Job 8

Let’s talk about words. Let’s use words to discuss the power of words, the power of the tongue. A tiny part of the human body with a megaphone attached. Let’s string some words together in a fine pearl necklace to explain how words can heal or wound. Not a long strand of pearls, just a choker really.

Words hold power, and power holds its words. You can gather sound and breath together on your lips to motivate, encourage, comfort, cheer, inspire, captivate, enthrall and build up. Your words, my words, can bring life to the listener. Or, they can kill, you know. Our words have the strength to decimate a friendship in a few short years or in a few long moments, even a friendship that is built on years of loyalty and good talk. A word can humiliate, manipulate, discourage, and tear down. The tongue can be filled with the venom of hell. Jesus said that the contents of the heart spill out of the mouth. The treasures of the heart bubble over into the lungs, and the breath fills the thought-sails while the brain supplies the syllables. And those heart-words push their way up through the throat into the mouth and across the lips into the ears and heart of the listening friend.

Let’s talk about Bildad. A friend who chose his own words. The irony is thick in his opening line:

“How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind?”

Job 8:2

Well, bless your heart, Bildad. Do share about Job’s windy talk with your own blast of arctic air.

“Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right?”

Job 8:3

Well, no. You’re quite right, Bildad. God does not pervert justice. He is the Judge of all. Careful, careful now. You are so close to that edge there…careful, steady…back up slowly...

“If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression.”

Job 8:4

That’s the edge, Bildad. You just plowed right through…no hesitation. Those are death words for a father’s heart. You’ve thrown all compassion aside and gone straight for Job’s neck. His children are dead, Bildad, or did you miss that announcement? All ten of his children are dead, friend, and you have gut-punched a man who has nothing left to give but his own life. Did you gasp at your own words when they came out of your mouth, Bildad? Did your eyes widen and your mouth hang open a bit after you shot those poison darts at your friend’s heart?

I’ve been here before. I’ve said stupid words from a loveless heart. I’ve watched my own words fly out of my mouth like swarming bees. I’ve seen them sting the listener, the friend I was supposed to encourage and comfort. This often happens at home, with the ones we are closest to.

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.

James 3:1-6

Your words had hell-fire in them, Bildad. They cut with sharp heat. How do you stop a forest fire like that? Well, at least you offer some fragments of cheer to Job.

Bildad’s “cheer” is almost a false prosperity gospel, a message of karma from someone who says he knows the Almighty. He reassures Job that confession and a pure life will bring God’s blessings down – that Job will have his old life back, if only he follows the three step program.

“If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation. And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.”

Job 8:5-7

Bildad goes on to remind Job that the life of the one who forgets God is without structure or strength. He reminds Job that the end of the unrighteous is destruction. “…the hope of the godless shall perish.” And he slaps a closing band-aid phrase on Job’s suffering – suffering further expanded by Bildad’s own heartless words.

“Behold, God will not reject a blameless man, nor take the hand of evildoers. He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting.”

Job 8:20-21

The facts we know: Job was called both upright and blameless by God Himself in the Halls of Heaven. His suffering was not a punishment for sin. He is on display, not because he is himself mighty, able, or righteous; Job is on display on God’s behalf, so that God can show HIMSELF mighty through Job’s suffering.

And now, one final fresh-water pearl for my choker strand: Be cautious; take heed; speak with care; don’t fly over that edge like Bildad; settle the bees in the hive. We may not know the whole story behind the suffering of those we hope to encourage.

Lord, let our words be filled with love and life.

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

Ephesians 4:29

“Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!”

Psalm 141:3