Job 5

 Job 5:1-27

The great danger of misguided or deceitful teachers is that they mix accurate, truthful information with their false teaching and bad advice. In this passage, Eliphaz does just that. His fundamental understanding and teaching about the universe are wrong, but he attempts to support it with accurate, but incomplete teachings about God.

One of the great benefits of suffering is that it can explode a needlessly simplistic view of the universe and our dealings with God. In verses 1-8, Eliphaz tells Job about his observation. He doesn’t say anything about his personal suffering. I am reminded of the case of a couple who had two delightful, easygoing, and compliant children. In every way, from infancy on, they seemed to want to please and cooperate with their parents. This young couple became very free with their parenting advice, confident that it was their ability to lead that brought about such happy results. Then came their third child. It was as if he were born in the “terrible twos” and got worse from there. It seemed that he was born to lead an outlaw motorcycle gang. Violent tantrums in the supermarket, church service, and home marked their everyday life. He was strong-willed, determined, and defiant. Suddenly his parents became much less apt to give parenting advice. Without personal suffering this is what Eliphaz does. 

In verse 6 Eliphaz gives the core of his worldview about suffering: “Suffering is the result of something else in your life." Notice this is an observation and not an experience. In verses 9-16 he comes to his "Let me tell you what to do." He explains that if Job seeks God, everything will be fine and that he can rise above the circumstances of his life. While Eliphaz says many things that are true, he makes these truths into cliches and reduces God to a sort of vending machine deity. In verses 17-27 Eliphaz became, perhaps, the first preacher of the prosperity gospel; “Do these things and life will be good for you too." This overly simplified understanding has no room for a God greater than a blessing dispenser. The last verse is telling, "We have investigated." Eliphaz lacked personal experience, worked out of a misunderstanding of reality, but nevertheless called for Job to hear their opinion. 

“Lord, before I advise, help me to understand. AMEN

Ministry Update

Charlie’s Chatter

Life in the Crowe’s Nest 

God at the gas pump? Encouragment when you need it most.

When we plan a trip, we try to make the most of every moment, especially when we are driving a long way.  That was what we did for a recent trip to Florida. We had plans for Thursday night after the drive, Friday morning for breakfast, family time Friday afternoon and three appointments for Saturday. I had tried to set up a Sunday afternoon appointment with another preacher, but he carefully guards that time for family, something I deeply respect.  It looked like a great plan. The Thursday and Friday meetings were great visits. But due to unexpected circumstances, all three Saturday meetings fell through.  As a result, I was discouraged, so we decided to spend extra time with family.  So on Saturday we left later than planned and took a more scenic, slower route back to where we were staying.  Needing gas, we pulled into one station but opted to wait for the next town, adding to our delay.  We had by this point three delays on the drive. We stopped for gas at the crossroads of two highways in the middle of rural FL.  We pulled up and found ourselves between two ministry friends we had not seen in a very long time.  Larry is an associate minister at a church where we have been invited to come and share our ministry.  Danny, I had not seen him in years and had been looking for him. He asked if I knew the senior minister at the church where he serves.  Actually, I have known him since the late 70s, and his wife and I were in youth group together. On Sunday at church I connected with another old colleague. We went with friends to a local restaurant for lunch, and as we were leaving, someone called my name.  The preacher who protects his Sunday afternoons for family was  there.  That day he took his mum to the place where we were having lunch.  You never know who you will meet and where, but God does.

Don’t Miss our Christmas Card

I have started making the Christmas ornaments that I will be sending out just after Thanksgiving. The number of ornaments I am making will be limited, so if you want one, please let me know.

God is Greater than Irony

One morning we got two messages that couldn’t be more opposite. One letting us know that a couple we were praying for had received a call to a new ministry. The other; the church where our friends were serving was closing. We have been there and understand both the joy and the pain. We are so thankful that we can minister to both of these couples. Please pray for them and for us.

