Thursday, December 29, 2016

Lesson 1 The Holy Spirit and Spirituality Dec 31- Jan 6 2017

The Holy Spirit and Spirituality

Many of us have heard the words: "And I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." And, if baptized, we surely heard them just before a minister immersed us in the water (see Matt. 28:19).
Baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yes, the Spirit is mentioned right there with the Father and the Son.
And no wonder. The Seventh-day Adventist Church's Fundamental Belief no. 5, "God the Holy Spirit," reads: "God the eternal Spirit was active with the Father and the Son in Creation, incarnation, and redemption. He is as much a person as are the Father and the Son. He inspired the writers of Scripture. He filled Christ's life with power. He draws and convicts human beings; and those who respond He renews and transforms into the image of God. Sent by the Father and the Son to be always with His children, He extends spiritual gifts to the church, empowers it to bear witness to Christ, and in harmony with the Scriptures leads it into all truth."
Nevertheless, as we read the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, we see the direct activity and work of God the Father. His actions are everywhere. In the New Testament, especially the Gospels, we read again and again about the work and activity of Jesus, the Son. Jesus-His life, death, and ministry in heaven- dominates the New Testament.
In contrast to the activity of both the Father and the Son, the work of the Holy Spirit is not as openly depicted in either Testament.
But there is a reason for this contrast: the Holy Spirit does not seek to be the center of attention. He plays more of a behind-the-scenes role. The Father and the Son are more directly revealed in the Word. And that's because the Holy Spirit is there to point us, not to Himself, but to Jesus and what Jesus has done for us.
As we study the work of the Holy Spirit, we will see how central He is to our Christian experience. The Holy Spirit, who, as God Himself, knows God as no person can; thus He can reveal God to us in a trustworthy and reliable manner. The Holy Spirit first inspired the Bible writers, and the Holy Spirit today guides us in our study of what He had inspired these writers to communicate. The Holy Spirit gives assurance of our salvation through Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:16), and He gives evidence of God's work in us (1 John 3:24). The Holy Spirit also cleanses us from sin and sanctifies us. "You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11, RSV). The Spirit produces in us lifelong growth in holiness, bringing forth the fruit of the Spirit within us-"love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:2223, NASB).
"The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating agent, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail. The power of evil had been strengthening for centuries, and the submission of men to this satanic captivity was amazing. Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power. It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world's Redeemer." - Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 671.
Because of His crucial role in the lives of believers, this quarter's study will help us better understand the great gift we have in the Holy Spirit.
At the time of this writing, Frank M. Hasel, Ph.D., was dean of the Theological Department at Bogenhofen Seminary in Austria, Europe, where he was also the director of the Ellen G. White Study Center. In 2009 his wife died of cancer. Since then he learns to trust God's goodness in new ways every day and experiences the comfort, peace, and transforming power of the Holy Spirit in his life.

Lesson 1December 31-January 6

The Spirit and the Word


Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week's Study: 2 Pet. 1:19-211 Cor. 2:9-13Ps. 119:160John 17:17.
Memory Text: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:1617, NKJV).
The Bible says the following about itself: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 3:1617, NKJV). Scripture fulfills this role because it is the Word of God, revealed to humanity through the work of the Holy Spirit. In the Bible the Holy Spirit reveals God's will to us, showing us how to live a life pleasing to Him.
But the Holy Spirit was operational not only in the distant past, in the origin of the Bible. He is involved with the Word of God in many other important ways even today. And perhaps the most important is our reading the Word and desiring to understand it properly. This is when we need the Holy Spirit. This same divine Spirit awakens in us the desire to embrace the Word of God and to apply its teaching to our lives. Thus, the Spirit works with and through the Written Word to transform us into new creatures in Christ.
This week we will trace the work of the Holy Spirit as it relates to the Scriptures.
Study this week's lesson to prepare for Sabbath, January 7.
SundayJanuary 1

The Holy Spirit and Revelation

How does God ensure that His will is faithfully transmitted to fallen human beings? He does this in two major related activities of the Holy Spirit: revelation and inspiration.
In the process of revelation, human beings are dependent upon the help of Someone outside of themselves to reveal things to us that we, as created (and fallen) beings, cannot know of ourselves. That is, the Holy Spirit teaches us truths that have to be told to us (see, for example, Dan. 2:19-23); otherwise we could never know them through natural means.
Revelation is a process in which God makes Himself and His divine will known to humans. The basic idea associated with the word revelation is an unveiling, or uncovering, a disclosure of something that otherwise is hidden. We need such a revelation because, as finite and fallen beings separated from God because of sin, we are greatly limited in what we can learn on our own. We are dependent upon God to know His will. Hence we are dependent on God's revelation because we are not God and have only a very limited natural knowledge of Him.
Read 2 Peter 1:19-21. What does this say about the origin of the biblical prophetic message? What does the divine origin of the biblical message tell us about the authority of the Bible?

