God's final response to Job's anguished questions about innocent suffering is a portrait of two bizarre monsters, called Behemoth and Leviathan. Who *are* these creatures, and how is this speech meant to encourage Job and us in our sorrow?

Job?s lost everything even though he?d done nothing wrong. His main desire was to know why. Near the end of the book, in a passage of remarkable power and beauty, God finally speaks to him. But what God says is not what Job expected. He doesn?t mention Job?s experience at all. He responds instead with a poem celebrating the vastness, complexity, and wildness of the natural world. How is this response helpful?

What is the wise way to respond to innocent suffering? This question is central to the book of Job. No one paying attention to the world can deny the reality of innocent suffering?that our experience of the world is far from what we wish it to be, and often our suffering doesn?t make sense. If Job?s friends show us how not to respond to this reality, Job?s own responses to his friends and to his God model authentic faith in our suffering.

Job is about the wise way to respond to suffering, but it?s not just about your own suffering. It?s about how to respond wisely to the suffering of others. The largest portion of Job is a back-and-forth conversation between Job and three of his close friends, friends who came to comfort him but made a horrible job of it. We can learn how to comfort one another with wisdom by recognizing what Job?s friends got wrong.

Job tells the story of a man who was wise and good, enjoying all the benefits of wisdom that Proverbs predicts. Job had everything, then he lost everything, and it wasn?t his fault. Job?s suffering raises questions none of us can avoid if we?re paying attention. At one level, there?s the mystery around all innocent suffering: what is God doing? At a deeper level, suffering raises a question of worship: can we love God for himself, even if we lose the things we want to get from him?

Proverbs walks through the lifecycle of the human experience ? as a child, an adult, a spouse, and a parent ? and applies the fear of the Lord at each phase.

Proverbs reminds us that the same wise God who designed the Earth and everything within it is also the sovereign God over our individual lives. Therefore, we are wise to trust him to guide our steps.

Everyone struggles with contentment, and no one likes the way discontent feels. The wisdom of Proverbs helps us recognize where our discontent comes from and points the way toward true contentment through fear of the Lord.

One of Proverbs? favorite subjects is the sluggard?a comedic, somewhat endearing, ultimately tragic figure that looks a little too familiar. The portrait of the sluggard warns us against the destructive power of sloth, and points us towards the invigorating rest promised in Jesus.

Proverbs is about the stuff of life, so it makes sense that Proverbs talks about sex. A lot, in fact. What does it look like to fear the Lord in our sex lives? According to Proverbs, wise sex is bounded sex, and wise sex is better sex.