D. Scott Meadows
Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him? —Job 13:7.
Of all our speech, “God talk” is the most dangerous both to ourselves and others. It is the most dangerous for us because the gravest sins of the tongue are found here, provoking divine discipline or worse. And the potential harm to others’ souls is incalculable. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov 18.21).
Of course, no sins are truly “pious,” since the word means “devoutly religious.” To be devoutly religious, in the best way, ought to be our highest aspiration because it is very pleasing to God (Job 1.1; Luke 1.6; 2.25; 1 Tim 5.4; Jas 1.27).
“Pious sins of the tongue” is my attempt, I trust, to capture the incongruity of talk about God that is unworthy of Him and of His truth, and therefore, that has spiritually deadly effect toward others, especially when they lack discernment, but even then the hearers do not wholly escape injury. This is exactly what Job’s friends were doing, and he reproved them for it in this verse. They sounded pious in the very speeches that God condemned.
And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job (Job 42.7, 8).
“Pious” can also have the negative connotation of hypocrisy, and that also applies here. Those presuming to correct and even harshly rebuke Job were far inferior to him in the eyes of God (Job 1.8; 2.3), and besides that, their “God-talk” was misapplied and demoralizing to Job. They proved to be deeply if unintentionally irreverent, and needed a blood-sacrifice for forgiveness.
We who talk about God the most are most in need of this caution. Like Job’s friends, we have given considerable thought to subjects like why bad things happen to good people, and we probably have much to say about it. When we see others in distress, we try to help, and sometimes that involves making statements about God and His ways. We believe there is such a thing as right and wrong, and we think we are able to tell the difference and to enlighten others about it. But just when we open our mouths and are about to speak of God, let us stop and think first. Should we really say what we are inclined to say?
Scripture offers many tests we can apply for verbal safety. I would bring out just a few.
First, is it reverent and true? The fear of God should govern everything we say. “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few” (Eccl 5:2). “Be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long” (Prov 23:17). If we truly know God and remember Him each time we are about to speak, it will exert a powerful influence upon what we would say.
Truth alone must be heard from us—that which is true to Scripture (Jn 17.17) and true to the reality of the situation we address. Here is where Job’s friends sinned so grievously. “Will ye . . . talk deceitfully for [God]?” They jumped to the wrong-headed notion that Job suffered greatly because he was an exceptionally bad person. Eliphaz implied this in Job 4.7–9 and the chorus of criticism only grew louder after that (e.g., Job 34.35–37).
God-talk that truly passes the standard of Scripture and discerns the actual situation as God Himself sees it is exceedingly difficult to practice. No doubt all of us have sinned here and can do better, God helping us.
Second, is it peaceable? Rhetorically, Job asked his friends, “Will ye speak wickedly for God?” The adverb in Hebrew can have the sense of being unjust or unfair, along with malicious and hurtful (Logos BSL). But “the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated [open to reason, ESV], full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy [sincere, ESV]” (Jas 3.17). Alec Motyer comments,
“If peace is to be achieved and kept, then there is need to be gentle, tolerantly though not weakly acceptive of the other person, graciously amenable, yielding wherever yielding is possible rather than standing up for one’s rights (in loc.).”
Job’s friends became aggressive and hostile in their resolve to explain everything, when they would have been safer to commiserate with him and to confess their great ignorance about the ways of God. Oh, what a lesson for all of us!
Third, is it edifying? Job’s friends performed miserably on this score. Hearing them, it’s a wonder he didn’t kill himself, especially given his compromised and vulnerable condition—mentally, physically, spiritually, economically, and relationally. Paul wrote, “Seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church” (1 Cor 14.12). If “the other (person) is not edified,” that is a problem (v. 17). The general rule to be followed is, “Let all things be done unto edifying” (v. 26). To edify is to build up, and the very opposite of tearing down or demolishing. It is “the act of bringing something closer to fullness or completion; understood as if assisting in the construction of an incomplete building” (Logos BSL). Christ is the prize and Christlikeness the destiny of every Christian. How great would it be if we stifled every unedifying comment and courageously said only things that prompted and assisted faith in Christ? We’re all works in progress and have a responsibility to raise up one another as much as we can.
My brief closing exhortation is simple. Let us, with so many pious sins of the tongue, look to Christ for mercy and as our model for imitation. Amen. Ω