Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

We're in the Book of Job for nine more days. We're already 25% of the way through it. This book

can be challenging for some people. Maybe it tries their patience, or it just feels like a real downer.

Interestingly, though, a lot of people say that Job is their favorite book of the Bible.

But most of them don't feel that way until they've read it all the way through.

So if I may, let me offer you a challenge.

Don't quit in Job.

You can quit before Job or you can quit after Job, but don't quit in Job. Obviously, it's too late for you to quit before Job, so you're

stuck with us. The good news is, this book ends with praise and triumph. So be sure to stick

around for the party. We're getting closer to it every day.

And as a reminder, if you aren't loving it, it's about eight minutes of reading a day.

Eight minutes. Don't let eight minutes trip you up. Okay, we've already heard from Elavaz and Bildad, who gave their reasons they thought were responsible for Job's life falling apart.

Today we meet Job's third friend Zofar. The hard part

about listening to these guys is that sometimes they do say things that are true. It's not like

it's all wrong. For example, when Zofar is talking about God in 11.6, he says, he exacts less of you

than your guilt deserves. First of all, this is generally true of

all of us, not just Job. We talked about this yesterday. God is merciful. We all deserve death,

yet he lets us live. That's his mercy. And the fact that we get to live on God's earth and breathe

God's air and eat God's food,

that's so much more than we deserve.

That's His grace.

He does exact less of us than our guilt deserves.

...