2“Are all these words to go unanswered? Is this talker to be vindicated?
A word of advice: when you feel compelled to speak, maybe you need to be silent. The compulsion to speak is often when we speak too fast, too hastily. I have found over the years that if I take time to slow down, consider what I want to say and why I want to say it, I often find I don’t need to say it. Zophar, one of Job’s friends who came to bring him comfort in his sorrow, now opens his mouth. Instead of comfort, he brings condemnation. The main theological point he tries to get across is that repentance brings good times. Sin brings bad times. What bad theology! Lots of sinners have little external troubles. Lots of Jesus-followers have troubles. Trouble and righteousness are not on opposite sides of the playground seesaw. When righteousness goes up, trouble goes down. There is no causal relationship. That is why when we feel compelled to speak, we probably need to stay silent, at least in the short term. We need to make sure we have a large enough perspective to accurately assess the situation. We need to separate ‘our stuff’ that might get in the way of speaking Truth. I have a feeling that Zophar was jealous of Job’s previous life, that he harbored envy for many years. Job after all was very wealthy, very prosperous. The Occupy Wall Street people are the Zophars of our day. Now, I am not defending Capitalism as a righteous system. It is just as sinful as a world system and all the other ‘isms’ that will ever arise in the world. But if our hope is in a system that is limited to this world, our hopes will be dashed. Sin has invaded all the systems, and therefore they are all corrupt. Only Christ’s reign in our hearts can bring righteousness to our world. And even then, it will take Christ’s return to rid the world of the world’s system.
The Arnold Journey 