Job 28, Notes on a Lesson

Preliminary:

What have we learned so far about Job that we didn’t know before?

Old King James in James 3:1 said, “Be not many masters.”  The modern versions say something like, “Let not many of you become teachers, knowing we shall receive a stricter judgment.”  Many people have the gift of teaching—some of you in this room do—but we are warned of the responsibility of teaching. 

These verses appear at the beginning of a discourse on the power of the tongue, of speech.  I have been thinking lately about silence—of God and ourselves.  Let me read this article.

What have you learned in the silence?

Chapters 26-31 are Job’s long last hurrah; in fact it says at the end of 31, “the words of Job are ended.”  Except for a response to God in the second to last chapter, this is his last recorded speech. 

Is everything Job says about God true?  Is everything his friends say about God true?  I am going to be provocative and say, Yes and No.   It is a true record of what they say, and they say many true things, but often incomplete.  God has the final word, that’s the thing to remember about Job.

Job’s words are not final.  What we see in his speech are magnificent declarations about God, but like the psalms, they are filtered and express through his experience, longing, trial, faith, limited understanding, grief, pain, loss, and emotion.

How do we do that ourselves?  How do we process?

I see Job as God dealing with the arguments of men about wisdom and understanding.  Where is it found?  What is it?  How do we get it? That is what we come to at the end of this chapter and the book.

Wisdom comes from a source outside of men.

As someone living in Moses’ time, perhaps, does Job speak about Christ?  Not directly, but I think there are references.  19:21-27.  Centerpiece of book, I think. 

23:7:  a righteous one who stands before the judge.  We know that is our high priest, in the words of Michael Card, “to look into our judge’s face and see a savior there.”

Let’s look at 28. 

Verse 3:  Man puts an end to darkness.  Man’s search for technology, which is largely motivated by desire for wealth and control/power.

If Job could see our technology today and the state of mankind, what would he say?

Men dig deep for “wisdom.”  Where do men look for it?  How do men define it?  Do they even know what they are looking for?

In verses 24 and following, we see the same reference to wisdom as being existent at the beginning of creation, as in Proverbs 8.  And God’s answer to man about the where and the what of wisdom is simple and often repeated in scripture:  verse 28.