Tag Archives: Eliphaz

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The Two Core Questions

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The Two Core Questions (CaD Job 15) – Wayfarer

What do you know that we do not know?
    What insights do you have that we do not have?
Job 15:9 (NIV)

Every morning when I peruse the news of the day, I observe corruption and deceit in the halls of human power brokers. Powerful and wealthy individuals rig systems for their personal gain of more power and wealth, then use their power to escape being investigated or justly held accountable. They make laws, regulations, and rules for the masses that they shamelessly break themselves. This is the way the world works, and it happens on both sides of the proverbial political aisle as well as in the c-suites of business and the not-so-hallowed halls of religion.

I share this rather cynical observation in response to today’s chapter, in which we begin a second round of discourses from Job’s three friends. Eli once again leads off and he chastises Job for questioning God or the suffering he is enduring. When Eli rhetorically asks Job, “What do you know that we do not know? What insights do you have that we do not have?” My spirit rushed to Job’s defense.

Suffering, Eli. Job knows suffering on a level you can’t even fathom. Turn and look at his emaciated body covered in festering sores. Have you suffered like this ever in your life, Eli? When did all of your children die in one day? Maybe cut your friend a little slack. You accuse Job of pride and lack of piety, but it’s you, Eli, who appear to lack humility, gentleness, and kindness in my eyes.

Eli goes on to basically repeat himself from his first discourse. He is stuck on one side of the Santa Clause: the wicked always suffer so Job must, therefore, be wicked in some way to be suffering this fate.

I don’t know what life was like in Job and Eli’s day, but in today’s world the wicked don’t always suffer. Perhaps there is negative spiritual, relational, and mental consequences of their sins, but I can point to plenty of examples of people who have done quite well in their wickedness from and earthly perspective. They certainly don’t suffer anything like what Job is experiencing.

One of the commentaries I read this morning observed that as long as Eli is myopically focused on his insistence that the wicked suffer God’s wrath, he avoids having to address Job’s core argument: sometimes the innocent suffer unjustly.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself pondering the two core questions that the story of Job has presented to humans for thousands of years. Why is it that sometimes the innocent suffer unjustly? Why is it that sometimes the wicked prosper unjustly? To deny the truth behind either question, as Eli does, one must put on mental blinders and ignore a host of examples from the daily headlines and all of human history.

I refuse to wear those blinders. I prefer to wrestle with the questions. I prefer to gently and kindly empathize with those who unjustly suffer. I prefer to stand and cry out for justice for the wicked who use their wealth and power to gain more wealth and power so as to escape accountability for their wickedness.

At the same time, I embrace the spiritual reality that Jesus taught. Being His obedient disciple does not exempt me from suffering, nor does it assure me of prosperity. Being an obedient disciple of Jesus teaches me to be content with my earthly circumstances and focus myself on those things that matter eternally. Paul listed them: faith, hope, and love. The most important being love.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Will the Real Scrooge Please Stand Up?

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Scrooge's third visitor, from Charles Dickens:...
Scrooge’s third visitor, from Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. With Illustrations by John Leech. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843. First edition. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Is not your wickedness great?
Are not your sins endless?”
Job 22:5 (NIV)

Along my life’s journey I have bumped into a few individuals who seem convinced that they hold the office of Special Prosecutor of the Almighty. Their mission, it appears, is to charge me (and others, to be sure) with my many sins and shortcomings. Job’s so-called friend, Eliphaz, now reveals himself to be one of these junior prosecutors.

In today’s chapter, Eli’s argument takes a decidedly prosecutorial bent. Not only is Eli convinced that Job is suffering for his many sins, he is now going to write an indictment and list the specific sins that surely must have precipitated such divine retribution as Job is clearly suffering. With Special Prosecutor Eliphaz, justice works in reverse. He first looks upon what he deems to be divine punishment and then decides what laws must have been broken to deserve such a sentence. Eliphaz comes up with quite a list. In fact, as I read it on this chilly December morning it sounds a lot like Ebenezer Scrooge:

“You demanded security from your relatives for no reason;
    you stripped people of their clothing, leaving them naked.
You gave no water to the weary
    and you withheld food from the hungry,
though you were a powerful man, owning land—
    an honored man, living on it.
And you sent widows away empty-handed
    and broke the strength of the fatherless.”

Bah. Humbug. It seems to me that Eliphaz reveals himself to be the one being miserly with wisdom, love and compassion.

Here are three problems I have with individuals like Eliphaz who wish to indict me of all my sins and shortcomings:

  1. Believe me, it is not necessary for anyone to convince me of my failures. I know them all too well.
  2. At least half (probably more) of the things you charge me with are simply not true.
  3. You don’t know nearly half of the things of which I am truly guilty.

Jesus was pretty adamant that “special prosecutor” was not part of the job description for those who wish to follow him. Love is at the top of the list. Forgiveness is up there too, along with compassion and kindness. We’re supposed to lift up those who are down, not stand over them and convince them why they fell.