According to the apostle Peter, the prophetic message of the Old Testament was not of human origin. The prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit in such a way that the content of their message came from God. These men did not create the message themselves. They were merely the vessels of the message, not the originators. Peter was very intentional in stressing the Spirit-inspired source of the prophecies: though written by men, "prophecy never came by the will of man" (2 Pet. 1:21, NKJV). And it is this divine origin that gives the Bible its ultimate authority over our lives.
God used human beings to proclaim His Word to the world. How can we be used by the Holy Spirit to do something similar today, not in writing Scripture but in proclaiming what has already been written?
MondayJanuary 2

The Holy Spirit and Inspiration

Inspiration is the term used to describe God's influence through the work of the Holy Spirit in transmitting His message through human instruments. The work of the Holy Spirit in the process of inspiration is the reason we find a fundamental unity in all of Scripture in regard to truth. As the Spirit of Truth (John 14:1715:2616:13), the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth.
Read 2 Peter 1:21Deuteronomy 18:18Micah 3:8, and 1 Corinthians 2:9-13. What do these texts tell us about the biblical writers and about God's involvement in the origin of the Bible?

Being "carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:21, NIV) is a strong affirmation of the work of the Holy Spirit in inspiration. In 1 Corinthians 2:9-13, the apostle Paul credits revelation and inspiration to the Holy Spirit. To us, he says, God revealed the hidden things that no eye has seen, which he mentions in verse 9. God revealed them through the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:10). The apostles have received this "Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God" (1 Cor. 2:12, NASB). Then in verse 13 he moves to the work of inspiration, where he speaks of things "not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words" (NASB). Paul had no doubt about the source and the authority of what he was proclaiming.
While many parts of the Bible are a result of God's direct supernatural revelation, not everything in the Bible was revealed in that manner. Sometimes God used biblical writers in their careful personal investigation of things or in their use of other existing documents (Josh. 10:13Luke 1:1-3) to reveal and communicate His message. Thus all parts of the Bible are revealed and inspired (2 Tim. 3:16). This is the reason Paul states that "whatever" was written, was written for our instruction, so that through "the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom. 15:4, NASB). The God who speaks and who created human language enables chosen people to communicate in human words the inspired thoughts in a trustworthy and reliable manner.
"God has been pleased to communicate His truth to the world by human agencies, and He Himself, by His Holy Spirit, qualified men and enabled them to do His work. He guided the mind in the selection of what to speak and what to write. The treasure was entrusted to earthen vessels, yet it is, nonetheless, from Heaven." - Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, p. 26.
TuesdayJanuary 3

The Holy Spirit and the Truthfulness of Scripture

While revelation is the supernatural act by which God reveals truth to chosen human beings, inspiration is the activity of the Holy Spirit that safeguards the truthfulness of what the human authors wrote, so that their words have the full approval of God. God hates false witness (Exod. 20:16) and cannot lie (Heb. 6:18). He is called a God of truth (Ps. 31:5Isa. 65:16). In a similar manner, the Holy Spirit is called "the Spirit of truth" (John 14:17).
Read Psalm 119:160. What does this teach about anything God reveals to us?

Read John 17:17. What does Jesus say to us here about God's Word?

The Word of God is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance. It is not our task to sit in judgment over Scripture; Scripture, rather, has the right and the authority to judge us. "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (Heb. 4:12, NIV).
Though, of course, the Bible was written by those living in specific times and places and cultures (how could it have been otherwise?), we should not use that fact to water down or dismiss the message of the Bible to us. Once that door is opened, the Bible becomes subject to humans and to their determination of what is truth. The result is that many people, while claiming to believe the Bible, reject such things as a six-day creation, a worldwide flood, the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the literal Second Coming. These are just a few of many biblical truths that fallible people, sitting in judgment on the Scriptures, have thrown out. That's not a path any of us should ever take.
Why is it so crucial to submit our own judgment to the Word of God rather than vice versa?
WednesdayJanuary 4

The Holy Spirit as Teacher

The Holy Spirit is instrumental not only in giving us the Written Word of God but also in helping us understand it properly. Human beings are darkened in their understanding of truth; they are, by nature, alienated from God (Eph. 4:18). That's why the same Spirit, who revealed and inspired the Word of God, is the One who enables us to understand it. The problem is not that the Bible is an obscure book. The problem is our sin-tainted attitude toward God, who reveals Himself in the Bible.
The Holy Spirit is a Teacher who desires to lead us into a deeper understanding of Scripture and to a joyful appreciation of the Bible. He brings the truth of God's Word to our attention and gives us fresh insights into those truths so that our lives can be characterized by faithfulness and a loving obedience to God's will. This can happen, though, only if we approach the Bible with a humble and teachable heart.
Read 1 Corinthians 2:1314. What does the apostle Paul write about our need to interpret spiritual things spiritually?

In our understanding of the Bible, we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, the spiritual significance of the biblical words is not discerned, only its linguistic meaning. Furthermore, as sinful human beings we often are opposed to God's truth, not because we do not understand it but because we would prefer not to follow it. Without the Holy Spirit there is no affection for God's message. There is no hope, no trust, and no love in response. What the Spirit brings to life is in harmony with the truth already proclaimed in the Bible.
"Many contradictory opinions in regard to what the Bible teaches do not arise from any obscurity in the book itself, but from blindness and prejudice on the part of interpreters. Men ignore the plain statements of the Bible to follow their own perverted reason. - Ellen G. White, The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Jan. 27, 1885. How has your pride been a stumbling stone that has hindered you from implementing the truth of Scripture in your life? In what areas do your own desires keep you from accepting God's truth in your life? How can you learn to surrender everything to God?
ThursdayJanuary 5

The Holy Spirit and the Word

The Holy Spirit, who has revealed and inspired the content of the Bible to human beings, will never lead us contrary to God's Word in any way.
Read John 5:394647 and John 7:38. What authority does Jesus refer to in these texts? How does the Bible confirm that Jesus is the Messiah?

Some people claim to have received special "revelations" and instructions from the Holy Spirit that go against the clear message of the Bible. For them the Holy Spirit has attained a higher authority than God's Word. Whenever the inspired and Written Word of God is nullified and its clear message is evaded, we walk on dangerous ground and do not follow the leading of God's Spirit. The Bible only is our spiritual safeguard. It alone is a reliable norm for all matters of faith and practice.
"Through the Scriptures the Holy Spirit speaks to the mind, and impresses truth upon the heart. Thus He exposes error, and expels it from the soul. It is by the Spirit of truth, working through the word of God, that Christ subdues His chosen people to Himself." - Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 671.
Ellen G. White has made it abundantly clear that "the Spirit was not given-nor can it ever be bestowed-to supersede the Bible; for the Scriptures explicitly state that the word of God is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested." - Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 9.
The Holy Spirit is never given to replace the Word of God. He rather works in harmony with and through the Bible to draw us to Christ, thus making the Bible the only norm for authentic biblical spirituality. We can be sure that when someone comes making claims that are in contradiction to the Word of God, that person is not speaking the truth. We can't judge hearts or motives. We can, though, judge theology, and the only standard we have to judge it is the Word of God.
What are some of the teachings that people are trying to promote in the church that are clearly contrary to the Word of God? What should our response be to (1) the people promoting these errors; (2) the errors themselves?
FridayJanuary 6
Think about all the truth that we know only because it has been revealed to us in the Bible. Think, for instance, about creation. What a contrast between what the Word of God teaches about how we were created and how humanity teaches we were created-that is, through the process of what is now called "the neo-Darwinian synthesis." Look at how wrong humans have it! Think, too, about the Second Coming of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead at the end of the age. These are truths that we could never learn on our own. They have to be revealed to us; and they are, in the Word of God, which was inspired by the Holy Spirit. In fact, the most important truth of all, that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that we are saved through faith in Him and His works for us, is a truth that we could have never figured out on our own. We know it only because it has been revealed to us. Think about other truths that we know only because they have been told to us through the Word of God. What should the fact that such crucial truths are found only in the Bible tell us about how central the Word of God needs to be in our lives?

