| Title: | Trusting God in the Darkness |
| Subtitle: | A Guide to Understanding the Book of Job |
| Published: | April 20, 2021 |
| ISBN-10: | 1-4335-7011-4 |
| ISBN-13: | 978-1-4335-7011-7 |
| Category: |
Biblical Studies
Counseling |
| Retail Price: | $16.99 |
| Binding: | Paperback |
| Trim: | 5.5 in x 8.5 in |
| Page Count: | 160 |
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Press Materials:
Finding Hope in the Book of Job
In the Bible, Job is an upright, innocent, and faithful man with seemingly every reason to expect a long and happy life. Instead, Job faces intense personal suffering: the loss of his family, unbearable physical afflictions, and three discouraging friends. And yet, upon closer examination, the book of Job is about more than just Job’s suffering; it’s a story about God and his relationship to all of human suffering, posing the question How can a sovereign God let evil run rampant?
In his latest book, Christopher Ash examines the story of Job to answer the question Where is God in the midst of suffering? With honesty and compassion, he explores the roles Satan, the fall, and the cross of Jesus Christ play in human suffering. As readers walk through this practical guide to the life of Job, they can find assurance that God will be with them in Christ through every season and every trial.
Author:
Christopher Ash is writer in residence at Tyndale House in Cambridge. He previously served as a pastor and church planter and as the director of the Proclamation Trust Cornhill Training Course in London. He and his wife, Carolyn, are members of a church in Cambridge, and they have four children and numerous grandchildren.
Product Details
Table of Contents
Preface
Outline and Structure of the Book of Job
Chapter 1: Getting to Know the Book of Job
Chapter 2: Do We Live in a Well-Run World? (Job 1:1–2:10)
Chapter 3: Weep with Those Who Weep (Job 2:11–3:26)
Chapter 4: What Not to Say to the Suffering Believer (Job 4–27)
Chapter 5: Two Marks of a Real Believer (Job 4–27)
Chapter 6: Is God for or against Me? (Job 19)
Chapter 7: Why Will God Not Answer My Question? (Job 28)
Chapter 8: Why Justification Matters Desperately (Job 29–31)
Chapter 9: A Surprising New Voice (Job 32–37)
Chapter 10: The One Who Is God (Job 38:1–42:6)
Chapter 11: The End Comes at the End (Job 42:7–17)
Postscript: So What Is the Book of Job About?
For Further Study
General Index
Scripture Index
Endorsements
“We find here the work of a wise veteran pastor, of one who knows life and who knows the Scriptures. Ash’s exposition is brief but meaty, profound but accessible, and clear without being simplistic. I can’t think of a better introduction to the book of Job, and Ash rightly reads Job in light of the entire Bible, in light of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Readers will be instructed, challenged, comforted, and wiser from reading this wonderful exposition.”
Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
“Christopher Ash is an astute scholar of the book of Job and a seasoned minister of the
gospel. Writing clearly and with great pastoral sensitivity, he leads us through one of the most difficult books of the Bible. Those struggling with Job and its theme of suffering will find much help here.”
Eric Ortlund, Lecturer in Old Testament and Biblical Hebrew, Oak Hill College, London
“If like me you have neglected Job, finding it too long and too confusing, knowing that it contains comfort but unsure about how to find it, help is at hand. Christopher Ash unfolds what is tightly packed, unravels what is knotted, and makes plain what is obscure. Immensely helpful and thoroughly enjoyable.”
Alistair Begg, Senior Pastor, Parkside Church, Chagrin Falls, Ohio
“The book of Job refuses superficial treatment of its deep agonies or easy answers to its hard questions. In this succinct study, Christopher Ash eschews both and instead draws us into the contours of this rich book with the keen mind of a scholar and the warm heart of a pastor. In a world full of suffering, we need Job. We need the pain-marked grappling; we need the faith-filled longing; and we need, ultimately, the Christ-centered hope. Ash helps us to find and feel these with tremendous skill and sensitivity, and we are indebted to him.”
Jonathan Griffiths, Lead Pastor, The Metropolitan Bible Church, Ottawa, Canada
“In a time weighed down by warring nations, a global pandemic, religious persecution, and broken relationships all around, Trusting God in the Darkness is more than a timely message. Christopher Ash is to be thanked for pulling our hearts back to the rich truths of Scripture in Job. I appreciate his pastoral reminder that our worship continues, even in the yawning gap between our expectations and experience. In my growing concern that the church has more welcome for Job’s friends than for Job, this book is a needed salve. Neither Job’s pain nor a good God should scandalize us anymore.”
Andrew J. Schmutzer, Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies, Moody Bible Institute; coauthor, Between Pain and Grace
“Think of Christopher Ash’s Trusting God in the Darkness as a handbook—a manual to take up in one hand—to be read at first straight through to begin grasping the crucial insights for daily life that the book of Job can convey to God’s people, and then to be read again one chapter at a time with a Bible in your other hand in order to learn what to look for in Job scene after scene. This book, like the book of Job itself, prompts us to lift our eyes from the world’s suffering and rest them on who God—the God of Jesus Christ—is. It is the finest short work on Job I have seen.”
Mark Talbot, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wheaton College; author, Suffering and the Christian Life series