Understanding Compassion: Be Careful When Listening to and Accepting Unsolicited Advice From Your Friends This is a lengthy but good read. The story of Job was riddled with a conundrum of unexplained complexities ranging from blessings, death, losses, cursing, grief, relentless speeches, abandonment, public humiliation, restoration and renewed faith. Most people focus on Job. I place the focus of words and deeds of Jobs friends. After Job remained quiet due to observing both the loss of his possessions and children, according to Jewish customs, his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, broke their silence after days seven days. However, their silence was only broken after Job broke his silence. The friends began to painstakingly ridicule Jobs life. Their reasoning contained false syllogism. They collectively felt God sent calamities upon Job because he was wicked. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar felt Job suffered an enormous amount of calamity, therefore, he must have been wicked. This appears to be commonplace and an accepted practice of many Christians. It is known as being a theology of divine retribution falsely assuming God blesses those who are faithful to him and punishes those who sin. This simply isnt true. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were hell-bent (literally, given Satan’s role) on defending God by placing the blame on Job. As the friends’ speeches continued, their rhetoric became increasingly hostile. Faced with the self-imposed choice of blaming Job or blaming God, they hardened their hearts against their former friend. Job himself avoided the false syllogism but doing so did not stop the forming of public opinion. How many times has your life been harshly and/or mistakenly judged? How many times have you harshly and mistakenly judged the lives of others? Its so arrogant to fathom we know God’s plan. How foolish are we to think we know the reason for another persons suffering, when in fact, we don’t even know the reason for our own suffering. It would be more truthful and far more helpful to admit, “I don’t know why this happened. No one should have to go through this.” If we can do this, in whole and not in part, and then remain present, we will then become viable candidates to be considered to be agent of God’s compassion. Be careful when listening to and accepting unsolicited advice from your friends. Dont fall prey to being victims of false syllogism. #AnothahFullahExpression SLF Sidenote: There are more chapters written in the Book of Job containing the remarks of ridicule made by Jobs friends t(Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) than the actual recordings made of Jobs losses. Selah (pause, and think of that).
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 00:15:20 +0000
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