Job 32:10 therefore I said, Hearken to me; I also will shew mine opinion
Haven’t you been in a situation where you saw someone struggling with something, and you thought to yourself, “Here, let me do that.” For instance, my wife is trying to get the lid off a jar and says, “Ahhh.” She can’t get the lid off, and I think, “Hey, let me try that. Wow, that is a lot harder than I thought.” Sometimes I can be a backseat driver, and though I am not the best driver I know, I am simply the driver I trust the most. When I am a passenger, I can be thinking, “Stop, Stop!” or “Turn here,” or “Speed up!” It is easy to be a backseat driver when you are not accountable for making the decisions. It is easy to have opinions. I recently remarked to my wife that the older I get the more opinionated I become about things that are both important and unimportant.
In Job 32 a young man named Elihu had heard all he could take. He heard the accusations of Job’s three friends and Job’s defense. In Job 32:9 Elihu says, “Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment.” That is true. Not all the important people you know of are wise, and just because you are old doesn’t mean you have discernment.
He continues in verse 17, “I said…I also will shew mine opinion” Verses 18-20 say, “For I am full of matter…Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent; it is ready to burst like new bottles. I will speak, that I may be refreshed.” He had to vent! Now, sometimes ignorance equals arrogance. You don’t know all the facts, so you are very smug with what you think you know. If you know something in part, it is not the same as knowing it in the whole. In Job 32 and 33 you learn that wisdom is more than merely having the right opinion. Elihu had some correct opinions, but having the right opinion is not the same as having wisdom. We need both.
Wisdom is having the right opinion in the right argument. It is not merely something where you vent your feelings. Social media is really good for that, where in some narrow domain your opinion may be accurate, but in the bigger picture you are missing something. It is like the proverbial rearranging of the deck chairs of the Titanic. Maybe your opinion is right about the chairs, but if you are headed for destruction, it doesn’t really matter.
The entire argument in Job is based on a premise that Job is either innocent or guilty. In fact, Job 31 is Job saying, “If I am guilty, then judge me.” That was perhaps good to note, but it was the wrong premise. Job’s premise was that he was innocent and his friends’ premise was that Job was guilty. The problem was that the argument they were having was not actually the right argument, so Elihu was jumping in with additional information about the wrong argument. This was not wise. Wisdom is more than the right opinion; it is the right argument.
Wisdom is also the right argument to the right person. A lot of what Job said about himself was true. Job was not guilty of any particular sin. Much of what Job’s friends said about God was true. God is transcendent, wise, and good. The problem is both these positions were being put in opposition one to another and none of them knew what it was they did not know. Job and his friends didn’t know that the devil and God had been in discussion. Job’s friends didn’t know that Job was not guilty of any particular sin. Job had never considered that even if he was innocent of a particular sin, he was still vile in comparison to God. Ronald Reagan, talking about those on the other side of the aisle, said something like, “It is not that they are lying. It is just that so much they know just isn’t so.” Many times, it is neutral or benign to be in the dark about something, but oftentimes you can know just enough to be dangerous. These men knew something that was right, but they were applying it to the wrong person.
Wisdom is the right argument to the right person, but it also must be in the right way. In Job 42 God chides Job’s friends because they did not speak of Him the things that were right as Job had. All of them had misunderstandings about God, but the bottom line was that they were arguing things that may have been true but they were arguing them in the wrong way.
Elihu was the youngest among them. He said, “I have waited the longest I can because these men are older than I am.” Later, in verse 6 he said, “I am young, and ye are very old; wherefore I was afraid, and durst not shew you mine opinion.” That was wisdom on his part because he did not know what it was that he did not know, and as soon as he opened his mouth, he said things that were misapplied. In Job 33:31 he says, “Hold thy peace, and I will speak.” Verse 33 says, “If not, hearken unto me: hold thy peace, and I will teach thee wisdom.” That is a little self-important and not self-aware. He wasn’t giving the right argument in the right way at the right time to the right person.
Often, if things look easy, they can’t be what we think they are. It is easy to parent until you become a parent. It is easy to lead a church until you are the pastor. It is easy to lead an organization until you are the one who is responsible. In short, we are not saying that everything is relative, like your truth and my truth; we are simply saying that sometimes I may know something that is true, but I only know part of it. It is not so much that I have the right opinion, but that I have wisdom to make the right argument to the right person in the right way.
May God help us today to know what it is that we do not know, to have some humility, and to know when to stand up and speak and when to sit down and listen. In every case, realize that wisdom is more than merely having the right opinion.