FAY ROWE

I read a blog today that talked about a conclusion Job came to when everything he had, except his wife and a few friends, were gone. Here's what the writer said Job relied on: "He knows the way that I take" (Job 23:10). 

     That, for sure, was true. We find evidence of that truth in many places in scripture. God is never taken off guard by what shows up on our path. Not only does he know where we are, he also is where we are!

      He's there, holding in his hands everything that pertains to our life and godliness - our destiny - and everything that meets the need of the day. (Read Psalm 23)

     But, here's the problem: there is a view of Job that says he said and did everything right during his tests and trials, and that his friends were all wrong in what they said. This perspective of the book of Job is problematic, because it's dangerous to believe everything Job said about God if, in fact, he was wrong in some things he said!

     If we read the whole book, keeping an eye out for who is talking and who is responding to what, we find out that Job and his three friends said a few things that were true and a few things that weren't. But one thing is clear: the positions all four held on Job's situation were warped.

     Job's three friends held that Job had sinned and was being punished.   

     "Repent, Job! Things will get better!" they said.

     Job's position was that he had nothing to repent for - he had not sinned. He was righteous, he insisted, and "my foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept and not declined. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary bread" (Job 23:11-12). 

     Now that may indeed have been true, but his conclusion from this was that since all this trouble has come to him, it doesn't do anyone any good to live that way!

     The young one of the group, Elihu, was upset with all four of them. His wrath was kindled, it says, against the three friends because they found no answer and still condemned Job, and against Job because his discourse was mostly about how righteous he was and he had, in fact, attempted to justify himself and not God. Job probably didn't think he was justifying himself, and I'm not sure that I agree with Elihu on this. But, actually, God later does say that Job was contending with him (Job 40:1-2).

     And, if you'll notice, Elihu didn't get rebuked by God. (I heard one person say it was because as a youth, what he said was unimportant, not even worthy of rebuke! Sigh)

     What is noteworthy is that Elihu wasn't the only one who said Job was speaking words without knowledge and wisdom!  When God arrives on the scene he says, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?" 

     Lest you think God was referring to Elihu, and therein giving him a hefty rebuke, we later find Job himself owning up  to God, repeating the question before he does,"Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not....I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye seeth thee" (Job 42:3,5).

     My caution is this: when reading Job, make sure that what you accept from either him or his friends is corroborated  by others in scripture who knew whereof they spoke, because Job, in his latter end, had a very different relationship with God - and a very different. opinion of God - than he had at the beginning.

     And so did his friends.