Eliphaz the Temanite
“Yield now and be at peace with Him; thereby good will come to you.” Job 22:21 NASB
Yield– “God is pure gold” speaks. Oh, that’s the meaning of the name Eliphaz. So you would expect his words to reflect his name, right? Everything he says must be pure gold dripping from the mouth of heaven. And stripped from its context, it appears that Eliphaz says some very important and powerful things.
Eliphaz ties peace and prosperity to submission. Or at least it seems that he does. “Yield,” he says. “Find peace with God and life will be good.” We believe this. Why wouldn’t we? We’ve been taught that God loves each one of us and that He is delighted to make our lives fruitful and satisfying. Perhaps Campus Crusade is responsible for the indelible impression that God’s highest concern is our well-being. We want to believe that God’s plan for our lives is wonderful.
But this is Eliphaz, one of the three critics of Job who insist that the reason Job’s life is now so miserable is because he refuses to reveal some secret sin. Eliphaz’ logic follows the simple bi-relational correspondence: God is good. Alignment with God ensures that our lives are good. If life is bad then we are not in alignment with God. “Bad” is never God’s intention. “Bad” is our fault. The solution to “bad” is confession, repentance and renewal. Then the good God will make life wonderful again.
The reason this idea is so compelling is also simple. Life isn’t so good and we have plenty of sins to confess. So it seems as if the propositions of Eliphaz’ theology are universally acknowledged. And, after all, we want life to be good. But does it really work this way? Does God really intend that we should be prosperous, wise, healthy, fruitful and content? Perhaps so, but the pathway to any of these laudable goals seems to be poverty, confusion, illness, failure, and discontent. No pain, no gain. Perhaps God really does have a wonderful plan for our lives, but observation suggests that this wonderful plan requires a road less traveled. And on that road we encounter Job, a man of sorrows, and his friends, men of naive optimism and theological prosperity thinking. What are we to say to these “encouragers”? Maybe the golden truth is far more about the purification process of burning away all we wished would happen in order to discover what really matters. And I, for one, am no longer convinced that a “wonderful plan” really matters. In fact, it seems to me that the truly creative juices of human experience are born from sorrow and grief, not mint juleps sipped in a hammock on a balmy afternoon. If the God of the Bible is a creative God, don’t we find that His best work comes out of chaos and discord too? I need to stop listening to Eliphaz’ logic and remember that “Let there be light” assumes that God was in the dark.
Topical Index: Eliphaz, wonderful plan, creativity, Job 22:21
Hebrews 11 touches on the lives of those who “gained approval”’
Hebrews 11:32-39 … And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated ( men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained APPROVAL through their faith, did not receive what was promised …
I believe their “gained approval” was acquired through the recognition they were sinners in need of atonement and applied Gods faith to receive it .. ..
Yes, these people were pleasing to God and yet their journey did not mirror the prosperity thinking of Job’s friends or some of my friends – who love to quote Jeremiah 29… God knows the plans he has for me, but overlook the years of captivity part… just sharing.
I agree with your thought process Skip (I’ve gone through it this last year – really put through the ringer). The problem with the logic isn’t I disagree… When their are these dark times in life I also find it to be that God is extremely silent (personal experience). Prayers go out that are simple like asking, ‘ help me catch my breath’ or, ‘please make the cortisol slow down so I can at least enjoy the simple moments that don’t suck”
and yet….utter silence. But the oddest thing though occurs when you somehow you manage to muddle your way through the fire; hindsight. It isn’t until you are completely removed from, ‘the battle field’ that you begin to see God’s hand and these seemingly odd serendipitous types of moment that have to be God’s hand – there just isn’t an explanation for it. But it’s odd to think that God is just letting me flale in the water just so I am allowed to have a creative moment. I agree with what you are saying, but it makes me uncomfortable.
I agree with you Derek. I have to keep remembering that the teacher is always silent during the test.
The thought and cost of “life skills” learned on the battlefield not the playground. ??
This is a part of All scripture. I’ve looked at the words spoken by Job’s friends to be those words that are given at the wrong time, to the wrong person. The whole of the book of Job filters through chapter 40 verse 8, for me. He, God, has the privilege to do, or allow whatever He sees fit to in my life. No matter the appearance. It’s the appearance that his friends, Job’s, make comment about. At some time in our development, we need to be as Job in Chapter 42, verses 1-6.
What makes it hard, even after that moment of awareness, is when friends make comments offering correction, as Jobs friends, or alternatives to what we must go through, as Peter does to The Christ
I think we keep thinking the myopic thought that life is all about us, but ‘what’s in it for me?’ is just part of the problem. I think we also keep forgetting that life is indexed on how well we are linking up with all other life (as death is an index of how much we are fractured from it). Life is a collective experience; not a king-of-the-mountain ‘reward’. I am doing good when you are.
It is said that the martyrs did more for the Reformation than any sermon ever could. The blood of the martyrs seeded success: success that their enemies finally conceded was a direct result of their public sacrifice. We are here to be a blessing – as well as a warning – to others. We see the end of Job’s story exemplifying this principle: his friends drew a circle that shut him out, but he drew a circle that took them in. It’s never just about us.