1983-2026 Facebook live

Forty three years ago we stood before God and pledged ourselves to Him and each other. We had no idea it was going to be more wonderful than we hoped. In this phase of our life of ministry we are excited to share Standing Stone with our partners, friends and family. We are doing a Facebook live event to celebrate life, marriage and ministry. Plan to join us on Thursday Dec 17th.

Job 4

 Job 4

Job’s friends, who will ultimately become his accusers, remind me of Calvin from the cartoon strip “Calvin and Hobbes." Calvin tells Hobbs he is going to start a radio talk show in which he will offer overly simplistic answers to difficult questions and then berate anyone who disagrees with him. Hobbs says, “Sounds like you were born for this job.” To which Calvin concludes, “Yea, imagine getting paid to act like a 6-year-old."

In many ways this is descriptive of the ‘comfort’ of Job’s friends. Eliphaz begins by confronting Job about his discouragement and emotional distress. Referring to Job’s history of helping distressed people, he says Job should not be impatient. Whether Eliphaz’s insights are valid or not is not the issue at the moment. He is trying to apply a theological/philosophical solution to an emotional moment. No doubt he was sincere, but it was the wrong approach for this moment.

In verses 7-21 Eliphaz gives two foundational supports for his opinion. In verse 8 he says, “According to what I have seen…" A personal observation may be valid, but because we are human, such an observation can’t help but be very limited both in breadth and clarity. All Eliphaz has seen is only the tiniest part of all that can be seen. Additionally, he may have seen things that didn’t support his conclusion but, without knowing it, he ignored them. The second support for his opinion was his personal mystical experience, vs. 14-16. Personal experience can be powerful; they can be life-changing and real. But that is not the same as universally valid. Whatever Eliphaz experienced was a subjective experience. It may have been divine or demonic, truthful or deceiving, the result of the sublime or of too much pizza before bed.

When we venture into the realm of being a comforter as these three have, we must do so with great gentleness, being careful about our own wisdom and reason and remembering that our experience is just that; it's 'ours.'

“Lord, give me the grace to be filled with grace as I attempt to offer grace. AMEN."

Job 3

 Job 3

Job begins his lament and begins with a full-on frontal assault. His first speech has three themes: vs. 1-10 is a curse of the day of his birth, v. 11-19 is a claim of the preference of death, and vs. 20-26 is about the bitterness of life. Two key points for us come from the beginning and at the end of this poem.

While it may not seem too dramatic to us when Job says there should be a curse on ‘the day of my birth,' he is in effect questioning God’s wisdom and providence. He is indirectly saying, “God made a mistake when He made me and gave me life." We might say such things in moments of extreme suffering, but it is nevertheless wrong and immoral. Such a statement may not have come from studied reason or careful thought but out of deep and painful emotions. Regardless of the reason, when we question our existence, we are questioning the plans, love, actions, and wisdom of God.

At the end of chapter three we see a comment from Job that is, perhaps, bigger than the verses it occupies. In vs. 25-26, Job speaks of “the fear I have” (literal translation). As we look at the narrative at the beginning of chapter 1, we see the life of a prosperous, pious, and popular man. That description is, at least from the outside perspective, accurate and complete. But in Job’s heart and mind there was a haunting fear. Perhaps Job's hard work was an attempt to build a fortress against those fears. Perhaps his piety was an attempt to secure divine protection against that which he dreaded. The fear remains unspecified. Perhaps it was the loss of wealth, family, reputation, health, or confidence in knowing how things work. Whatever that fear, what ever it was, has come to Job. In 1967 Ed Aymes released the song “Who Will Answer?" This song was the summation of anxiety of that age. But the song he asks, “Who will answer?” not “What is the answer?" Job is about to embark on a long verbal journey to discover, "Who will answer?”

“Lord, never let me fall into doubting Your goodness or wisdom, but rather, Lord, help me seek You for my answers. AMEN."

