Very Sure & Very Wrong

A theology that lacks compassion is a theology incomplete.

We’re into a third cycle of speeches and responses between Job and his friends. It’s really broken down now. Bildad gives a short, final theological conclusion about the difference between God’s greatness and humanity’s pathetic puniness. In a sense, Bildad is not exactly wrong. But it’s like someone asked him, “What color is the sun?” and he responds with, “Well, grass is green.”

Job’s response points it out with thick sarcasm.

“Thanks for the theology lesson. You’re SO helpful.”

But then Job launches into an extended description of God that actually sounds like a mediation between what he will soon hear directly from God about his sovereign nature¹ and much of what his friends have been saying all along about the wicked.

Job never denies that the unrighteous are wicked.
Job never denies that God is sovereign and all-powerful.
Job consistently states his case as that which lies between being innocent and experiencing suffering.

Jesus’ teaching on the plain continues with strong words about judgment. Though he’s clear to say that we shouldn’t judge, he is also saying why. The things we do shape the people that we are and how we receive what happens to us. If you judge, you will feel the judgment. If we forgive, we will receive forgiveness. He goes on to say that if we really in deed want to sincerely help those around us, we will need to first help ourselves.

That is exactly where Job’s friends fail. They are eager to diagnose Job’s condition but unwilling to examine their own assumptions. Their theology may contain truths about God’s greatness and the reality of wickedness, but they wield those truths like tools of judgment rather than instruments of mercy. Jesus’ words on the plain are a warning to people like them: before trying to remove the speck from another’s eye, consider the plank in your own. Job’s friends never quite do that. They are so certain of their system that they cannot see the suffering man in front of them. In that sense, Jesus’ teaching does not just address ordinary moral behavior; it exposes the very mistake Job’s friends keep making: confusing confident theology with compassionate wisdom.

Luke 6:37-42

“Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good portion—packed down, firmly shaken, and overflowing—will fall into your lap. The portion you give will determine the portion you receive in return.”

Jesus also told them a riddle. “A blind person can’t lead another blind person, right? Won’t they both fall into a ditch? Disciples aren’t greater than their teacher, but whoever is fully prepared will be like their teacher. Why do you see the splinter in your brother’s or sister’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother or sister, ‘Brother, Sister, let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ when you don’t see the log in your own eye? You deceive yourselves! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s or sister’s eye.

Job 25-27

Bildad from Shuah replied:

Supreme power and awe belong to God;
he establishes peace on his heights.
Can his troops be counted?
On whom does his light not rise?
How can a person be innocent before God;
one born of a woman be pure?
If even the moon is not bright
and the stars not pure in his eyes,
how much less a human, a worm,
a person’s child, a grub.

Then Job said:

How well you have helped the weak,
saved those with frail arms,
advised one lacking wisdom,
informed many with insight!
With whom have you spoken;
whose breath was expelled from you?

The dead writhe, the inhabitants beneath the waters as well.
The grave is naked before God; the underworld lacks covering.
He stretched the North over chaos, hung earth over nothing;
wrapped up water in his clouds, yet they didn’t burst out below;
hid the face of the full moon, spreading his cloud over it;
traced a circle on the water’s surface,
at the limit of light and darkness.
Heaven’s pillars shook, terrified by his blast.
By his power he stilled the Sea;
split Rahab with his cleverness.
Due to his wind, heaven became clear;
his hand split the fleeing serpent.
Look, these are only the outer fringe of his ways;
we hear only a whispered word about him.
Who can understand his thunderous power?

Then Job took up his topic again:

As God lives, who rejected my legal claim,
the Almighty, who made me bitter,
as long as breath is in me
and God’s breath is in my nostrils—
my lips will utter no wickedness;
my tongue will mumble no deceit.
I will not agree that you are right.
Until my dying day, I won’t give up my integrity.
I will insist on my innocence, never surrendering it;
my conscience will never blame me for what I have done.

Let my enemy be like the wicked, my opposition like the vicious.
For what hope has the godless when God cuts them off,
when he takes them away.
Will God hear their cries when distress comes to them;
will they delight in the Almighty, call God at any time?

I will teach you God’s power,
not hide what pertains to the Almighty.
Look, those of you who recognize this—
why then this empty talk?
This is the wicked’s portion with God,
the inheritance that the ruthless receive from the Almighty.
If their children increase, they belong to the sword;
their offspring won’t have enough bread.
Their survivors will be buried with the dead;
their widows won’t weep.
If they store up silver like dust, amass clothing like clay,
they may amass, but the righteous will wear it;
the innocent will divide the silver.
They built their houses like nests,
like a hut made by a watchman.
They lie down rich, but no longer;
open their eyes, but it’s missing.
Terrors overtake them like waters;
a tempest snatches them by night;
an east wind lifts them, and they are gone,
removes them from their places,
throws itself on them without mercy;
they flee desperately from its force.
It claps its hands over them,
hisses at them from their place.

Prayer

God,

You know better than anyone that I’ve been through a time of ego-checking. Maybe I was Job’s friends for a long time. Not that I held their theological convictions (ugh, ick, yuck). But I’m sure that my efforts to help others lacked significant understanding, empathy, and shared experience.

It’s not that I’d want to invite the things of these last months into anyone’s life. Not at all. But my prayer this morning is that you would indeed help me learn from these things for the better response to others.

Goodness, what am I saying? Even this prayer is drifting toward fixing others before hearing what Jesus says first.

Help me, Lord. Help me, by your grace and power, to receive the help I myself need. This is new territory for me, in my privileged, previously immune life. I am a weakling. An unscarred blob of soft tissue.

But I want to be formed and shaped by your grace that strengthens. I’ve usually thought grace softens - and it does - but now I’m seeking your grace that forms healing over scars. I don’t know, maybe the wounds aren’t even finished yet.

So whatever I need, Lord, I allow you to diagnose and prescribe for it. So help me, God.

In the meantime, I’m a husband, parent, son, pastor, and administrator. Give me wisdom for what must be done today and tomorrow.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.

1. There is something that appears again in this response from Job that might be confusing. In biblical poetry, Rahab is not referring to the woman who helped the Israelite spies in Joshua. Rahab is the name of a mythic sea monster associated with chaos, similar to Leviathan. It represents forces of creation that humans cannot control.