August 2024

I have a friend who has the habit of starting his sentences with, “Let me tell you something…” It irritates the living daylights out of me. Because he makes it sound as if he has the answer to everyone’s questions. But, to be honest, it irritates me because I don’t like being told what to do. This is the feeling I get while reading and rereading the conversations in the Book of Job. It all […]

It’s not as though Job had any insight into the “behind-the-scenes” conversation (in Job 1-2) where Satan negotiated with God. Job was crushed by life. (Or was it perhaps by God?) When we look around, we see this daily. If only we could understand why God allows everything to happen. Perhaps the only conclusion is the one the poet, Adam Small, reaches: “The Lord threw the dice, and they fell wrong.” We easily say, “Life

The Book of Job is known as wisdom literature, primarily consisting of poetic texts. The challenge with this genre is that each verse, while beautiful, cannot be viewed in isolation. Consider Job’s friends who insist that he must confess his sins. Could we not use each of those verses to create the most delightful sermons, along with texts like 1 John 1:8-10? “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves…” None of us

If Job sought a clear answer from Elihu on why he had to endure so much suffering, he wouldn’t find it there. Elihu essentially repeats what the older friend, Eliphaz, already said in Job 5:17-18: “Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For He wounds, but He also binds up; He injures, but His hands also heal.” This sounds almost like the familiar words in Hebrews

Step back for a moment and let us first reconsider what Job’s friends had to say in response to his suffering. Clearly, Job (or his children) must have done something terribly wrong in the eyes of the Lord—knowingly or unknowingly! And each time, Job’s response remained the same: “Tell me where I have gone wrong” (6:24). For Job, the conclusion becomes obvious: “It’s all the same really… whether a person is guilty or innocent, God

Fair-weather friends; we all have plenty of those. We’ve also had enough come-and-go friends. Of course, there are those who always make you feel good. But may each of us have that one special friend who is willing to make us aware of our wayward paths—even when we don’t want to hear it. Those who love us so much that they refuse to turn a blind eye to our faults. Elihu was such a friend.

The Bible is a dangerous book. Or perhaps I should say, the Bible in the wrong hands is a dangerous book. Why would I think of that now? The friends of Job make me think of it. Their wisdom is sometimes so poetically beautiful. If you underline all the “beautiful” verses, you could really find a handful of gems in their conversations with Job. The problem is that one can quote individual verses entirely out

The second friend who tried to “instill insight” into Job’s mind was Bildad. While Eliphaz was still somewhat subtle in implying that Job was at fault, Bildad is not diplomatic at all. The fact that your children are dead, Job, is the result of their own sinful actions (Job 8:4). Wow! But it gets worse: where Job saw himself as innocent, Bildad outrightly declares him guilty. Even though both Job 1 and 2 teach that

“What is man that You exalt him, that You pay attention to him?” (Job 7:17) These words of Job sound so familiar! They remind us of the beautiful Psalm 8, where David (centuries later) begins and ends his song of praise with these words: “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth” (v2, 10). Jubilantly, David looks at the life around him and is joyfully astonished that God is concerned with

Satan has disappeared from the scene. Three new names appear on the stage: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They come from afar to comfort their friend, but how do you comfort someone when the pain is too heavy? For seven days, they sit with Job, silent (Job 2:11-13). And then Job begins (in Chapter 3): Why? Why? Six times: why? Life has lost all meaning for him! Don’t you also want to cry when you read