Job 5 – 6
Job’s afflictions are now being scrutinized by his friends. In verse 5:1 Eliphaz chimes in:
Eliphaz: As for you, Job, feel free to call, but will anyone reply?
Among His holy attendants, to whom will you turn?
The problem with his friends is they make assumptions based on teachings and experience, ignoring the root cause.Job is a good man is being tormented by Satan and not because of transgressions. I know I think like Eliphaz more often than not. When things are down, I wonder if I was praying the right prayer, or if I did something wrong. The economy crashed in 2007 and by 2010 our shop closed. We were provided for with a job and survived. I question if we would have thrived if I had not followed God. Now that is foolish since God would not punish the entire nation/world because my lack of faith bought lottery tickets.
Or should I say misplaced faith assuming God was going to give me a lottery win. Either way it may have just been a consequence of everyone spending more than they made and not “driven” by God at all. One thing that Eliphaz assumes is all “bad” things are punishment from God. I tend to think God has a more hands off approach, where we reap the consequences more than receive God’s wrath. Spend more than you make and eventually someone will fail, either the banks loaning the money or the people over burdened by debt. In the most recent case, it was both!!
Verse 5:17 is something to remember when we are “corrected”:
Remember, a happy man accepts God’s correction,
so don’t despise the discipline of the Highest God.
Honestly don’t despise the discipline of any one, when justified. The only time in my life I received “discipline” I did not deserve was in 1st grade in Arizona. We had a substitute and everyone decided to sit in different seats, but did not tell me. Well I am standing before my seat and could not compute the person sitting in it, so I waited for them to move. The substitute assumed I was the cause and set me to the principal’s office. I was only doing what I was told, yet someone was in MY SEAT!! It’s been almost 50 years and that still bothers me!!
Now Eliphaz is a man of strong beliefs and convictions guided by his ancestors who made it seem that all bad things were punishment for sin. That is the bias for his comments and unfortunately is not changed by Job’s response. Verse 6:15 has Job calling his friends out:
But you, my brothers, are unpredictable
like an unexpected flood of the wadi that quickly rises and then falls,
They latch on to something that they observed or learned in the past and do not open their minds to something different. Ironically this ties into the discussion this week on YouTube with a M.R. about evolution. Both of use perceive the other as being this way. I keep questioning the data and he keeps saying the same thing. That is not rooted in fact and since the “data” is so convoluted and difficult to understand for the “layperson”, he assume mine is blind faith in God. Rather I have discovered a ton of this on my own research and understand the “data” … he has gotten into my head!! I pray I have gotten in his!! Key today is be open and not rooted in your beliefs. Do not drift from the word, but understand it fully and not compartmentalized.