(REFLECTIONS ON Job 8:1-22)

In today’s Scripture, we see Bildad appear as the second of Job’s friends to respond to him. Bildad doesn’t take a theological view of explaining truth to Job, but rather bases his response on experience, history, and the way the world works.

8 “Please inquire of past generations,
And consider the things searched out by their faithers.
9 “For we are only of yesterday and know nothing,
Because our days on earth are as a shadow.

Bildad’s argument is that all that we can know and understand about God is based on past generations. There is nothing that we can know, except what we experience and what history teaches us, because our lives are too short to figure anything out on our own without the combined experience and wisdom of the past.

According to Bildad, this is what history teaches us,

20 “Lo, God will not reject a man of integrity,
Nor will He support the evildoers.
21 “He will yet fill your mouth with laughter
And your lips with shouting.
22 “Those who hate you will be clothed with shame,
And the tent of the wicked will be no longer.”

Bildad believes that God will not reject the righteous or support the wicked. Although this reflects something true about God’s character, Bildad assumes that he understands how God’s justice must operate in Job’s circumstances. He takes what he believes history has taught him and uses it to explain Job’s suffering, leaving little room for the possibility that he does not fully understand God’s ways.

The question then is, does history give us truth? When I was seminary student, during one my church internships, the pastor of the church was leading a Bible study on the Book of Daniel. In one of the sessions, the pastor shared that the Book of Daniel couldn’t have been an accurate historical account because “history” tells us a different story about the king of Babylon.

After the Bible study, a sister that was also one of the elders of the church, shared that she used to think that the stories in the Book of Daniel were real and true, but after what the pastor shared it made her question what she knew and believed. As part of my internship, the pastor eventually gave me an opportunity to lead one of the Bible study sessions.

As a good seminary student, I adopted the pastor’s approach to leading the Bible study, but I also addressed the sister’s remarks from a previous session. I told her that history can tell us a lot, but we need to keep a space in our hearts open for God. Meaning that research, evidence, history, experience, etc. help us to understand the Bible, but we need to keep a space in our hearts open for God to be God.

Does history give us truth? Yes, it provides us with certain truths that perhaps were compiled in a way that whomever was in power at that time desired defined. Some may even say that the Bible was compiled in a similar way. However, if we are to have faith in a God that can save the world through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, then we know that we can’t just depend on human truths to explain spiritual realities.

Does history give us truth? Yes, but let us not place Holy Scripture, God’s Word, the Bible under the microscope of history to tell us what it means, but rather place all of creation under the Bible because it is the Word of the Creator, and should be put under the feet of mankind in order to find understanding.

That is why the Holy Spirit is as necessary as Jesus or God, because all are God, not just two in one, but three in one. The Holy Spirit helps to give us wisdom beyond our understanding and what the world can explain and tell us. Without the Holy Spirit, then all we are left with is an empty tomb with no explanation of what happened to Jesus’ body.

Pastor Michael Lu
Enduring Word Bible Commentary: Job 8