“The danger in all reading is that words be twisted into propaganda or reduced to information, mere tools and data. We silence the living voice and reduce words to what we can use for convenience and profit.” Eugene Peterson’s keen observation, found in his book entitled, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading (p.11), pretty well sums up the counsel of Job’s friends.
In my previous post, I observed that the role played by all three of Job’s buddies was that of the answer man, which, by the way, is prevalent in a lot of Bible teaching in our day. But the problem with answer-man theology is that scripture is meant to evoke in us as many questions as it does answers. We should be suspicious of any neatly packaged and easily understood theology. Seeking and searching, wrangling, and wrestling with God (His words and His ways) is the path that leads to wisdom and maturity in Christ.
Job’s friends demonstrated pretty decent Bible knowledge. The problem is they lacked wisdom. The reason they lacked wisdom is that they saw knowledge as something to capture, catalog, and regurgitate. And they regurgitated all over poor Job!
In my younger days as a pastor, I was a lot like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. I considered it my sacred responsibility to pour out just as much knowledge as I could in my teaching. I was certain that knowing what the Bible taught was enough to lead my hearers to the life God had planned for them. But knowledge is not wisdom. Knowledge can be gained in the classroom or pew. Wisdom is born in the crucible of life as we, like Job, cry out to God in our questions, pain, and yes, even our doubts.
Job experienced a hell-on-earth kind of suffering. Most of us will never suffer nearly as much. Some of us will suffer as much or more. But at the end of it all, Job is able to say, My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
True knowledge, the knowledge that leads to wisdom, comes to those who do more than seek simple answers to life’s most demanding questions. The questions may not lead us to all the answers, but they will move us further down the road to wisdom.
In Christ,
Dan
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