Bear With Them - Job 20-21

Job 21:1-3 (ESV)
Job Replies: The Wicked Do Prosper
Then Job answered and said:
“Keep listening to my words,
and let this be your comfort.
Bear with me, and I will speak,
and after I have spoken, mock on.

Have you ever tried to counsel someone?  In the Christian walk we are actually called to be counselors to other brothers and sisters in Christ.  Yes, we have abrogated that responsibility to professional counselors and to even the world of professional psychology.  More and more churches are hiring “professionals” to do the work that pastors, elders, deacons and church members did.  Perhaps the story of Job is one reason.   Job’s three friends (Zophar, Bildad and Eliphaz) have, supposedly, come to comfort him (read again Job 2:11).  In fact, they seemed to have come from a long way.  When they first saw him they sat in silence.   That didn’t last long.  They have, up to this point, dropped the pretense that they were there to comfort Job. In stead Job feels as though they have only “mocked” him.   In the above passage he once to say something to them and then he fully expects them to go on and on with their words of condemnation not their words of comfort.    The struggle with counseling others (whether professionally or simply as a friend and fellow believer) is that we often look for the results we deem necessary that match the counsel we give others.   We fail to understand the human thought of mind.  We can give someone great truth, but their application of that truth might look incredibly different than what we think.   Job’s three friends, as has been repeated multiple times in these journal entries, do not have bad doctrine.   But, their doctrine is not applied in the correct way, as Job does not fit their stereotype.   Job is suffering out of innocence and they are counseling with the premise of guild and wickedness.   Job is not wicked.  They think he is.  Counseling is not to be started with a premise other than God is the answer. If you counsel starting with a premise, you will soon lose your path.  Job asks them to “bear” with him.  The word is used in two different ways in the Old Testament.  It can mean to “bear” as an ox bears the yoke.  That would mean that Job wants them to put up with him.   But, it can also mean to support someone, or carry something or someone.  In that case Job is asking them to support him.  Maybe Job meant both.   In counseling that often happens.  We have to “put up” with the person we are counseling, but we also have to “support” the person we are counseling.   That seems to be the story with Job.  The problem is that he three friends are not doing either of these things.  They are just condemning him because they have to prove their original bias.