Counsel In Context - Job 3-5

Job 4:17-21 (ESV)

‘Can mortal man be in the right before God?

Can a man be pure before his Maker?

Even in his servants he puts no trust,

and his angels he charges with error;

how much more those who dwell in houses of clay,

whose foundation is in the dust,

who are crushed like the moth.

Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces;

they perish forever without anyone regarding it.

Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them,

do they not die, and that without wisdom?’

You can’t read Job without reading one of the first verses and reading one of the last:  

Job 1:8 (ESV)   And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”    

Job 42:1-2 (ESV) Then Job answered the LORD and said: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Job is being tested by Satan to prove God wrong.  God boast about Job and Satan wants to thwart Job’s character and conduct.   Although he does destroy all that Job has, he does not, in the end, succeed.  But along the way he certainly did try. 

In the above passage one of Job’s first friends comes to Job to critique how Job is handling this mess.  Eliphaz and his friends have no space in their heads about innocent suffering.  Job is of course, not innocent, which is Eliphaz’s point in the above passage.  No one is right before God.  Eliphaz reminds Job that he is easily beaten to pieces.  But, as the verse in chapter one states, Job was a righteous man.  

Eliphaz does rightly characterized Job’s plight as a tent-cord plucked up as if blown by the wind. Imagine a tent in a hurricane.  That is an apt picture of Job’s plight.   But Eliphaz, like his friends, is not helping the situation.   He is not there to walk beside Job, he is there their to point out the reason for Job’s demise.  Yet, God already said that Job was righteous.  The struggle we face when when we counsel people who are hurting, is that we don’t have the context for what God is doing.  God is, in reality, doing a work beyond the mindset of Eliphaz.  He often does.  Let’s realize that we can be doctrinal true (what Eliphaz says is true), but contextual wrong.   Eliphaz has his doctrine right but his application completely off.   This is the entire story of Job’s three friends.   They will draw from their experience and their philosophy and even from some good theology.  But they will miss the point on the steadfast love God has for Job.  We ought to practice compassion in dealing with others and realize that God has plans for people that are well beyond our own grasp.