(The following comprises Part Eleven of the Saturday series on Secondary Illuminations of Scripture.)
My final negative example comes from a young friend who is developing a corrective prophetic voice. He was thrilled to happen upon Job 32:7-10:
“I thought, ‘Age should speak; advanced years should teach wisdom.’ But it is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty that gives him understanding. It is not only the old who are wise, not only the aged who understand what is right. Therefore I say: Listen to me; I too will tell what I know.” (NIV)
In a classic secondary illumination error that is based, as many of them are, upon not heeding the rules of sound primary interpretations, my friend took this as a true sentiment and a personal encouragement. The problem is that in this passage’s context young Elihu the Buzite is preparing to light into Job, purportedly speaking for God. He will shortly be seen to be an arrogant young man—zealous, but zealous in part for the wrong ideas and thus redoubling their wrongness.
The literal sense of the passage, then, is that of displaying the pride of a particular young man and showing us the humiliation Job endured even from a relative youth in a society that honored elders. While I don’t believe we need to lay out the literal, primary interpretation to our hearers upon every single use of a secondary illumination, for that could get clunky, we are responsible to apply a well-reasoned standard. If the secondary illumination is in complete opposition to the primary interpretation, it cannot be a true illumination. As far as a primary interpretation can be ascertained, that has to be our basic starting point.
Our inclination to appropriate such a radically contradictory spiritual sense of a text may have something corrective to say to us. When faith healers apply the comments of Job’s counselors—comments which God condemns at the end of the book—to people in distress, it may beg the question of what spirit they are being inspired by. My friend who misappropriated Elihu’s words, however, might find encouragement in some other passages like Jeremiah 1:6-7 and 1 Timothy 4:12 that, with far less bravado, esteem the wisdom and affirm the callings of youths.
Just as we cannot have illuminations that directly oppose primary historical-grammatical interpretations, we also cannot have secondary illuminations that add to scriptural truths either in the sense that they are perceived to hold similar revelatory weight as Scripture or add ideas nowhere else deduced from and confirmed by a sound systematic or historical-grammatical reflection on Scripture.
Gabriel Fackre highlights these latter points in opening his chapter in The Doctrine of Revelation on how the Church may receive divine illumination:
Does revelation ‘continue’? No, if that means addition to, or supersession of, the defining act of Light in Jesus Christ (as in the claims of Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church) or addition to, or supersession of, the inspired biblical testimony to the reconciling deeds of election and incarnation (as in the golden plates of Mormon teaching). What then of Pilgrim John Robinson’s counsel to attend to God’s ‘ever new light and truth’? He speaks here not of new revelation but of new illumination—fresh light shed on the unsurpassable deeds and disclosures in the narrative, and thus ‘new light and truth from God’s holy Word’. (p. 181)
Incidentally, Fackre’s cogent expression of the problem here is why I have chosen to call these scriptural insights secondary “illuminations” rather than “revelations” as they are commonly referenced. This nuance of words, reminding us that illuminations must be founded on the ultimate and sole revelation of the Word in Christ, seems helpful.
Thanks for your well thought out comments, Deborah. 🙂 As to your young friend: One thing I have learned is that prophetic “correction” has a frequent tendency to be harsh, which is not how God talks to us. I have learned to wait, when I get a “word” that seems “corrective” and harsh. As I wait and pray, sometimes it goes away, sometimes the need for it disappears, and sometimes God gives me a gracious. loving way to say that word so that the correction is not only heard, but it is received with gratitude. In other words, the way a corrective word is delivered makes a huge difference as to whether it is received as harsh criticism or loving correction. I’d encourage your young friend to always check his “corrective” words to see if they sound loving or harsh. If they do not sound loving, he should wait and pray. (God is not in the habit of sheep-bashing, so we shouldn’t be either.)
Good thoughts, Timbreldancer. Some of the OT prophets were a bit “hard core,” but we are given the standard of encouraging, exhorting, and upbuilding the body of Christ. I believe that a LOT of the time we’re given prophetic insight to pray through, not to share… or perhaps only to share after having prayed for an extended time. Usually that involves both a lot of soul-searching for the same issues in our personal lives (humble empathy) and diplomacy and guidance in timing and presentation. Those called as scholars who have prophetic voices, however, will probably be pretty direct as their disciplines require. And some peops don’t have a diplomatic bone in their bodies but need to be both shepherded and received in their sharing of insight.
D.Joy: You know how much I appreciate your insights, but I wonder if you are totally right on this one. Having spent what seems like years in Job, and having received several life teachings from Job, I have just a couple of comments I’d like to make concerning your take, and also concerning your young friend’s situation. First, speaking from the prophetic prospective, I wonder if there is such a thing as a “corrective prophetic voice”. My experience and study says there are variations on the theme of prophet, such as seer, or worship leader, but I don’t think “corrector” is one of them. A prophet hears from God, and says what God is saying. Sometimes future, sometimes interpretive, sometimes worship, and certainly, sometimes corrective. But, I don’t see that God has the corrective tool, like having a 9-iron, in His bag. Second, I don’t applaud Elihu’s manner, and obviously, he has the “young prophet arrogance about him, but, at the end, God takes issue with three friends, not four. Your friend appreciated the fact that age does not mean wisdom; he will come to appreciate that youth and prophetic gifting or calling can also fall short as the other comment referenced. It’s been a week or two since I last read Elihu’s talk, but I think it very much presaged what God was about to say. I also think that he was very aware that God was about to step into the conversation, and I would bet that he was being more and more careful, as he went along, to avoid getting crossways with God. And, as I said earlier, God did not correct or condemn him. Maybe he was just leaving that for later theologians to do.
Thanks, Bert. I guess the traditional read I’ve seen re: God’s not handling Elihu but focusing on the elders was that as a youth in that society he was not worthy of an address (and perhaps was also granted slack to see how he would apply this lesson in time when he was of age). I would have to say that re-reading Job a year or so ago I did question for the first time whether it was a *possible* read that Elihu was more right than his elders, although I didn’t think so. I can see, however, what you are saying about there being some thematic continuity b/c of the wonders of nature, etc. Actually the tricky thing w/ all of the speeches in Job is that there are elements of continuity w/ ideas that would later be presented in the Torah (remembering that Job is an earlier work than the laws) but not the right spirit nor the breadth of understanding that the situation required.
Regardless, I did wonder if someone would comment on this post saying that they found my friend’s application of the verses acceptable, since a similar message (if arguably a different tone) can be found in some other scriptures regarding youth and leadership. I think I chose a more debatable and less egregious misapplication this time precisely b/c I think that helps put us charismatics in a more evaluative mindset than is often encouraged.Re: the prophetic, would you deny that Old Testament prophets often had a corrective voice? Or are you just saying that this is not a function you find in the New Testament (and thus for us today)?
I just did a little poking around, and there are indeed varied opinions regarding whether Elihu was better than the others and how we should handle his text.
i.e., Thanks for challenging me re: Elihu. I had not looked last yr (when the possibility occurred to me) to see if there were in fact teachers who supported that read over the read wherein he has not reached an age of accountability for his speeches. It is true that he seems to get the sovereignty of God a bit more, although at this time I’d stick to my charge against Elihu. It might be a good reason not to base a hermeneutical example on this passage, however. Thanks.