Reading the Bible in One Year as One Story
Bible Readings 2026, Week 3; January 12-18
Verse of the week to live by:
“I know that you can do all things” (Job 42:1).
Stage 3: Redemption
Job 25–42 teaches that human wisdom fall silent before the mystery and majesty of God. In these chapters, Job maintains his integrity, laments honestly, and refuses easy explanations, while his friends and Elihu reveal the danger of speaking confidently about God without truly listening to the sufferer. When the LORD finally speaks from the whirlwind, He does not explain Job’s suffering but reveals Himself as the sovereign, wise, and sustaining Creator.
Confronted with God’s greatness, Job responds with humility and repentance—not for hidden sin, but for limited understanding—while God vindicates Job’s honesty and rebukes his accusers. The book ends with restoration as an act of sheer grace, reminding us that suffering is not God’s final word and that hope rests in His faithfulness.
The Book of Job shows that God’s purpose in the midst of suffering is not merely to give explanations, but to advance His plan of redemption. As human wisdom fails, God reveals Himself as sovereign and wise, and Job’s longing for a mediator points forward to Jesus Christ, the true and righteous sufferer. In Christ, God fulfills what Job could only anticipate: redemption through innocent suffering, reconciliation with God, and final restoration. These chapters teach us that suffering is taken up into God’s saving plan, and that the ultimate answer to human pain is found in the redeeming work of Christ.
January 12; Stage 3: Redemption
Job 25-28
1. Job 25:4; “How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure?”
Does the Book of Job ultimately answer its own great question: “How then can a human being be right before God?” (Job 9:2)?
2. Job 27:1-4; “And Job again took up his discourse, and said: “As God lives, who has taken away my right, and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter, as long as my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,
4 my lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit.”
As we read the Book of Job, Job laments and cries out in anguish. Did he ever speak wrongly against God?
3. Job 28:12, “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?”
At the heart of Job’s conflict with his friends is the question of wisdom. Does the Book of Job finally answer its own great question: “Where shall wisdom be found?” (Job 28:12)?
January 13; Stage 3: Redemption
Job 29-31
1. Job 29:8; “The young men saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose and stood.”
What is the significance of the elders who rose and stood in Job’s presence? Please refer to “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.” (Lev. 19:32)
1. Job 30:1; “But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.”
What is the significance of Job’s phrase “the dogs of my flock” in describing those who despised him?
2. Job 31:7-8; “If my step has turned aside from the way and my heart has gone after my eyes, and if any spot has stuck to my hands, then let me sow, and another eat, and let what grows for me[a] be rooted out.”
What did Job mean by if “my heart has gone after my eyes”?
January 14; Stage 3: Redemption
Job 32-34
1. Job 32:2; “Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself rather than God.”
Who was Elihu son Barachel the Buzite?
2. Job 32:7-9; “I said, ‘Let days speak, and many years teach wisdom.’ But it is the spirit in man,the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand.
9 It is not the old who are wise, nor the aged who understand what is right.”
If age and experience do not guarantee wisdom (Job 32:9), then who alone holds true and ultimate wisdom in the Book of Job?
3. Job 34:5; “For Job has said, ‘I am in the right, and God has taken away my right.”
Did Job really say that he was right and God has taken away his right from him?
January 15; Stage 3: Redemption
Job 35-37
1. Job 35:2; “And Elihu answered and said: “Do you think this to be just? Do you say, ‘It is my right before God?”
Was Elihu correct in claiming that Job said this?
2. Job 35:10; “But none says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night.”
What does the idiom “songs in the night” emphasize?
3. Job 36:5; “Behold, God is mighty, and does not despise any; he is mighty in strength of understanding.”
What did Elihu mean by God “does not despise any?”
January 16; Stage 3: Redemption
Job 38-41
1. Job 38:1; “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said.” Compare this passage with Ex. 19:16-24. What is the theological significance of God’s appearing in the whirlwind?
2. Job 39:13-18; “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love? For she leaves her eggs to the earth and lets them be warmed on the ground, forgetting that a foot may crush them and that the wild beast may trample them. She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear, because God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding.
18 When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider.”
Why does God draw attention to the ostrich, and how does this passage connect to the Book of Job’s main theme of divine wisdom?
3. Job 40:1-2; “And the Lord said to Job: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
In light of the Book of Job, how do we answer God’s question: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?”
January 17; Stage 3: Redemption
Job 42; Gen 12-13
1. Job 42:1-6; “Then Job answered the Lord and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
How is this passage reflect Job’s repentance and confession?
2. Job 42:16; “And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, four generations. “
How did God vindicate and redeem Job? Was Job a type of Christ?
3. Gen. 12:1-3; “Now the Lord said[a] to Abram, “Go from your country[b] and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Who was Abram?
January 18; Stage 3: Redemption
Gen 14-16
1. Gen. 14:17-20; “After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King's Valley). 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 19 And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”
Who is Melchizedek, and how do Psalm 110 and Hebrews 7 illuminate his identity and significance?
2. Gen. 15:5-6; “And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”
On what basis was Abram justified before God?
3. Gen. 16:13-14; “So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.”
What does the name “Beer-lahai-roi” mean, and how does it reveal God’s self-disclosure (theophany) to Hagar?