Page 66 - Reading Job to Know God

Now, Proverbs 11:14 says, “Where there is no guidance the people
fall, but in abundance of counselors there is victory.” So don’t get me
wrong. I’m not saying, when I talk about Bildad, that we do not need
counseling, that we do not need to study commentaries and we do not
need to study books. It can sound so spiritual to say something like this:
“Through the years I am getting away from books; I am getting away
from the comments of men. Now I just want to study the Bible. I have the
Bible, I have the Lord, I have the Holy Spirit and I have an open heart.”
That sounds spiritual on the outside. But more often than not it is pride
masquerading as humility. We ought to be real careful about that. Part
of helpless dependence is not only helpless dependence upon God, but
helpless dependence upon men. The fact is, the more you grow in the
Lord the more childlike you are going to become. In Christ we grow
backwards toward the cradle. That is what maturity is. You are not
going to need men less; you are going to need men more. “Christians
don’t get better – they get deader”

I went through a period in my life when I brushed aside all the great
books of church history. I don’t need Calvin or Luther. I don’t need to
read Wesley and Whitfield and Bunyan and Myers. Forget all the
commentaries, the theology books and the biographies. I have the Bible!
That’s all I need! And the Holy Spirit! You see, that approach is a
contradiction of Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11-14,
“And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as
evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the
saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the
Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which
belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be
children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every
wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men.”
According to these verses, what is the safeguard that I will not remain a
spiritual child? That I will not be tossed by the waves? That I will not be
blown out into some ocean of confusion by every wind of false doctrine?
The answer is gifted men/women. Ones who can touch our lives in real
authentic relationships. God has given spiritual gifts to men, that I might
be mature, that I might not be a child.
I need G. Campbell Morgan. I know no other commentator that gives you
a more all-inclusive Christ-centered look. He can put a verse into the
context of the whole Bible. I need that; I cannot do that on my own. I need
Lightfoot, Ellicott and those commentators who give me the original
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