Job CXXXIX

 I’ve always been wary of people who insist they’re experts on everything under the sun. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, whether it is geopolitics, economics, space travel, or how to best get rid of a wasp nest, they’re quick to give their opinion and do it with such certainty as to make you believe they know what they’re talking about. If you take a moment and ask them if they’d ever implemented the advice they’re proffering, you’ll likely find out that they haven’t, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying it.

Two summers ago, we had a wasp nest that showed up on the side of the house, and it was impressive in its size. Given that I’m allergic to bee stings and I swell up like a hot air balloon, I thought it likely the same would happen from a wasp sting, so I was reticent to try and handle it on my own before I got some input as to what the best course of action might be.

I asked a couple of friends, and I got a plethora of advice, from going and just hitting it with a stick until it came off the side of the house to calling in a specialist and having them deal with it, to using WD40 on the nest, as it would make the wasps incapable of flight. Spoiler alert: The last one works, and the reason I chose that course of action was because the individual who suggested it had actually done it, and it had worked.

Yes, I could have called a company to come take care of it, and I did get a quote, but when they told me how much it would cost, I thought I’d risk it and save myself a couple hundred bucks. I’m not cheap, but I am frugal, and their quote seemed a bit excessive. The worst thing I could have done was to heed the advice of the first person who offered it, which was to go and beat it with a stick.

Had I done that, it likely would have been a painful lesson in what not to do, and I would have had no one to blame for myself for not thinking it through. Who’s the bigger fool? The one giving bad advice, or the one taking it? It’s the whole chicken and egg conversation again, and deciding which came first, but when it comes to taking bad advice, the one offering it doesn’t have to go through the pain of implementing it as the one who takes it does.

Not all opinions are worth taking at face value, and some of them are counterproductive, to say the least. It’s usually those who have never gone through what you’re going through who are quickest to offer their take on what you should be doing because, for them, it’s an intellectual exercise, void of the pain, hardship, struggle, and privation. It’s akin to the modern-day trust-fund babies who’ve never had to work a day in their life looking down on the guys with callouses and rickety backs, who are up before sunrise and put in twelve hours of hard labor a day and insisting that they’re not applying themselves or working hard enough.

Sorry, Stefan, but if you’ve never put in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, you have not earned the right to condescend to someone working two jobs in order to feed their kids.

The approach of Job’s friends was similar in attitude. They’d never endured anything near to what Job was enduring, yet they believed they were within their rights to sit in judgment and pass sentence, insisting that they knew more of the intricacies of Job’s situation than Job himself did. Unchecked hubris will make a fool of any man, be he wise or learned.

Words are easy to come by, as are opinions. Throw a stone in any direction, and you’re bound to hit someone who will tell you exactly what you need to do regardless of circumstance and insist that if you follow their counsel, all your problems will go away.

The same can be said of individuals within the household of faith whose words are like a fire hose without an off switch, yet when it comes to anything substantive or possessing any of the power they so eloquently describe; they fall short.

It’s not a new thing. It’s been going on since the early church, wherein you have those who talk a lot but do very little, if anything, and then those who, for the most part, say few words but do the heavy lifting within the body.

1 Corinthians 4:18-20, “Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.”

Job’s friends were offering words. They weren’t even comforting or encouraging words, but words that were as daggers to his already wounded heart. We get that you’re in a hole, buddy. If only you had a shovel and a ladder, it would make things so much easier. But I don’t have a shovel or a ladder! True enough, but imagine if you did.

As far as being helpful, Zophar’s words had no actionable resolution, just as Eliphaz and Bildad fell short. There was no power in them, and nothing they had to say would provide a remedy for Job because his battle went beyond the physical into the spiritual and beyond what their minds could conceive of. He tried to placate the first two, but not so with Zophar. He’d reached the end of his tether and did not hold back in his reply.

There is a time to be congenial and conciliatory; then, there is a time to draw a line in the sand and be direct and forthright. For Job, the time to be direct had come, and once those floodgates opened, everything he’d been holding back and bottling up came rushing forward. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr. 

Posted on 17 March 2025 | 12:04 pm