Trusting God in the Darkness: A Guide to Understanding the Book of Job

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”