Happy hump day! I’m so glad you could stop by for our Coffee Hour! Sharing these truths and principles of joy with you brings me joy! Grab your coffee and come on in away from the demands and distractions of life. We are headed to our Destination? Joyful! ™
So we left off in the middle of our first dig into joy in the book/life of Job. I’ve done a bit of research and I think I’m coming to understand this context. So first off, the guy talking is Bildad, one of Job’s friends, a guy that leaned more on the critical side, if you know what I mean. Someone who, like us, was trying to come to an understanding for what was happening to his friend Job so he came to the conclusion that Job just couldn’t be innocent. He must not be confessing something!
So in the verses preceding, there is this sort of tension, an argument, if you will about God’s justice. And while Bildad’s argument about God’s justice is correct, his idea of God’s justice was not. I know; that was completely confusing.
See, in Bildad’s opinion, God could not be unjust, meaning He wouldn’t just punish a just man for no reason – this part is correct – therefore, Job must be unjust! That last part is where he made a false judgment and Bildad held steadfast in his theory. But hey, how many times have we heard this type of reasoning, and even from the pulpit? How many times do we wrongly assume that people suffer only as a result of their sins, or their lack of faith, or something that they didn’t do? And when we dare make those assumptions, we are pulled up on our pedestal … until we are brought down by some sort of spiritual lesson that hopefully just crumbles not only that theory, but the pride that perched us on it!
I know it “feels” like we are way off the joy track, but trust me when I say we’ll get back there soon! It’s just so important to understand what is being said before we get to 8:19 so we understand its context accurately. I did some research and came upon my favorite commentary, Matthew Henry, while in the Bible Gateway site. What I read popped my eyes wide open and lines up with what we’ve just talked about. Again, in order to grasp the depth of this joy, we must dig down to come up!
In the preceding verses, (Job 8: 14-18) there are two remarkably visual comparisons made: the hypocrite and a web-building spider; and the hypocrite compared to a flourishing tree. I know, you’re probably going what in the world does this have to do with the price of eggs, let alone joy? Just hang tight. This gets good!
Let me share with you what I read in the Matthew John Henry commentary and I will paraphrase for the sake of clarity:
He compares the hope of the hypocrite to the spider and the web: See just like the spider’s web is woven out of its own doing, so is hypocricy! See, the hypocrite and the spider are creatures about their own agenda, and arise merely from a conceit of his own merit and sufficiency. In other words, they are about self, living for self, unaware of how they affect others around them.
Matthew Henry then takes this comparison further: He says, “There is a great deal of difference between the work of the bee and that of the spider.” He likens a diligent Christian to the laborious bee, “who fetches in all his comfort from the heavenly dews of God’s word; but the hypocrite, like the subtle spider, weaves his web/life out of a false hypothesis of his own concerning God, as if he were altogether such a one as himself.”
Wow, there can be no joy in selfishness or self-centeredness for they lead us to false hypothesis, and you don’t have to be a scientist to hypothesize! :)
Join me tomorrow for the conclusion to this first joy stop in the life of Job … in the meantime, ponder this question: Why can’t someone who weaves webs of self-centeredness experience true joy?
Pondering with you,
Evinda
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