Be on Your Guard for the Person who has all the Answer

 

Job 15:17-35

 

Today, as I read this Scripture many thoughts fill my very small thinker, first and foremost be very careful of the person who has all the answers.  Often they are full of themselves or very insecure.  We can bet the farm on this absolute that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.  In fact, it matters not how gifted or intelligent a person is, how much book learning, no one that is created thinks at the level of God, He has made that clear that His ways are higher than ours and His thoughts or higher than ours.  With that stated, let’s examine some parts of Eliphaz's long-winded proclamation to Job.

 

“I will show you; hear me, and what I have seen I will declare (what wise men have told,
 without hiding it from their fathers, to whom alone the land was given, and no stranger passed among them). The wicked man writhes in pain all his days, through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.  Dreadful sounds are in his ears; in prosperity, the destroyer will come upon him.” (Job 15:17-21)

 

First, it seems to me that’s not the way to address a man, woman, or child.  I’ve been guilty of doing so to my daughter when she was not paying attention to my desires for her when she was young.  Often Eliphaz comes across as one arrogant all-knowing man who seems to be acting as a spokesman for God.  It is stated in my study Bible that he is relying on traditional wisdom and experience.  I do believe Eliphaz had a box he designed to keep God in, and it is based on traditional wisdom, what he learned in his experience, and from those, he looked up to.  It seems at one time Job was one that he admired, and you and I must be careful of doing so to the point of seeing them as infallible.  Often we are not kind to our fallen heroes, those that disappoint us!

 

The English Standard Study Bible titles this chapter in this way, “Eliphaz accuses: Job does not fear God” and by stating such he is declaring Job a fool, who has no understanding of the ways of God.  He put Job in the mix of the wicked and states Job had no right to what God had blessed him with, that his home was excessive, and not only that he was wicked, God was bringing judgment on him.  That’s a Bob interpretation, not anything I read, so be very careful using it as a teaching.  It seems to me that Eliphaz was jealous of Job’s wealth, in the good times he had enjoyed telling people that he and Job were tight, but now all that has changed.  

 

One would be wise to take heart to the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:1-3, “Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure, you use it will be measured to you.  Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” 

 

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice