Job's "Comforters"

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For the next several chapters, three men who have come to comfort Job, really offering no comfort at all.

Job has lost his belongings, his children, and now he has a horrible skin disease.

In his misery, Job is looking for answers to why all this tragedy has happened to him.

It is the same question many of us have asked.

We want answers for our troubles.

Why me? Why did this circumstance happen? Why this tragedy?

We want comfort and understanding from our friends.

In our times of tragedy and questioning, we find no answers and we have "friends" who come to us thinking they are helpful but are not.

In today's reading, we hear from the first "comforter". Eliphaz the Temanite, replies to Job's statement about wishing he had never been born.

Eliphaz acknowledges that Job is blameless (Job 4:6) but he accuses him of murmuring and complaining against God, as only a fool would do, because it would only anger God more.
(Quest Study Bible note)

Eliphaz also says that Job must not be totally innocent  because no one who is innocent has ever perished (Job 4:7).

He encourages Job to go to God to admit his sin before Him.

Job tells Eliphaz to take back his accusations.

In times of trials and suffering we need to take the advice of Proverbs 11:12, Expanded Bible
 People ·without good sense [who lack sense/heart] ·find fault with [despise; belittle] their neighbors,
but those with understanding keep quiet.

NIV QUIET TIME BIBLE QUESTIONS: 

• At this point in the story Job's three friends travel a considerable distance to console Job. What actions of the friends indicate they understood how deeply Job was suffering (2:11-13)?
•  What does Job think God's role is in all this (3:11, 16)?
•  Each of Job's three friends makes a speech, with Job responding—a cycle that gets repeated three times in the book. Eliphaz responds cautiously at first and then attacks. Why does Eliphaz think Job is suffering (4:7-11)? 
• Instead of responding to Eliphaz's accusation that his suffering was a result of his sin or his children's sin, Job explores his problem on a deeper level. For what new reason does he want God to end it all (v. 10)?
• What word pictures does Job use to describe his friends (vv. 15-21)?
• What reason does Job see underlying his friends' failure to minister to him (v. 21)?

A video from Shannon Mullins...