Discussion Questions:

  1. Why is the Bible a safer guide in spiritual questions than are subjective impressions? What are the consequences when we do not accept the Bible as the standard by which we test all teachings and even our spiritual experiences?
  2. We often hear the word "truth" used in a variety of contexts. In class, talk about the concept of "truth," not just what is true or what is not true but about what it means when we say that something is "true." What does it mean for something to be "true"?
  3. How should your church react if someone claims to have "new light"?
  4. Flesh out the radical difference between how the Bible teaches we were created and what human wisdom teaches. What human wisdom teaches, that is, the latest understanding of evolutionary theory, is completely contrary to the Bible message. What should that tell us about why we must trust the Bible above everything else?
Inside Story~  Inter-European Division

A Gift in the Forest, Part 1

Situated in Europe, Poland emerged as a nation in the tenth century A.D. During the next millennium two of Poland's neighbors, the Kingdom of Prussia (modern-day Germany) and the Russian Empire, became powerful. In 1795 these two countries divided Poland between themselves and removed it from the world map. Following World War I, Poland regained its independence.
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both invaded Poland during World War II. Some 6 million Poles-half of whom were Jewish-died during the war. At the close of the war, a Communist government was installed in Poland behind the Soviet iron curtain. In 1989 free elections ushered in a new government, which began the fall of Communism in Europe.
More than half of Poland is agricultural or woodlands. It's a haven for many animals including the wisent (European bison), brown bear, gray wolf, and moose. Some 25 percent of European migratory birds breed each summer in Poland's wetlands.
The first king of Poland, Mieszko I, became a Christian in A.D. 966 and formed Poland as a sovereign Christian state. The Roman Catholic Church is still a powerful force in Poland.
During World War II, Germany and the Soviet Union outlawed the Seventh-day Adventist Church. All church properties were taken away and some members were sent to Siberia. After the war, the Adventist Church was reestablished and started to grow again.
In 1990 Ryszard Jankowski [ree-SHARD Yahn-kow-skee], the Polish Union youth leader at the time, had a dream. He wanted a youth camp where young people could be trained for service. The church had no land, no money, and no idea where they would get either. But Ryszard sensed that God was in the dream, so he began searching.
"We wanted a place where children and youth could spend time in nature and learn about God, a place where they could see the Creator and learn to love Him," Ryszard said. They wanted the camp to have electricity and water, be on a lake, and have some basic buildings.
One day, Ryszard found a place called Zatonie [zah-TOH-nee], a government-owned camp on a lake in western Poland. The buildings on the campground were in poor condition, but they could be made useful.
"I believed that God wanted us to have Zatonie," Ryszard said. The campsite was worth $200,000, but the union didn't have money to buy the land, the buildings, or furniture. "But as our committee discussed the possibilities, the telephone rang. Someone in Denmark was offering us free furniture-they would even deliver it!" Ryszard knew that God would provide the rest if this was His will.
To be continued.

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Friday, December 23, 2016

Lesson 14 Some Lessons From Job Dec 24-30 2016

Lesson 14December 24–30

Some Lessons From Job


Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study: 2 Cor. 5:7, Job 1–Job 2:8Matt. 4:10Matt. 13:39John 8:1–11Heb. 11:10Heb. 4:15.
Memory Text: “Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11, NKJV).
We’ve come to the end of this quarter’s study on Job. Though we might have covered much in the book, we must admit that there’s still so much more to cover, so much more to learn. Of course, even in the secular world, everything we learn and discover simply leads to more things to learn and to discover. And if it’s like that with atoms, stars, jellyfish, and math equations, how much more so with the Word of God?
“We have no reason to doubt God’s word because we cannot understand the mysteries of His providence. In the natural world we are constantly surrounded with wonders beyond our comprehension. Should we then be surprised to find in the spiritual world also mysteries that we cannot fathom? The difficulty lies solely in the weakness and narrowness of the human mind.” — Ellen G. White, Education, p. 170.
Yes, mysteries remain, especially in a book like Job, where many of life’s most difficult questions are raised. Nevertheless, we will look at some lessons we can take away from this story that can help us, like Job, to be faithful to the Lord amid a world of troubles.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, December 31.
SundayDecember 25

By Faith and Not by Sight

Read 2 Corinthians 5:7 and 2 Corinthians 4:18. What crucial truths are revealed in these texts? How can these truths help us as we seek to be faithful followers of the Lord?

