Reading Scripture in different translations is a good spiritual discipline. This was underscored recently when I was reading in the book of Job. The New International Version, which I usually read, has this translation of Job 18:2-4:
“When will you end these speeches? Be sensible, and then we can talk.
Why are we regarded as cattle and considered stupid in your sight?
You who tear yourself to pieces in your anger, is the earth to be abandoned for your sake Or must the rocks be moved from their place?”
The Moffatt translation poses the last question in the text in this simple, direct way, Are things to be upset because of you? That set me to reflecting quite differently than had I read only from my NIV.
Most of us don’t like to be upset. We like a cozy world of certainty, comfort and security. We are happy with the status quo. We don’t want our comfort disturbed. New ideas, new concepts, new methods of doing things, new political systems, new theology—they up-set us.
There is something of an instinctive fear of the new. We don’t want our orderly, well arranged worlds to be disarranged and knocked to pieces by something new that hasn’t been tried. This verse of scripture expresses this basic fear. Bildad, Job’s supposed friend, asked, “Are things to be upset, because of you?”
Let’s be careful now! We don’t want to upset things. This is the fear that has blocked many a redemptive movement. It has strangled the breath from many a good idea. It has robbed the church, civic organizations, and political groups of the creative energy that would have meant life and happiness. Especially is it so in the church.
Our fathers have been churchmen
Nineteen hundred years or so.
And to every new proposal
They have always answered “No.”
There is always the charge of upsetting the boat. Amos declares, “Let justice run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty flowing stream.” The faithful Bildad’s reply, “Are things to be upset, because of you?”
Micah cries with new moral insight, “He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” The Bildads are still faithful, “Are things to be upset, because of you?”
Jesus proclaims, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another.” But the Bildads hear and respond, “Are things to be upset, because of you?”
Paul experiences a revelation of brotherhood and expresses it. “There is neither Jew nor Greek.” The retort is the same, “Are things to be upset, because of you?”
It is so in every age. Luther affirms, “The just shall live by faith.” Wesley says, “I look upon the whole world as my parish.” Horace Bushnell proclaims a new Christian charter “The child should never think himself as other than child of God.” And the rebuttal always is, “Are things to be upset because of you?”
Let us answer this question with a loud, YES! May the tribe of those who continually upset the status quo and continually disarrange petty prejudices increase. May their days know no end. Let us pray,
Lord Jesus, enable us to faithfully follow you. Make us up-setters, disturbers, troublers of all those people and institutions who are content with conditions less than you would have them be. Amen.