This life is not where it’s at: we are promised that the next life will put everything right. I think this life is about bringing as fast and furious an end to evil as we possibly can. The Body of Christ is a Transformer military unit designed to clear the runway of obstacles so that it can transform into the Bride of Christ. Until then, it’s pretty much back to the war for the Betrothed: “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” (Eph. 4:13), that is. I will know that I am doing good when I am able to look at you and know that you are, too.
Very well put Laurita
One other thing about Job’s friends, they weren’t there when the tragic happened. God arrayed them afterward, to observe and to learn – about Him and about Job’s yielding.
Good point!
Witnesses of redemption -I like that 🙂
This really spoke to me today. Thank you. Ever since reconnecting with God in 2007, i’ve had a different mindframe in regards to God‘s intentions toward me. I know that Jeremiah 29:11 is a very popular verse, why wouldn’t it be? It’s no wonder that the Campus Crusade had such great success and following, it appealed to our sense of winning. Being on top. The flesh has a great capacity for disguises. What what appears to be success turns out to be filled with dead man’s bones.
Makes me question, the path that God has laid out in his “goodness” to repentance. That path seems to lead through some dangerous and disordered territories! Wilderness, desert, dark night of the soul experiences . It would seem that when he is the least with us, he is the most with us, but then, I don’t believe there are any degrees of his actual being with us. He said I will never leave you or for sake you, I am with you always. The kingdom of God is within us. There is no shadow cast by his turning. No fluctuations. Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today and forever. “Looks” are deceiving!
I think in those times when God seems farthest away, when life seems to have come to a miserable conclusion, when feelings become as dust and are blown away, he calls me to stand. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus….
You have lived it, Larry, so you know.
I used to think the hard times were about determining where God was (or was not) ‘with’ us (as if life is somehow about putting God on trial), but now I think they are more about where He is asking if we are with Him. Job’s good times seemed to be about where God was at with him – to his friends, anyway – but his hard times definitely were about determining where he was with God.
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him” is not a statement that would have held a lot of water with anybody – not even Job, I think (in his prosperity days, anyway) – but it is a weighty statement when it is being declared in the ash heaps. His friends may have thought prosperity revealed where he was with God, but I know that cry from the depths of despair is what inspired me the most in the days of my despairing – that place where I began to suspect that I might need to change some of my ideas about myself as well as about God. God, after all, is not on trial: we are. This is something we can forget in the good times.
Job (just like me) may have thought he was a friend of God in the good times – through circumstantial evidence, anyway – but I know it took the bottom to show me what was in the bottom of my heart. Perhaps Job needed to know, too? Certainly his friends (like Pat was pointing out) must have. Did Satan need to know, too? Did God? Do we? Trials. Useful things!
As I reread this from yesterday I begin to see how God is working in my life. It’s cool to begin to realize that we are growing up in Christ when he begins to allow us to face ourselves instead of focusing and blaming others for our reactions. Just yesterday I was having coffee with a friend and she said something to me and I had such a big reaction to her comments. I was able to contain myself verbally, but inside I was having all kinds of little explosions. Since then and especially this morning sitting with the Lord, “we” (He and I) have been able to excavate a little to see where the roots of my reactions were coming from. It didn’t mean that she was right and I was wrong, black-and-white thinking, dualistic thinking, but it exposed something within me that the Holy Spirit is seeking to heal, whether by removal or just plain old understanding of the dynamics within me. So often we are oblivious to our own junk. I just think it’s so wonderful of God to allow us to take ownership for our own junk and not place it on someone else. I think it’s important and shows a certain amount of growth and maturity when we can take responsibility for our own stuff without trying to point the finger at the other person at the same time. By doing this we are setting the other person free and detaching. The Holy Spirit wants to bring health and healing to the whole person. Shalom and thank God for his continuing work in our lives as we wrestle to submit to Him.
“Sometimes, we forget that we are learning and growing because there is still so much potential, so much work yet to be done, and so many imperfections still rearing their ugly heads on a regular basis.
“But, what I realised was that, despite me having much more work to do, I’ve come a long way, and that feels good to recognise.
“Take a moment and ask yourself, ‘what have I done recently that I would have handled with less love, compassion, or gentleness a year or two ago?’
If you can’t think of anything, ask yourself this: ‘what have I done recently that I wish I had done differently, and how can I do it differently next time?’
Sometimes, simple questions do yield simple answers.”
-Dallas Hartwig
I have been doing with you first suggested. It has helped me to do so. Sometimes we fixate on one area instead of looking at the bigger picture. God is working on the whole person. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I appreciate it.
YHVH’s answer to Job is necessary for each of us to contemplate. We all want to be lifted up but I think we don’t want to humble ourselves. The God of the Bible is dangerous as you convincingly teach us. I once asked a counselor if he would be able to say those words to a parent whose child’s belly was bulging from starvation. Our Messiah can sympathize with our weaknesses. He knows our temptations. He was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. He understands me and He knows how hard life can be. He went to the ash heaps and offered healing and not judgement. He asks us to do the same starting with ourselves. He asks us to do that because He has demonstrated that He is YHVH. Who are we to annul His judgement? Who are we to condemn Him? His patience towards us is truly astounding!
Regarding Job’s friends, don’t forget Elihu (see Job 32:4). He was more a friend to Job than any of the other three in my opinion. And he criticized the other three friends for their “Campus Crusade” theology!?