The immediate context of 2 Corinthians 4:18 is eschatological, talking about the end times, when we are clothed in immortality, a great promise that we don’t yet see fulfilled. That’s a promise we have to take by faith and not by sight, because it hasn’t come to pass yet.
Likewise, the book of Job shows us that there’s so much more to reality than what we can see. This should not, though, be so difficult a concept for people living in our day and age to grasp, not when science has revealed the existence of unseen forces all around us.
A preacher stood before a church in a large city. He asked the congregation to be quiet. For a few seconds there was no sound. He then pulled out a radio and turned it on, running the dial across the channels. All sorts of sounds came out of the radio.
“Let me ask,” the preacher said. “Where did these sounds come from? Did they originate in the radio itself? No, these sounds were in the air all around us, as radio waves, waves just as real as my voice is now. But the way we are wired, we don’t have access to them. But the fact that we can’t see or feel or hear them doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, right?”
What other real things that we can’t see (such as radiation or gravity) exist around us? What spiritual lessons can we draw from the fact that these unseen forces not only exist but can impact our lives?

As the book of Job showed, none of the people involved really grasped what was going on. They believed in God and even had some understanding about God and His character and creative power. But outside the bare facts of reality that they could see—i.e., Job’s calamity—they didn’t have a clue as to what was happening behind the scenes. In the same way, might we not at times be as clueless as to the unseen realities around us? The book of Job, then, teaches us that we need to learn to live by faith, realizing our weakness and just how little we really see and know.
MondayDecember 26

Evil Being

One of the great questions that has challenged human thinking deals with evil. Though some philosophers and even religionists have denied the existence of evil or think we should at least abandon the term, most people would disagree. Evil is real; it’s a part of this world. Though we can argue over what is or is not evil, most of us (to paraphrase a U.S. Supreme Court justice in another context) “know it when we see it.”
Evil is sometimes put into two broad classes: natural and moral. Natural evil is defined as the kind that arises from natural disasters, such as when earthquakes or floods or pestilences bring suffering. Moral evil results from deliberate actions of other human beings, such as murder or robbery.
All sorts of theories, ancient and modern, attempt to account for the existence of evil. As Seventh-day Adventists, we believe that the Bible teaches that evil originated in the fall of a created being, Satan. The popular culture, aided by materialistic philosophical speculations, has denied the idea of Satan. But one can do so only by rejecting the clear testimony of Scripture, which depicts Satan as a real being out to do humans as much harm as possible.
This is a truth especially revealed in the book of Job.
Read Job 1:1 to Job 2:8. How do these two chapters help us understand the role of Satan in the evil that’s so prevalent in the world?

In Job’s case, Satan was directly responsible for the evil, both moral and natural, that fell upon this man. But what we see in the book of Job doesn’t necessarily mean that every example of evil or suffering is directly related to demonic activity. The fact is, as with the characters in the book of Job, we just don’t know all the reasons for the terrible things that happen. In fact, the name of “Satan” never even came up in the dialogues regarding Job’s misfortunes. The speakers blamed God, they blamed Job, but never Satan himself. Nevertheless, the book of Job should show us who is responsible in the end for the evil on the earth.
What do these following texts tell us about the reality of Satan? Rev. 12:12Matt. 4:10Matt. 13:39Luke 8:12Luke 13:16Luke 22:331Acts 5:31 Pet. 5:8. More important, what examples do you have of Satan’s influence in your life? How can you be protected against him?
TuesdayDecember 27

With Friends Like These . . .

All through the book of Job, the three (and then four) men who came to speak to Job did so with good motives. They had heard what had happened to him, and they came “to mourn with him and to comfort him” (Job 2:11). However, after Job first started speaking, bemoaning the tragedies that befell him, they apparently felt it was more important for them to put Job in his place and set his theology straight than it was to encourage and uplift the spirits of their suffering friend.
Time after time, they got it all wrong. But suppose they had got it all right? Suppose all these things came upon Job because he had deserved them? They might have been theologically correct, but so what? Did Job need correct theology? Or did he need something else entirely?
Read John 8:1–11. What did Jesus reveal here that these men were greatly lacking?

