that's it. And as you said earlier, Steve, look for an opportunity to keep my mouth shut. That's really what we should do with people in our lives that have great tragedy. At this point, we've seen Job where he just really needed somebody to have some compassion on him and not give them these trite, cheesy little Bible verse things like they were trying to give them, or give him this idea that, okay, there should be some hidden sin here. And if you just repent, none of that was helping. What they really needed was, Job, I'm so sorry. I'll sit here and pray with you. That's what he needed was a friend to offer a shoulder. And I think that's what he's really crying out for. Now at this point, we have Job, who in the previous chapter was viewing himself as at the grave. He is as low a position as he can go. He is in pain. He's lost his entire family. His children are dead. His wealth is gone. His health is gone. His friends have come along and made it worse. The debates are getting more and more accurate, if you will, more biting, more and more insulting. And he sees no help from any side. He is as low as he can go. At this point, we'll stop

Stopping Point And Next Time

SPEAKER_01 23:26

for today. Come back next time because we're really going to see one of the most profound sections in the entire book. Even at his lowest point, we're going to see what Job does with his faith.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.