Job 27:11 Commentary and Bible Study

Job says, ‘I am going to teach you about God because your own teaching does not conform to reality. You are going to hear from me a true description of how the Lord works and it will instruct you.’ Job was going to bring them a description from the real world in a way that they could not deny, and they must take this on board. It is worthless to construct a theory that does not take account of the facts and the best way to correct a false theory is to expose it to the facts. Job is not going to spare them the embarrassment of being corrected because the matters at stake are too important. These words introduce his thoughts to the end of the chapter.Why were the three comforters so stubborn in refusing the self-evident lessons of life? Why did they deny what stared them in the face and end up thinking such complete nonsense? They were committed to a theology that was not real, and they were not prepared to change it. Rather than admit that they were wrong and come to God for fresh understanding, they tried to force the experiences of life to fit their own ideas. Now it is true that, in understanding the world, the believer starts with God’s revelation; we can have no true knowledge of anything without the word of God. We hold on to it even when human knowledge seems to go against it, for we know that humans are fallible and God is infallible. But the friends had not started with God’s revelation but with a theology of their own making, based on tradition or on visions. It was a theology that said, a man can be righteous before God because he is prepared to accept those who strive for personal integrity on their own merits; he lowers the standard to take account of our weakness. Such a false theology deserves to be broken by the facts of life, for God also teaches through providence and all his instruction is consistent with itself.