Sometimes a thought spreads widely online because it feels humble and compassionate. Recently a post on X argued that the great lesson of the book of Job is this: the best theology may be silence. The reasoning goes like this. Job’s friends had correct theology but applied it with too much certainty. God later rebuked…
(Job 34–37 | Chapter XXIV of Jessie Penn-Lewis’s The Story of Job) “Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out…”—Job 37:23 (KJV) Elihu speaks for four full chapters—longer than any other human speaker in the book. He is articulate, passionate, and certain. But there is something missing: Jessie Penn-Lewis writes: “Elihu was full of thunder—but…
(Job 32–33 | Chapter XXIII of Jessie Penn-Lewis’s The Story of Job) “Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment.”—Job 32:9 (KJV) For 31 chapters, Elihu has been silent. Now he speaks—not as a friend, but as a critic of the friends and of Job. “I am full of matter, the…