Job 36:4  
“I am telling you nothing but the truth, 
for I am a man of great knowledge.”(NLT)

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It was the great theologian, Charlie Brown, who said, “The more I learn, the more I learn how much I have to learn.”

That’s the way it is with true intelligence. Hunger for learning always leads to new avenues of discovery and different possibilities to ponder. The StrengthsFinder assessment tells me my top strength is Learning. I enjoy good books, new (to me, at least) authors, ideas that stand the test of time, and innovations that refine ancient wisdom for modern applications. 

Here is one thing we have all likely discovered: If someone has to tell you how smart he or she is, she or he is probably not as smart as he or she would like you to believe. Job’s interlocutor (Elihu would prefer this title to something less pretentious like Questioner or Conversationalist.) is but one example of this matter of overconfidence. 

I experienced a bit of puffery a few years ago regarding my own advanced stage of brilliance. A group of us sat in a Washington D.C. dining establishment  a few tables over from a well-known United States Senator. I declared something I knew, although now I cannot remember just what it was. 

Another fellow sitting across the table hailed from England. His uncle is someone you know by reputation, even if you cannot call his name or know his title. My new acquaintance said more in three or four sentences than I even thought I knew. It was a good moment to shut up, and thankfully, humbly, I did. 

Elihu apparently did not understand that he, like me in D.C., was out of his depth. Instead, he confidently declared that he was smarter than smart. He was wiser than the wise. He was the pinnacle of intelligence. He reminds me of Vizzini in The Princess Bride. 

In the contest of wits between Vizzinni and the Dread Pirate Roberts, Vizzinni asks, “Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons.”

Elihu was smart. He was not, however, wise. Worse, he was unkind. 

At the end of this book, God forgives Job’s three friends. Elly Who goes unmentioned. This may well indicate something important about pretentiousness. Just in case it does, let us not pretend we are equal, nay superior, to those morons Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. It might serve us well to ask more questions than to blast others with declarations. 

It might serve us well to agree with Charlie Brown and keep learning more of what we do not know. 

How much more do you have to learn?

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I will fill my lifetime with learning more and more of God’s grace and truth.

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Our Father, please deliver me from pomposity. Teach me. Bless me with a preference for questions over declarations. Empower me to engage my ears much more often than my mouth. Teach me. Amen.