Elihu continues by telling Job that God is not affected by Job’s sins or by Job’s goodness. Rather God uses adversity to get peoples attention and show that he cares. Elihu tells Job that God sent job this suffering to prevent Job from sinning further. Elihu continues his somewhat garbled comments by saying that God is all powerful so Job cannot hope to understand God. Elihu concludes by saying, “people who are truly wise show [God] reverence.
Why is it that through this entire book none of Job’s friends took the time to ask God why God is treating Job in this manner? Each of the friends assumes that they know what it is that God is doing. This makes Elihu’s comment that God is too powerful to be understood almost comical; Elihu and his friends are not heading their own advice. That leads me to ask the question: why does Elihu tell Job that God is too powerful to be understood after explaining his own understanding of God? Elihu is again showing his immaturity and, in fact, his irreverence of God.
To some extent I agree with Elihu that God is too great for any of us to fully understand, but that does not mean that we are incapable of some understanding of God. Any understanding of God we have comes from the revelation of God to us. God has revealed, and continues to reveal himself in four primary ways: Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, spiritual mentors/church tradition, and our personal experience of God. When we are trying to understand God we need to consult the Bible, pray, ask our pastors and elders, and remember how God has revealed himself to us in the past.
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