In this story, there is a major difference between the woman taken in adultery and her accusers on the one hand and Job and his accusers on the other. The woman was guilty. Though she might have been less guilty of sin than those accusing her, there was never a question of her guilt, whatever the mitigating circumstances. In contrast, Job was not guilty, at least in the sense of guilt that his accusers had claimed for him. But even if he had been guilty like this woman, what Job needed from these men was what this woman needed, and what all suffering people need: grace and forgiveness.
“In His act of pardoning this woman and encouraging her to live a better life, the character of Jesus shines forth in the beauty of perfect righteousness. While He does not palliate sin, nor lessen the sense of guilt, He seeks not to condemn, but to save. The world had for this erring woman only contempt and scorn; but Jesus speaks words of comfort and hope.” — Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 462.
What the book of Job should teach us is that we need to give others what we would like were we in their shoes. There is surely a time and place for rebuke, for confrontation, but before we consider taking on that role, we need to remember humbly and meekly that we are sinners ourselves.
How can we learn more compassion for those who are suffering, even suffering from their own wrong courses of action?
WednesdayDecember 28

More Than Thorns and Thistles

As we all know, and some know too well, life is hard. Right at Eden, after the Fall, we were given some hints of how hard it would be, when the Lord let our first parents know what some of the results of their transgression would be (see Gen. 3:16–24). These were just hints though. After all, if the only challenges we faced in life were “thorns and thistles,” human existence would be radically different from how it is today.
We look around, and what do we see but suffering, sickness, poverty, war, crime, depression, pollution, and injustice? The historian of antiquity Herodotus wrote about a culture in which people mourned—yes, mourned when a baby was born, because they knew the inevitable sorrow and suffering that the child would face were he or she to reach adulthood. Seems morbid, but who can refute the logic?
In the book of Job, though, there is a message for us about the human condition. As we saw, Job could be deemed a symbol of all humanity, in that all of us suffer—often in ways that just don’t seem fair, that don’t seem appropriate to whatever sins we have all inevitably committed. It wasn’t fair to Job, and it’s not fair to us.
And yet, in all of this what the book of Job can say to us is that God is there, God knows, and God promises that it doesn’t all have to be for nothing.
Secular writers, atheistic writers, struggle to come to terms with the meaninglessness of a life that ends forever in death. They struggle and struggle for answers and yet come up with nothing, because this life, in and of itself, offers nothing. There’s an atheistic philosophy called “nihilism,” from a Latin word, nihil, that means “nothing.” Nihilism teaches that our world and our lives in the world mean nothing.
The book of Job, though, points us to a transcendent reality beyond the nihil that our mortal lives threaten us with. It points us to God and to a realm of existence from which we can draw hope. It tells us that all that happens to us does not happen in a vacuum but that there is a God who knows all about what is happening, a God who promises to make it all right one day. Whatever grand questions the book of Job leaves unanswered, it doesn’t leave us with nothing in our hands but the ashes of our lives (see Gen. 3:19Job 2:8). Instead, it leaves us with the hope of hopes, the hope of something beyond what’s presented to our immediate senses.
What Bible texts explicitly say that we have a great hope that transcends anything this world offers? (See, for instance, Heb. 11:10Rev. 21:2.)
ThursdayDecember 29

Jesus and Job

Bible students through the ages have sought to find parallels between the story of Job and the story of Jesus. And though Job is not exactly a “type” of Jesus (as were the animals in the sacrificial system), some parallels do exist. In these parallels we can find another lesson from Job: that of what our salvation cost the Lord.
Compare Job 1:1 with 1 John 2:1James 5:6, and Acts 3:14. What parallels are there?

Read Matthew 4:1–11. What parallels exist here between Jesus and Job?

Read Matthew 26:61Luke 11:1516; and John 18:30. How do these texts parallel the experience of Job?

Compare Job 1:22 with Hebrews 4:15. What parallel exists?

