"I Am Not Inferior To You"

Many of the members of the Queen Way church of Christ are participating in what we call a "Team Bible Reading" throughout 2013 and we are using the One-Year Chronological Reading Plan which can be accessed here. This past Saturday, we moved from Genesis to Job and today we are to read Job 12-14.

Most religious people are at least somewhat familiar with the story of Job. Job was a righteous man who was suddenly bombarded with a series of trials. He lost his possessions and even his own children (in a freak accident), and if that wasn't enough, he was afflicted with painful boils all over his body. And yet in all of this we're told that "Job did not sin with his lips" (1:22; 2:10).

Beginning in Job 3, the focus shifts from Job's suffering to a debate that he had with three of his friends who had come to comfort him. In essence, all three friends argued that Job was suffering because he had done something to anger the Almighty God. Eliphaz said in Job 4:7, "Remember now, whoever perished being innocent? Or where were the upright destroyed?" A little while later, Bildad offered similar sentiments to Job: "If you are pure and upright, surely now He would rouse Himself for you and restore your righteous estate" (Job 8:6).

By this point, Job was not only complaining about his hardship. Now he was offended and angered by the baseless charges of these three men who called themselves his "friends." Notice the following two statements repeated by Job...

"But I have intelligence as well as you; I am not inferior to you" (12:3).

"Behold, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it. What you know I also know. I am not inferior to you" (13:1-2).

What is Job's point? I can imagine, based on the flow of the story, that Job interpreted his friends' remarks as condescending. They had no basis for charging him with sin. They hadn't observed Job transgress God's will. They hadn't heard any gossip that indicted Job's otherwise spotless reputation. And yet they chided him as if he were but an infant.

Job responded by reminding his friends that he wasn't a fool. Had he sinned against God, he would've known it. After all, he was a man who longed for God's fellowship and who took every precaution to ensure that this fellowship continued! He wasn't dumb. He wasn't inferior to them. Which is why he went on to identify Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar as "worthless physicians" (13:4).

There are many lessons to be gleaned here, but for the sake of brevity, I'll mention only two.

First of all, we shouldn't charge ANYONE with sin when we have no evidence that they've committed sin. We can't make judgments based on presumption or hear-say.

Secondly, we learn from Job that when others presume that we have sinned, we shouldn't allow our confidence to be rattled. If I know that I am walking in the light and that the charges of another (against me) are baseless, I should remind myself that my Judge is the Lord, not some flawed, hyper-critical individual who seems determined to humiliate me.

Maybe these kinds of scenarios don't arise too often. Maybe these lessons are not too relevant in the church today. Maybe false accusations such as this are rarely hurled among religious people, and maybe we rarely feel compelled to defend ourselves against baseless charges. But I have a feeling that these comments are relevant for some of you now, and I know that these comments will be relevant at some point for ALL of us.