Listen up, little ones
Listen for the word friends.
Reading
Job 19:13-22—With Friends Like These …
Keys for kids
- Job’s friends at first just sat and cried with Job.
- But then, Job’s friends didn’t act very friendly to Job.
- We have a friend who laid down his life for us.
Questions
- What did Job’s friends do toward him in this reading?
- What was wrong with the words of Job’s friends?
- What Friend laid down his life for his friends?
Notes
With friends like these, who needs enemies. Wiktionary states that the Yale Book of Quotations cites American comedian Joey Adams as the originator of this line. The idea is that if people who say they are my friends treat me so badly, then they are acting like my enemies. Job’s friends are, in Job’s opinion, treating him badly. They start well. Job 2:12-13 tells how they wept for and with Job and then sat quietly with him in deep sorrow for a week.
They should have just kept sitting quietly with him. Instead, they begin to accuse Job of wrongdoing. Obviously, they say, bad things happen to bad people. So, Job, you’re a bad person, full of sin. Ash notes that it is their “words” or arguments that have caused this grief to Job. We might have thought his bankruptcy, bereavement, and broken health would be enough. But the deepest pain is their accusation that his sufferings prove that God is against him. It is this that drives an arrow right into his heart.
How do we respond to our friends when they face hard things? How should we respond? NOT the way Job’s friends and family do. They accuse him of wrongdoing. Further, as Job notes here, they abandon him. They stop coming by. They forget him. They treat him like a stranger. They don’t answer him. They mock and scorn him. Even his wife says, Your breath stinks! Maybe it did, but we don’t have to point out everything bad about some-one we love, or someone we should be loving.
Thankfully, we have a Friend who laid down his life for us.
Swedish Method questions
Praise
Psalm 41b, 119s
Prayer
- Rejoice in Jesus laying down his life for you.
- Pray for the preparation for preaching God’s word this Sunday.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.