Study questions

Life-Study of Job

1. An Introductory Word

  1. What are the contents of the book of Job?
  2. What is the positive aspect of God's economy in dealing with His holy people that Job and his friends did not see? What does it mean to say that Job and his three friends did not have the adequate revelation of the divine truths?

2. The Trials of Job (1)

  1. What are the crucial points that we see concerning Job the man at the beginning of this book?
  2. How do we see the way that God uses Satan in the book of Job?

3. The Trials of Job (2)

  1. Describe (1) the significant, instructive, and unveiling scene presented at the beginning of the book of Job; (2) the step of the divine economy that God accomplished in Job's experience.
  2. Describe (1) the ugly tool used by God with a dishonorable commission; (2) the mysterious and glorious consummation described in this message.

4. Job's Cursing of His Birthday

  1. What is the significance of Job cursing the day of his birth?
  2. Describe how Job's experience of God's consuming and stripping in the Old Testament was far behind that of Paul in the New Testament. Describe also God's intention with Job.

5. The First of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 4—11 (1) Eliphaz's Answer to Job by Rebuking

  1. How do we see that Eliphaz's answer to Job was in the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that his logic was based on ethics according to short-sighted teachings? What warning concenring our prophesying can we take from the example of Eliphaz?
  2. What is God's intention in His economy, and how is this related to His stripping and consuming?

6. The First of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 4—11 (2) Job's Vindication

  1. How was Job's speaking different from that of Paul? What did Job's speaking expose concerning his condition?
  2. How do we see that the spiritual culture of Job and his friends was very primitive, they being halted in the knowledge or right and wrong, not knowing God's economy? How is Job's speaking a black background for the bright revelation in the New Testament?

7. The First of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 4—11 (3) Bildad's Rebuttal

  1. Describe how Job's vindication in chapters 7—8 is an extract of the whole book.
  2. How does Bildad's speaking show that he was in darkness, and how can we see that his logic concerning man's relationship with God was even more built upon good and evil, right and wrong?

8. The First of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 4—11 (4) Job's Unyieldingness and Zophar's Blind Argument

  1. How did Job misunderstand and misinterpret God's dealing?
  2. What is the significance of Job's word in 10:13?

9. The Second of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 12—20 (1) Job's Superiority Complex, Accusation, and Arguments and Eliphaz's Rebuke and Warning (1)

  1. What was the purpose hidden in God's heart alluded to by Job?
  2. Based upon the contents of this message, give a brief presentation concerning God's economy, including how it relates to God's purpose in dealing with Job.

10. God's Answer to Job

  1. What is the crucial question raised by the book of Job?
  2. What is the divine answer to this crucial question?

11. The Second of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 12—20 (2) Job's Superiority Complex, Accusation, and Arguments and Eliphaz's Rebuke and Warning (2)

  1. What additional points concerning Job do we see through his speaking in this passage?
  2. After reading Job 12—15, what do we see concerning the situation of Job and Eliphaz?

12. God's Eternal Economy as the Answer to the Book of Job

  1. What are the ten main items in the economy of God?
  2. How can we learn the items of God's economy subjectively and experientially?

13. The Second of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 12—20 (3) Job's Rejection of His Friends' Word and His Desire that God Would Adjudicate for Him in His Case in the Painful Situation Caused by God and Bildad's Rebuke and Warning

  1. What are the main points of Job's speaking in chapters 16—17?
  2. How, again, can we see that Bildad's rebuke and warning to Job were according to the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

14. The Second of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 12—20 (4) Job's Complaint Against His Friends in Their Wrong Reproach and Toward God in His Severe Stripping and Zophar's Anger and Teaching Toward Job

  1. What are the ways God misunderstood God, as exposed in his speaking in this section?
  2. What is the right understanding of Job's word in 19:25: "But I know that my Redeemer lives"? How is Job's view expressed in this word lower than Paul's view?

15. The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (1) Job's Conclusion Concerning Prosperity and Calamity in Human Life and Eliphaz's Logic Concerning the Recompense of Good and Evil

  1. How can we say that, in general, Job's conclusion concerning the prosperity of the wicked was right and was not according to good and evil?
  2. What is the source of Eliphaz's teaching, and what is this teaching based upon?

16. God's Intention in His Creation of Man and in His Dealing with His Chosen People

  1. What is the divine revelation in the New Testament as the answer to the sufferings of Job and to the great question concerning the purpose in His creating of man and in His dealing with His chosen people?
  2. What kind of life should we as Christians live today?

17. The All-Inclusive Spirit as the Consummation of the Processed and Consummated Triune God

  1. Prepare a brief prophecy concerning the three of the divine Trinity being different but not separate, and concerning the Triune God being the Spirit.
  2. What were the steps of the process of the Triune God, and what does it mean ot say that the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God is the Spirit?

18. The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (2) Job's Desire to Clear up His Case with God and His Knowledge Concerning God in His Dealing with All Kinds of Men and Bildad's Concluding Word

  1. What further points concerning Job's person can we see through his speaking in this passage?
  2. What part of Bildad's concluding word was not according to the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? At the same time, what was the problem with this word?

