Job CCCXIX

 Job 36:22-33, “Behold, God is exalted by His power; who teaches like Him? Who has assigned Him His way, or who has said, ‘You have done wrong’? Remember to magnify His work, of which men have sung. Man looks on it from afar. Behold, God is great, and we do not know Him; nor can the number of His years be discovered. For He draws up drops of water, which distill as rain from the mist, which the clouds drop down and pour abundantly on man. Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading clouds, the thunder from His canopy? Look, He scatters His light upon it, and covers the depths of the sea. For by these He judges the peoples; He gives food in abundance. He covers His hands with lightning, and commands it to strike. His thunder declares it, the cattle also, concerning the rising storm.”

Nestled within his multitude of words, Elihu said something that, in modern parlance, seems more like a Freudian slip than anything else. It rings different than all the other things he’s said thus far, and reveals something Elihu would have been reticent to admit had his mouth not gotten ahead of his brain: God is great, and we do not know Him! But you’ve been waxing poetic regarding God for the better part of four chapters. You’ve been talking endlessly about all the wisdom and knowledge that reside in you, flow from your lips, and have nested in your heart, to the point that everything you say is worthy of being chiseled into stone tablets to be preserved for future generations. You’ve been boasting about your knowledge endlessly, yet the one thing man should strive to know above all else, you admitted, you do not know.

It’s never been easier to learn more about the most obscure or niche topics than it is now. Everyone presumes they’re a genius because they have a smartphone and can get answers at the click of a button, without putting forth the effort of diligent searching. What once would have taken endless months in dusty libraries can be accessed within a breath, and for some reason, men equate that to their own wisdom being enriched and heightened.

Given the abundance of evidence on hand, I would submit we haven’t gotten smarter, wiser, or more knowledgeable, but the opposite. We’ve been dumbed down, duped into using technology as a crutch and a safety net, so dependent on it that if the Apple Watch doesn’t beep to remind us to drink water, we’d die of thirst.

I’m old enough to remember the good old days where you’d have to fork out ten bucks for an atlas if you were planning on driving cross country, mapping your journey, figuring out if you were going east or west, when now all you have to do is punch in an address four states away, and the device will not only tell you the best route to take, but an estimated time of arrival. Easier? More convenient? Most assuredly, but now you have people Google-mapping the grocery store they’ve been to a hundred times for fear of getting lost within four blocks.

We’ve taken to asking Siri about spiritual matters that only the Word of God can reveal, and what’s even more concerning is that we would take the word of a gadget over Scripture when it comes to salvific matters. Jesus said He was the way, the truth, and the life, but if you ask Siri how many paths there are to heaven, I’m sure it will list a plethora of them, because a soulless machine can never grasp the profundity of eternity, nor perceive what salvation means.

Some edgy, hyper-modern contemporary churches have even taken to embracing the notion of Artificial Intelligence delivering sermons, believing it to be viable, rather than the nefarious, destructive threat it credibly poses to something as existential as eternity. Yes, AI may use fancier words, better sentence structure, and more engaging story arcs, but what it can never possess is the unction and power of the Holy Spirit that the sons and daughters of God ought to. A machine, no matter how technologically advanced, can never feel the unction of the Holy Spirit or speak the words the hungry soul needs to hear. Likely, what you’ll get is a carefully curated word salad, akin to Elihu’s self-indulgent, bloviating speech, that neither challenges nor exhorts, and does its utmost to cause as little offense as possible.

Elihu inadvertently admitted that he did not know God, and, as any hubristic soul would, he had to include everyone else in his statement. If I don’t know God, then no one else can, so we, as a monolith, do not know Him! I can’t see it; I really can’t. Here I am speaking on God’s behalf, and I don’t know Him, and if someone like me can’t know Him, then no one else can. The probability that someone, anyone, would have a true and abiding relationship with God while I rattle off attributes about Him just doesn’t compute.

Look, I know stuff about God. He is great. He draws up drops of water which distill as rain from the mist. He scatters His light upon the canopy of the clouds and covers the depths of the sea, but as far as knowing Him personally, I don’t, so you can’t either, for we do not know Him! It’s hard to imagine anyone could be more presumptuous than Elihu, but to this day there are people who insist that, because they have not experienced something, it is therefore impossible for anyone else to have experienced it. Prophecy? Revelation? Divine healing? The indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Surely you jest. I’ve experienced none of these things, and I know a lot about God, so if I were not graced with these gifts, anyone who claims to have been graced with them must be lying through their teeth. Circuitous logic at its best, or at its worst, depending on how you view it, but if all else fails, ask Siri or Alexa; I’m sure they’ll have the right of it.     

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.