These texts do reveal interesting parallels between the experiences of Job and Jesus. Job, of course, was not sinless, as was Jesus; nevertheless, he was a faithful and righteous man whose life brought glory to the Father. Job was sorely tested by the devil, as was Jesus. All through the book of Job, Job was falsely accused; Jesus, too, faced false accusations.
Finally, and perhaps most important, despite all that happened, Job stayed faithful to the Lord. Much more consequently for us all, Jesus stayed faithful, as well. Despite everything that happened to Him, Jesus lived a sinless life, one that perfectly embodied the character of God. Jesus was the “express image of His [God’s] person” (Heb. 1:3, NKJV), and thus alone had the righteousness needed for salvation, “even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference” (Rom. 3:22).
As great as it all was, Job, his suffering, and his faithfulness amid the suffering was a small and imperfect reflection of what Jesus, his Redeemer, would face in Job’s behalf and in ours, when He will indeed come and “stand at the latter day upon the earth” (Job 19:25).
FridayDecember 30
Further Thought: Through the centuries, the book of Job has thrilled, enlightened, and challenged readers in Judaism, Christianity, and even Islam (which has its own variant of the biblical account). We say challenged because, as we have seen, in and of itself the book leaves many questions unanswered. On one level, this shouldn’t be so surprising. After all, from Genesis to Revelation, what book of the Bible doesn’t leave questions unanswered? Even taken as a whole, the Bible doesn’t answer every issue that it raises. If the topics it covers, the fall of humanity and the plan of salvation, are subjects that we will be studying throughout eternity (see The Great Controversy, p. 678), how could one finite book of it, even one inspired by the Lord (2 Tim. 3:16), answer everything for us now?
The book of Job, though, doesn’t stand alone. It’s part of a much greater picture revealed in the Word of God. And, as part of a grand spiritual and theological mosaic, it presents us with a powerful message, one with universal appeal, at least for all the followers of God. And that message is: faithfulness amid adversity. Job is a living example of Jesus’ own words: “ ‘He who endures to the end shall be saved’ ” (Matt. 24:13, NKJV). What believer in Jesus, seeking to do right, hasn’t at times faced inexplicable wrong? What believer in Jesus, seeking to be faithful, hasn’t faced challenges to faith? What believer in Jesus, seeking comfort, hasn’t faced accusations instead? And yet, the book of Job presents us with an example of someone who, facing all this and more, maintained his faith and integrity. And as by faith and by grace we trust in the One who died on the cross for Job, and for us, the message to us is, “ ‘Go and do likewise’ ” (Luke 10:37, NKJV).

Discussion Questions:

  1. Place yourself in the mind of a Jew who, knowing the book of Job, lived before the coming of Jesus. What questions do you think that person might have that we today, living after Jesus, don’t have? That is, how does the story of Jesus and what He has done for us help us better understand the book of Job?
  2. When you get to meet Job, what might be the first question you ask him, and why?
  3. What are some questions and issues that the book of Job touched on that we didn’t cover in this quarter?
  4. What was the main spiritual concept that you got from this study on Job? Share your answers with your class.
Inside Story~ 

Finding Spiritual Meaning

Vojtech Pekarik

I grew up in Kosice, Slovakia, a city in the easternmost part of the former Czechoslovakia. When I was 15 my parents divorced. My mother moved to Prague, while I remained with my father.
I wanted to be considered "cool" in high school, so at age 16 I began to smoke and drink. Soon I realized that these drugs left me emptier than before, and I began looking around for something that would really satisfy me.
Our neighbors were quite religious, and when my mother came to visit us, she stayed with this family. They invited us to go to some of their meetings. I began to realize that God does exist, and that He loves and cares about me.
When my father realized that I was seriously interested in religion, he directed me to the family's traditional belief in Catholicism. He arranged for me to take classes from the priest and I began attending mass every Sunday.
A few weeks later I noticed a poster advertising a Bible study group that was forming in our neighborhood. For several months I attended both the Bible studies in my neighborhood and the doctrinal classes at the Catholic Church. The priest heard about the Bible studies and forbade his parishioners to attend. He threatened that anyone who attended the Bible studies would be excommunicated.
But I liked the interesting Bible study sessions. We were encouraged to follow the Bible rather than the teachings of a church-any church. The pastor spoke of the true biblical church. I didn't know such a church existed and asked the pastor to tell us which church believed these principles. He told us it was the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I had heard the name. In the previous meeting we had discussed the Sabbath, and I went home and looked "Sabbath" up in the dictionary--a Communist, atheistic dictionary, and it actually named Seventh-day Adventists as Sabbathkeepers!
The Bible studies were followed by an evangelistic campaign. Soon I was convinced that the Adventist Church was the true church. When I saw how many young people gave their hearts to Jesus, my heart was touched too, and I decided to start a new life with Jesus. Eight months after my first Bible study with the Adventists, I was baptized.
Young-and not so young-people are still searching for meaning in life. Your mission offerings help provide ways for them to find answers. Thank you for giving.
This testimony was adapted from a longer story written by Vojtech Pekarik, who studied at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary near Prague, Czech Republic.


Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission.  email: info@adventistmission.org  website: www.adventistmission.org