19. Our Unique Need—the Processed and Consummated Triune God as the All-Inclusive, Life-Giving Spirit

  1. Describe the ingredients of our abundantly rich God.
  2. According to this message, who is the only one who can be a Christian, and what is the unique way to live the Christian life?

20. The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (3) Job's Final Speaking to His Three Friends (1)

  1. What negative points do we see in the conversation between Job and his friends concerning their relationship with one another and with God?
  2. How do we see Job's high-mindedness and superiority complex in his speaking in this section?

21. The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (4) Job's Final Speaking to His Three Friends (2)

  1. What was the reason for Job's sufferings?
  2. What does it mean to see God? Provide verse references from the New Testament.

22. God's Move in Christ to Bring Forth the Body

  1. What are the two kinds of sufferings presented in this message?
  2. Describe God's corporate move revealed in Acts through Revelation.

23. The Third of the Three Rounds in the Debates Between Job and His Three Friends - Chapters 21—31 (5) Job's Final Speaking to His Three Friends (3)

  1. What does Job's boasting indicate?
  2. What are the negative things exposed through Job's eight times of speaking to his three friends?

24. Man Moving in God's Move and God Moving in Man's Move

  1. What is the principle of God's move on the earth?
  2. What realm did Job pursue in? What realm should we, as Christians, pursue in? What is the practical application of this matter presented in this message?

25. Elihu's Turn to Speak - Chapters 32—37 (1) Elihu's First Correction and Refutation of Job

  1. How do we see that Elihu was very foolish, proud, and lacking in wisdom?
  2. What is the difference between Elihu's word and Paul's word?

26. Elihu's Turn to Speak - Chapters 32—37 (2) Elihu's Second and Third Corrections and Refutations of Job

  1. How do we see in Job chapter 34 that Elihu was a person who was full of the knowledge of good and evil?
  2. What should have Job, his friends, and Elihu done when they came together? What did they do instead?

27. A Person in the Spirit

  1. How is Elihu (and Job and his three friends) a negative example of a person who did not exercise his spirit?
  2. How is the apostle John a positive example of a person in the spirit?

28. Elihu's Turn to Speak - Chapters 32—37 (3) Elihu's Final Word to Job

  1. What additional points can we see in this portion concerning Elihu as a negative example?
  2. How are Job, his three friends, and Elihu a negative example for the vital groups? What positive point concerning the vital groups can we bring forth from this negative example?

29. God's Appearing to Job with the Divine Unveilings

  1. How is the revelation of God in the book of Job distinct from that in the New Testament?
  2. What is the significance of God's vindicating His divine judgment? Why do we need to differentiate between God's government with His judgment and God's dealing with HIs people?

30. The Final Outcome, Under God's Consummation, of the Progressive Divine Revelation in the Narration of the Story of Job

  1. What is the relationship of seeing God, gaining God, and abhorring oneself?
  2. Why did God condemn Job's three friends for not speaking concerning Him that which was right, while vindicating Job to a certain extent?

31. God's Intention in His Appearing to Job

  1. What was God's intention in His appearing to Job and what was God's desire for Job?
  2. What part of the divine revelation will consummate God's economy? In addition, how practically can we rise up to be the overcomers?

32. The Completed Divine Revelation in the Entire Scriptures Concerning God's Relationship with Man (1)

  1. What is the divine revelation concerning God's relationship with man from God's creation of man to the calling of Abraham, from the calling of Abraham to the decree of the law through Moses, and from the decree of the law of Moses to the first coming of Christ?
  2. Where were Job and his friends in relation to the foregoing stages of the divine revelation?

33. The Central Point of God's Appearing to Job

  1. According to this message, why did God appear to Job? How does the New Testament unveil what was on God's heart when He appeared to Job?
  2. What does it mean to say that God reduced Job to nothing and maintained his existence that God might impart Himself into him?

34. The Completed Divine Revelation in the Entire Scriptures Concerning God's Relationship with Man (2)

  1. What is the divine revelation concerning God's relationship with man from the first coming of Christ to the manifestation of the new heaven and new earth?
  2. How was the revelation that Job and his friends had short of the foregoing revelation?

35. The Completed Divine Revelation in the Entire Scriptures Concerning Man's Need Before God

  1. Describe the completed divine revelation in the entire Scriptures concerning man's need before God.
  2. How would the foregoing divine revelation have been a help to Job, his friends, and Elihu?

36. The Significance in the Sequence of Job and the Psalms

  1. Present a comparison between the book of Job and the book of Psalms.
  2. What are the functions of the book of Job and the book of Psalms in the Scriptures?

37. Two Trees, Two Sources, Two Lines, Two Principles, and Two Ends in the Divine Revelation of the Holy Scriptures

  1. Describe the two trees, the two sources, and the two lines.
  2. Describe the two principles and the two ends.

38. An Additional Message — The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Economy

  1. What is the relationship between the divine dispensing and the divine economy? Describe in detail how God dispenses Himself into His people as revealed in the Scriptures.
  2. What is the way to receive the divine dispensing?