Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good afternoon, dear people.

I’ve covered a lot of ground since I left about 8am. I picked up my mini-excavator at a nearby property and had Thano follow me to another property where I set him up to do a brush-burning operation. I worked there a while, but then returned home, hooked up my flatbed trailer, and hauled the two sections of table top to a shop in Portland to have them precision machined. I did some other stops along the way. I attempted to do a quick stop at Costco…but it turned into about an hour. I happened into a fellow I know from some previous business who was not in a hurry at all…and he talked my leg off. I had to hop out to the truck on one leg. Just kidding. I actually had this composition done before I left…but ran out of time to send. Oh well…

I’ll run now to pick up a load of logs for firewood, then return to get the excavator. I want to get the final glue joint done on this table top before I hit the bed tonight.

Be good as you do your stuff.

Love, Dad/Ray.

Bildad’s speech is only 5 verses long. But it triggers a response from Job that is the longest discourse of the book—6 chapters long! He was heated up. So what in the world was it that Bildad said to set off Job to expound so intensely? Was he offended by the metaphors Bildad used—the inference of being called a maggot or a worm? I think not. In fact Isaiah is inspired with a similar metaphor—“He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in” (Isaiah 40:22). So, maggots, worms, grasshoppers, cockroaches—they’re all the same—appropriate descriptions of mankind in relation to the greatness and grandeur of Sovereign Holy God.

I’m guessing that two things from Bildad prompt Job’s irritation:

1. The arrogance of claiming to know things that cannot be known. Job reacts to the paradox of it all—on one hand Bildad rightly defines the transcendence of God, but then proceeds to speak with dogma as though he really knows all about this transcendent God.
2. The persistent implied accusation that Job has to be guilty of some really bad stuff—that there is no way he could truly be righteous or innocent of intensional sin.

Here’s where Job really turns up the volume—a loud declaration of independence from the biased judgments of Bildad and the others. These guys can rant and rave and condemn all they want to, but Job is resolved to take his stand and not allow anything short of God Himself to alter his position. “As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul, as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit. I will never admit you are in the right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live” (Job 27:2-6). I judge this as a demonstration of exceptional role modeling—this is vital dogma.

Speaking of paradoxes, one comes to my attention as I take in the whole of this account so far. That is, although the first chapter presents Satan as an indirect servant of God with the role and function of serving as an adversary to God and His followers, Job and his friends seem to be totally oblivious to his existence or his sinister behind-the-scenes influence in human affairs. In contrast, Paul affirms in the New Testament—“Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11). It would appear that Job and the others were on the ignorant side. Without spending a lot of time on this, please read again Ephesians 6:10-18 and strive for balance—free from the extreme that blames God for everything bad, and the extreme that blames Satan for everything bad. The best and safest balance point remains to be a HEART AFTER GOD.