Chapter-a-Day

No Friend of Mine

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friends notMy relatives have gone away;
    my closest friends have forgotten me.
Job 19:14 (NIV)

Job’s frustration with his three ash heap companions is growing. I had to laugh when I came across Job’s statement “my closest friends have forgotten me.” What about the three friends who have sitting there with him and having this conversation? So, what was Job’s intention with this comment?

He could be implying that after hearing their words and arguments the three compatriots are no longer considered close friends. After spewing their self-centered diatribes of judgement, Job finally sees their hearts and motives with clarity. He recognizes that they are really not his friends. Their status has been lowered.

Job might also be making the point that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar have never been considered close friends. If true, then it tells me something about the three of them. The three amigos feel some self-righteous compulsion to visit a suffering man they hardly even know and convict him of his sin. As the old saying goes, “with friends like that, you’ll never need enemies.”

Either way, we continue to see that Job feels increasingly distant from his companions. He claims that even if they were correct that he harbored some secret sin, it was none of their business:

If it is true that I have gone astray,
    my error remains my concern alone.

I see a foreshadowing of the showdown to come between Job and God.

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I Wonder if Love Isn’t the Best Defense

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Superman Band-AidOh, how I wish that God would speak,
that he would open his lips against you
and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom,
for true wisdom has two sides.
Job 11:5-6a (NIV)

I remember a young man with whom I went to school. It was the 1980s. While most of us were accenting our permed mullets with parachute pants and Forenza sweaters as we carried our Jansport backpacks to class, this well cropped young man was wearing a three piece suit and carrying his Samsonite briefcase. He was a firebrand. Always speaking from a well entrenched position of know-it-all-ness, he seemed to have assumed the role of God’s attorney. His truth was God’s truth and he was ready to make his case whether you wanted to hear it or not.

I thought of my classmate this morning as I read the treatise of Job’s third friend, Zophar, who finally speaks up. He’s heard Eliphaz and Bildad have a go at Job, and he’s heard Job’s responses. Zo’s soliloquy starts off like a boiling pot blowing its top. Zo seems to feel the need to defend God from Job’s word. Like my friend from school, he takes on the role of God’s attorney, speaking on behalf of the Almighty.

What I find most interesting in Zophar’s message is that he is at once chastising Job for assuming he knows the mind of God and making the same assumptions about Job. Like his other two amigos, Zo speaks from an assumptive position of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Job has done something sinful to deserve God’s wrath and punishment.

I have to be honest. When I ponder Job’s friends, I not only think of my briefcase toting friend, but I also see shades of myself 30 years ago. The further I get in my own personal life journey the less passionate I feel about defending God with my words and the more passionate I feel about simply representing Him with my loving actions. Zophar asks Job if he thinks he can fathom the mysteries of God, and I am increasingly comfortable with the fact that I cannot.

This morning, I’m thinking about what I would do or say if I were one of Job’s friends, sitting with my buddy on the ash heap. The truth is, I’m not sure I would try to make sense of it. I would tell Job I love him. I’d admit that I don’t get it either, and I would apologize that I don’t have any answers. Then, I’d ask if there’s anything I can get him to ease his suffering. A cup of cold water, perhaps. Some Superman Band-Aids for those sores? Maybe telling a bad joke or two in an effort to coax a smile. It still falls short of meeting the depth of Job’s need, but I feel like it comes closer than what I’ve seen from Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.

Chapter-a-Day

The Self Centric View of Blessing and Curses

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source: 61056899@N06 via Flickr
source: 61056899@N06 via Flickr

“Blessed is the one whom God corrects;
    so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.”
Job 5:17 (NIV)

As a child I remember seeing life in very simplistic terms. Life circumstances, I believed, stemmed from God’s approval or disapproval of me and my actions. When the Minnesota Vikings lost the Super Bowl each year (They were in four of them during my childhood), the loss could surely be pinned on a curse that was rooted in some wrong I had committed which resulted in God punishing me. If that cute girl I had a crush on just happened to walk down my street as I had desperately wished for her to pass by, then the granting of my wish must have been a sure sign I must be in good standing with my genie-like Almighty.

When I grew up and matured in my understanding, I realized that this simplistic view of suffering and blessing was not only misguided, but completely entirely self-centered. The outcome of the Super Bowl was dependent on me and my spiritual ledger sheet with God?Wow. That’s a lot of weight on the shoulders of a nine year old. Yet that’s what I believed. Each day’s good and bad events were dependent on these big spiritual scales next to God’s throne which constantly weighed my thoughts, words and actions. When the scale tipped towards good then good things happened. When the scale tipped towards bad, then I was in for a really bad day.