Job 2

 Job 2

The mystery of chapter 1 deepens in chapter 2. The “why” of the conversation here is beyond our comprehension. Satan, for his part of the story, is done; he is less significant than we often think. But there is a character we need to pay attention to because we find ourselves in her. Job’s wife only has two verses (9-10), but she reflects many people. While she has not been physically afflicted, she has suffered much; she has lost all her possessions, plus she is a mother who has lost 10 children. Her world and the foundations on which that world was built have been torn to shreds. Her comment may have been more of a confession than reasoning. It cannot be justified, but it might be understandable. The expectation of “Do good and good things happen to you; do evil and evil things happen to you” was the view of the three friends. Perhaps it was her opinion as well. In that worldview Job must have been a bad man. Perhaps she is telling Job, “The evidence is clear you are a bad man. Speak the true condition of your heart, i.e., curse God, before you die. Why go to your grave with your false piety?” In the discourse with the friends, Job does come close to cursing God. He never crosses that line, but in a deeply honest moment he reveals a heart that accuses God of evil.

We would do well to keep in mind the emotional state of Job’s wife. She is not blaming God; she is blaming Job for all her misery. Her worldview was confused, and therefore she could not correctly interpret events. Perhaps rather than being a bad woman, as Job accused, she was operating from a commonly shared false paradigm, one she shared with and perhaps learned from Job himself.

One final thought. She had been spared the physical suffering, and that might need to be examined. The absence of hardship is not necessarily evidence of God’s blessing. It may indicate favor by the enemy or even that we are not important enough to harass. We cannot endorse Job’s wife, but we might see ourselves in her.

“Lord, give me the capacity to see things from the perspective You want me to have, and not an invalid worldview. AMEN."

Job 1

 Job 1

There is no doubt that Job is the most enigmatic book of the Bible. In almost every way, it seems to beg more questions than it specifically answers. It is a lot like life in that way. And like life, it is beautiful, distressing, challenging, and ultimately pointing toward God. We cannot answer all the questions this book raises, but we can learn from it certain principles.

From the first chapter, there are two principles that will work well in our lives. First, piety and wealth are not certain protections from natural calamity. Job was a man of remarkably sincere character. The description is not of sinlessness but of unadulterated morals; he was not “faking it." He was a good man through and through. His wealth was remarkable. The description of his livestock tells us he was a sort of multinational corporation of his day. The sheep and oxen speak of agribusiness; the donkey and camels tell us of both short- and long-haul carriers along the trade routes. To say he had many employees, or slaves, might be an understatement. How many people did it require to handle, manage, and care for 11,000 head of stock? But all that piety and wealth did not provide protection for the loss of everything he had except a cranky wife and ‘know it all’ friends.

There is another lesson for us, and it comes from the presence of Satan and his dialogue with God. The existence of this conversation brings to mind many unanswerable questions, but it points to a key principle behind it all. Perhaps this analogy will help. Satan is stacking blocks like a toddler on a nursery floor. God is building a mansion. The complex schemes of the enemy of humanity may at time seem powerful, complex, and overwhelming, but they are inconsequential compared to what God is doing in the same moment and indeed by the same events. Satan knows his cause is lost, but in hate he acts against us. Those very acts God will use for our ultimate benefit.

“God, in the midst of the enemies' schemes, accomplish Your purposes in me. AMEN."

Song of Solomon 8:8-14

Song of Solomon 8:8-14

One of the challenges of this book is that, at times, it is hard to be certain who specifically is speaking. Many scholars offer many opinions; however, there is a shared certainty that the bride's chastity is her greatest treasure.

Having returned home, there is a sort of flashback or trip down memory lane for the girl’s brothers. In verses 8-9 they recall how when she was not yet of marriageable age, they protected her. Any young girl with strong, godly, protective men around her has a decided and distinct advantage. She was one such protected maiden. 

But in verse 11 she has had the moral maturity and character to be committed to her own chastity. The vast wealth of Solomon and even the wealth of his workers are despised compared to the value of her moral purity.

The husband finds contentment with his wife, described in verse 10b. Then in verse 13 her voice is a delight to him. For her part, she invites him again to enjoy the sexual satisfaction of the marriage covenant.

“Thank You, God, for making sexual fulfillment part of Your universe. AMEN.”