The document summarizes key events and lessons from the Book of Job. It discusses Job's suffering and loss of wealth and health, as well as differing views on whether all hardship results from sin. It analyzes how Job's friends have been mislabeled over time, but notes they initially comforted Job by mourning with him, sitting silently with him for a week due to his great grief, and provided an example of a supportive small group. The document encourages being present with those suffering through hard times rather than feeling the need to fill the silence with words.

4. Review
Act One:
The Prologue
of Pain

5. The Book of Job
Deals with the
problem of evil and the
struggles that agony
brings.

6. The Book of Job
The trial of Job- from
the wealthiest man in
the East to losing
everything possession-
wise and his health.

9. Does all hardship come as a
direct result of a person’s sin?
View one- Sowing and
reaping as an absolute
View two- Consequences
can be direct or indirect
Reflected in John 9:1-2.

10. G.K. Chesterton- an
atheist who
converted to
Christianity.
A master at taking
vast avenues of
thought and shrinking
them.

11. The London Times
published an article
asking, “What’s wrong
with the world?”

13. What’s wrong with
the world?
“I am”
We are all sinners

14. Sin leaves us with a
distorted
perspective in
trying to make
sense of the world.

15. “My problem with life is not
that it is rational nor that it
is irrational,
but that it is almost
rational.”
G.K. Chesterton

16. When hard times
come, they can
leave us struggling
to understand and
asking, “Why?”

17. When belief in God becomes
difficult.
Turn to God, not away
from God, to the empty
perspectives of man;
George Wald’s honesty

25. Act Two:
Friends,
NOT Foes

26. Correcting Mis-labeling
“Brave” Thomas instead of
errant “doubting Thomas.
Job’s wife is wrongly
assailed as she had lost her
children and now sees her
husband suffer.

27. Correcting Mis-labeling
The expression “Job’s
comforters” developed in the
1700s into a derogatory
expression and as a label for
a person who makes things
worse!

28. Correcting Mis-labeling
Job’s friends are often
belittled as arrogant,
prideful, spiteful, mean, and
theologically errant.

29. Correcting Mis-labeling
Job’s friends do reflect
the errant cultural
perspective that suffering
is always due to personal
sin.

30. Correcting Mis-labeling
However, they also
demonstrated that
they were good
friends.

31. Lessons From Job’s Friends
Job’s example of a small
group of good friends.
Everyone needs a
healthy small group.

32. Lessons From Job’s Friends
When they heard adversity
had come on Job, “each one
came from his own place.”
They made an
appointment, not just a
convenience.

33. Lessons From Job’s Friends
Their kind and
loving purposes were
“to mourn with him,
and to comfort him.”

34. Lessons From Job’s Friends
They “wept” seeing Job’s
suffering.
“The fellowship of his
sufferings” Philippians 3:10.
Sharing the pain.

35. Lessons From Job’s Friends
They each “tore his
robe” as a symbol of
shared anguish and
disapproval of Job’s
circumstances.

36. Lessons From Job’s Friends
“Sprinkled dust on his head
towards heaven” is another
cultural behavior to express
grief and identify with a
grieving person.

37. Lessons From Job’s Friends
They sat down
with him on the
ground.

38. Lessons From Job’s Friends
They didn’t speak for seven
days and seven nights, “for they
saw his grief was very great.”
Was a negative behavior of the
friends? NO!

39. Lessons From Job’s Friends
“As leaders work to
support others in their grief,
(Rick) Warren’s advice is,
“The deeper the pain, the
fewer words you use.”

40. Lessons From Job’s Friends
In these moments of hard
loss when leaders may feel at
a loss for words, Warren
urges individuals to lean into
the ministry of presence.

41. Lessons From Job’s Friends
He shares, “You show up
and you shut up. There’s
nothing you can say that will
help. They don’t need your
words; they need you.”

42. Lessons From Job’s Friends
The anxiety of dealing with
grief can cause some people to
be talkative. Guard against
running off at the mouth. Be
present. Support practically.
Carry what you can. Pastor Mark

43. Lessons From Job’s Friends
Job’s friends were not
perfect, just like the rest
of us. But they were good
friends and set some
wonderful examples.