In today’s chapter, Job’s friend Eliphaz continues to give the suffering Job a piece of his mind. Eli’s words reveal his core belief, which aligns nicely with my childish, self-centric world view: Suffering is a clear sign of God’s punishment. His counsel for Job streams from the source of that core belief. To Eli, it is very simple. If you do good, then you’ll have abundant blessings that reveal your good standing with God to the world. If you do bad, then you’ll find yourself suffering like you are right now. The conclusion of the matter is simple: repent of whatever it is you did wrong, confess your wrong to God, and God will have compassion and ease your suffering.

My experiences along life’s road and my long sojourn through God’s Message has continued to reveal to me how incongruent this type of thinking is with the heart of God that I find revealed in God’s story. Suffering is not necessarily punishment from the Almighty, but this fallen world’s spiritual proving ground in which eternal character qualities of perseverance, maturity, wisdom, humility, and fortitude are forged. Jesus said to prepare ourselves for suffering, not to be surprised when it happens, and to embrace it when it does. Likewise, material blessing is not necessarily a sure sign of God’s favor, but may very well be a spiritual snare. What we commonly esteem as God’s blessing or favor may simply be the result of wise life and financial choices, but it can also be the result of deep seeded greed and heinous corruption. In fact, Jesus was quick to point out that material “blessing” is a common spiritual stumbling block and repeatedly told us to be wary – even shunning it if it’s getting in the way of our spiritual progress.

 

Chapter-a-Day

Unconditional Love for Irreconcilable Suffering

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job-and-eliphaz2“Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?
    Where were the upright ever destroyed?
As I have observed, those who plow evil
    and those who sow trouble reap it.
Job 4:7-8 (NIV)

When I was young, I began to notice that men and women have very different sub-textual conversations. I became fascinated with a phenomenon I observed in my female friends. I would be in a social setting with a female when another female enters the room. My friend would suddenly turn and whisper some critical remark about the stranger. A few probing questions led me to the realization that within a nano-second my female companion had sized up the female who just entered the room and had filled out a complete mental dossier on her competition. She knew what the other female was wearing, her socio-economic status, what kind of person she was, and exactly where she was to be filed in the categorized file cabinet of her brain. The hi-speed, interpersonal judge, jury, and executioner from across the crowded room.

Along the journey I have continued to observe this non-verbal social world of women. I have, after all, spent much of my life in an estrogen wonderland surrounded by females. I find it fascinating. (Personal Note: I realize that I’m making a broad generalization here. I’m not picking on women. Men have similar unspoken judgments, but in my experience it just looks and behaves differently. That’s another blog post for another day.)

As Wendy and I were in the depths of our journey through infertility, I became aware of just how deep and strong women’s thoughts and core beliefs around pregnancy and motherhood can run. In this unspoken, invisible world of non-verbal female communication there exists a sub-culture in which fertility is spiritual currency. If you are a woman who gets pregnant at the drop of a hat and cranks out multiple children in succession, then you are a female all-star, blessed and living right. If you are a woman struggling to conceive then there are some serious question marks surrounding you and this curse you are experiencing. There must be some reason God is withholding this fundamental female blessing from you.

In yesterday’s chapter we left Job and his three friends on the ash heap. For seven days the four of them sat in silence when Job finally opened his mouth to speak. What poured out what was a highly emotional rant of despair that you might have expected from a man who had lost his children, his workforce, his wealth, and his livelihood before breaking out in painful sores all over his body.

Today, the first of his three friends opens his mouth to speak. His name is Eliphaz, and he comes from the ultra-religious wing of society for whom life is very simple. Everything in life fits neatly into their black and white box and it parallels the thinking I’ve observed around fertility in certain subsets of the female population. If you are visibly prospering you must be living upright and piously because God is blessing you. If you are visibly suffering then you must have done something to deserve God’s punishment. Plain and simple.

Too simple. Eliphaz asks, “Who, being innocent ever perished?” Stop right there, Eli. Let me give you a short list off the top of my head:

  • Still born and miscarried children
  • The millions who were marched into the Nazi gas chambers
  • Millions of civilian war victims throughout history
  • The journalists who were beheaded on video by ISIS to make a point
  • The Christian couple I read about in Pakistan who just last week were beaten to death by the Muslims in their village.
  • My friend who was hit by a drunk driver
  • My friends and loved ones whose lives were cut short by incurable diseases

Job has suffered incredible tragedy and the first thing he hears from his friend is a backhanded accusation that he must have done something to bring down God’s wrath upon himself. Eli’s words reveal his heart. He is less concerned with showing love, empathy, and compassion to his friend, and more concerned with trying to reconcile what he’s witnessed with the rose-colored glasses through which he sees a simple black and white world.

Today, I am thinking about those who suffer around me in ways I can’t comprehend. I am determined that I do not want to be a friend like Eliphaz. Trying to reconcile irreconcilable suffering within my personal world-view is less important than simply loving a suffering friend without reservation or judgment.