In this twelve session LifeGuide® Bible Study, Paul Stevens helps you dig for the answers to the question "Why do faithful people suffer?"

Filled with stories and anecdotes collected over a long and fascinating wrestling career, this autobiography offers a rare, inside look into a popular sport by someone who was there. Chris Curtis was a "job man," a specially-trained worker hired to put a main event wrestler like Jake "The Snake" Roberts or Jerry "The King" Lawler "over." Curtis's ring persona was that of a "heel" (the bad guy), who bent the rules, cheated, and did everything he could to defeat his "baby face" (the good guy) opponent. Before he turned pro, Curtis wrestled Victor, a 600-lb black bear, in front of 6,000 people at the Milwaukee Sentinel Sports Show in 1978. He learned how to be a job man at the old Federation Hall on Milwaukee's south side. He began taping matches for the All-Star Wrestling television show less than a year later. Curtis began wrestling for Minneapolis-based promoter Verne Gagne in 1979. He also worked for "Cowboy" Bill Watts in the Mississippi and Louisiana territories, and for Vince McMahon Jr.'s World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) out of New York City. He's suffered broken hands, cracked ribs, bruised kidneys, dislocated knees and several concussions in his chosen profession, all without regret.

The unique richness of the book of Job cannot be simply explained—it must be experienced. In this collaboration between pastor father and scholar son Bill and Will Kynes, you will find exposition, spiritual application, and a deeper look at the thornier aspects of the text, equipping you to consider how you too might practice defiant faith.

Richard Rohr, internationally known retreat leader, speaker and writer, plumbs the depths of the Job's story and its relevance for us today. Rohr strips Christian faith down to the essentials, beyond glib answers and a "hand-me-down" experience of God, and points the way to true knowing. In this invigorating exploration, the tension between suffering and faith becomes a powerful means to an authentic, open connection with the divine.

Ash explores the lonely and cruel nature of suffering and whether or not God can be found in the midst of it. He exposes the shortcomings of Job's friends, and takes the reader through Job's long debate with God towards a humbling--and hopeful--resolution. (Biblical Studies)

Four noted wrestling writers discuss the life and death of Chris Benoit, a Canadian professional wrestler who became one of the most popular athletes in professional wrestling before committing a double-murder suicide in 2007.

"On the basis of a study of "east wind" in the Bible -- "whirlwind" in Job -- Janzen proposes that the prominence God gives to rain in Job 38, with its renewal of the parched earth and the ensuing vigor of all forms of life, signals God's response to Job's thirst, heals Job's bitterness, and restores him to a life at the end of which he dies contented. Janzen demonstrates how life-crippling bitterness is transcended and hope in life's worthwhileness is restored in the face of grievous evil. The resolution of the Joban question lies not in a vindication of divine justice but, rather, in God's renewal of Job's appetite for life. Janzen underscores this interpretation with a candid epilogue on his own struggle with aggressive prostate cancer, which enabled him to connect personally with Job's story and to find a fresh and illuminating grace."--From publisher description.

One of this century's most eminent theologians addresses the eternal questions of the relationship of good and evil, linking the story of Job to the lives of the poor and oppressed of our world.

In his own words, Bret Hart’s honest, perceptive, startling account of his life in and out of the pro wrestling ring. The sixth-born son of the pro wrestling dynasty founded by Stu Hart and his elegant wife, Helen, Bret Hart is a Canadian icon. As a teenager, he could have been an amateur wrestling Olympic contender, but instead he turned to the family business, climbing into the ring for his dad’s western circuit, Stampede Wrestling. From his early twenties until he retired at 43, Hart kept an audio diary, recording stories of the wrestling life, the relentless travel, the practical jokes, the sex and drugs, and the real rivalries (as opposed to the staged ones). The result is an intimate, no-holds-barred account that will keep readers, not just wrestling fans, riveted. Hart achieved superstardom in pink tights, and won multiple wrestling belts in multiple territories, for both the WWF (now the WWE) and WCW. But he also paid the price in betrayals (most famously by Vince McMahon, a man he had served loyally); in tragic deaths, including the loss of his brother Owen, who died when a stunt went terribly wrong; and in his own massive stroke, most likely resulting from a concussion he received in the ring, and from which, with the spirit of a true champion, he has battled back. Widely considered by his peers as one of the business’s best technicians and workers, Hart describes pro wrestling as part dancing, part acting, and part dangerous physical pursuit. He is proud that in all his years in the ring he never seriously hurt a single wrestler, yet did his utmost to deliver to his fans an experience as credible as it was exciting. He also records the incredible toll the business takes on its workhorses: he estimates that twenty or more of the wrestlers he was regularly matched with have died young, weakened by their own coping mechanisms, namely drugs, alcohol, and steroids. That toll included his own brother-in-law, Davey Boy Smith. No one has ever written about wrestling like Bret Hart. No one has ever lived a life like Bret Hart’s. For as long as I can remember, my world was filled with liars and bullshitters, losers and pretenders, but I also saw the good side of pro wrestling. To me there is something bordering on beautiful about a brotherhood of big tough men who pretended to hurt one another for a living instead of actually doing it. Any idiot can hurt someone. —from Hitman

Just as there was no man on earth like Job, there is no book on earth like the book of Job. In this new commentary, biblical scholar Michael Brown brings Job to life for the twenty-first-century reader, exploring the raw spirituality of Job, his extraordinary faith, his friends’ theological errors, the mysteries of God’s speeches, and the unique answers to the problem of suffering offered in the book of Job. Undergirded by solid Hebrew scholarship but written with clarity for all serious students of Scripture, the commentary provides an important introduction to the study of Job, a new translation, a series of theological reflections, and additional exegetical essays providing in-depth discussion of key passages. Additional topics covered in the theological reflections include the following: Challenging God as an Act of Faith How Would Job Comfort a Sufferer? Who Was the Satan? Job and Jesus Job and the New Atheists