Episode 188: July 7, 2024 - Walking With The Broken - Part 2

Eternity Church PodCast

A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. There’s nothing quite like a brand-new book. Crisp pages bound to a spine without a single hint of a crease or crack. No pages sullied with dog ears or bent edges. In my youth I despised worn out books! I didn’t loan books because I knew they’d never return in “acceptable” condition. Better to give the book away than grieve a broken spine or a deranged page. As a young reader, I could never comprehend the sickness that would cause someone to write in the margins! Decades down the road, I can’t quite pinpoint the moment when my rigid approach to treatment of books softened. Perhaps it was one-too-many books in “very good” condition purchased online that arrived with random highlights and inked interpretations that wore me down. Or it could have been my wild imagination that started drawing mental images of the notetakers. A curiosity that couldn’t help but ask why this or that phrase was so meaningful to someone else. Maybe it was the books of mentors that carried with them the feeling of hidden insights quietly passed on to me. The Elihu chapters feel like that. Through the dog-eared book of Job, we’ve heard the man of sorrows and his friends arguing. Along the way, Elihu sat silently underlining passages and highlighting statements. Now, all Elihu’s thoughts and reflections, all his margin notes have been compiled, bursting at the seams, ready to pour out. Elihu is like Job because he speaks from the margins. Where Job is alone in his suffering, rejected by his friends, Elihu is young. In the minds of the other men present, Elihu is the last person who should speak up. No wonder the first part of Elihu’s speech is just asking the older men to give his words an audience! This week as we read Job 32-33, ask the Spirit of God to help you read the words of Elihu with a new perspective. You have have received he book of Job, purchased full price because it was supposed to be in “like new” condition, only to find the pages cut and cuffed, the margins packed with cramped notes. Before we rush past, let’s take time to read them too.