Monday: God’s Question

After what must have seemed to Job like a very long silence, God finally speaks to him, even if what He first said might not have been what Job wanted to hear.

What was the first question that God asked Job, and what was implied in that question? Job 38:2.

All through the Bible we find God asking humans questions. This is not because He doesn’t know the answers already. Instead, as a good teacher often does, God asks questions because they are an effective way to get us to think about our situation, to make us confront ourselves, to help us work through issues and come to the proper conclusions. The questions, then, that God asks are not to teach the Lord something that He didn’t already understand. Rather, they are often asked in order to help people learn things that perhaps they needed to understand better. God’s questions are a rhetorical device to help reach people with truth.

Read the following questions from God. What do you think God’s purpose was in asking those questions? What point was He making?

Gen. 3:11 “And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?”

Gen. 4:9 “And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?”

1 Kings 19:9 “And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?”

Acts 9:4 “And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”

Matt. 16:13 “When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?”

Job had a lot to say about God, and the Lord obviously wanted him to see that, in fact, there was a lot he didn’t know or understand about his Creator. In many ways, God’s opening question to Job parallels some of the words that these men had said to him, as well (see Job 8:1-2; Job 11:1–3; Job 15:1–3).

If God were to ask you a question about the state of your life right now, what do you think He would ask, and what would you answer? What do the question and the answer teach you about yourself?