WISDOM FOR OUR TIME

When so many bad things are happening in the world, and we never seem to learn the lessons of history, I find the book of Job to be filled with so much wisdom. It should be required reading for all politicians and statesmen to foster humility and to counter hubris.

“When a land falls into the hands of the wicked, he blindfolds its judges.” (Job 9:24) Our statues of Lady Justice are blindfolded, implying that she will judge impartially. But Job’s accusation against God is that he has blindfolded the judges so that they see neither crimes nor innocence. (NIV Study Bible)

“How is it that people living in the same land, brought up together, can come to such diametrically opposed views of society? Life around us is so rich and manifold that if we are to understand any of its manifestations we must learn to choose those phenomena that are significant and virtually to ignore the rest. That is what the scientist is doing all the time. But few of us are trained scientists or observers. We normally see what we want to see, and overlook or minimize that which does not suit our theories. The teaching of the Wise was based on carefully selected facts. When Job had to suffer, his eyes were opened to the suffering around him; when he felt the smart of injustice, he saw for the first time clearly the prevalence of injustice around him. We know that Job’s friends were wrong; we must not jump to the conclusion that Job was right. They and he alike are giving us partial views of reality, but for all that, Job tends to see more of the essentials than they do. Each in his own way, Job’s friends see the world through the spectacles of their respective theories. Job has no theory; he is an explorer of new realms. Even though his observation is distorted by passion and suffering, it remains nearer the truth than the picture which has to conform to preconceived ideas.

We do well to remember this. God’s estimate of man and his life is not the sinner’s, and the world is seldom willing to welcome the proclamation of human sin. It is seldom, however, that the man caught up in a system sees the world as it is revealed to us in the Scriptures. The more authoritarian the system, the more distorted its view of the world and of man. The captives of the system, sincerely reverence God’s revelation and wish to know His will and do it. For all that they insist that revelation and will must conform to their understanding and tradition, and so they fail to grasp either.”

(H.L.Ellison, From Tragedy to Triumph, Studies in the Book of Job, pp.45-46)