SPREADING SLANDEROUS FALSEHOODS

          The patriarch Job was not without fault.  However, the slanderous accusations hurled at Job by his so-called counselor were a heap of lies.   A tally of the many indictments made against Job can be read in Job 4-31.  Job was charged with pride, stubbornness, defiance, vanity, scheming, wickedness, godlessness, unfaithfulness, evil, mockery, impurity, worthlessness, thievery, sinful children greediness, oppression and neglect.  Some of the allegations leveled against Job by Eliphaz are encapsulated in Job 22:5f /NCV - -

…Your evil is without limits and your sins have no end.  You took your brothers’ things for a debt they didn’t owe;

you took clothes from people and left them naked.  You did not give water to tired people, and you kept food

from the hungry.  You were a powerful man who owned land…but you sent widows away empty handed,

and you mistreated orphans…That is why it is so dark you cannot see and a flood of waters covers you.

Job’s “friends” appear to be driven primarily by faulty theology (bad things only happen to bad people).  It would not be shocking to discover that envy may have also played a role.  To engage in bearing false witness is a very serious transgression (cf. Deut.5:20 and Prov.6:16-19).  Job refutes their lies (Job 29:12f) and Elihu rightly rebukes Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar for condemning Job (Job 32:2). 

          One lesson we can extract from the journal of Job has to be this:  it matters how we respond to our friends who are suffering.  Not only did Job’s friends misrepresent God (Job 42:7) but they wronged Job in so doing.  Could it be that the best answer we might  offer to another as to why bad things sometimes happen to good people is a humbly spoken, I don’t know why!.  Rather than dron-ing on with our speculative opinions, perhaps it would serve us well to simply sit quietly with our friends as they seek to persevere  (Job 2:13).  Indeed, it requires honesty, courage and faith to admit that there are NO EASY ANSWERS TO THE PROBLEM OF PAIN.