23 Yet if there is an angel at their side, a messenger, one out of a thousand, sent to tell them how to be upright,
Sometimes the Bible records bad theology! That’s right. Here is an example. It accurately records Elihu’s take on how things work in heaven, but it is Elihu’s understanding and not the truth. He thinks that angels mediate between God and man, that they stand up and defend people before God. But we see this theology nowhere in the Scriptures. We know angels are servants of God; they do His will, carry out His wishes, execute His judgments. We also know there is only one mediator between God and mankind: Jesus (1Tim 2:5). Elihu seems to be trying to help Job out of his predicament while at the same time still saying that Job is at fault for his situation, that his sin has brought about God’s punishment. Today we hear lots of strange theology about the role of angels. Almost all of it is bunk! Always check what you hear against Scripture. Remember, you can understand a verse by looking at its context, by reading the verses around it, the chapter as a whole, the book and all of Scripture. There are no contradictions in Scripture. The Bible is consistent in its theology. You can make the Bible say whatever you want, but not without twisting it. Its language is just like all language. You determine what a sentence means by listening to the rest of the conversation. If you saw the phrase “I saw abundanceonthetable” you could tell whether this was a Pixar cartoon or an account of a Thanksgiving meal by the sentences around it. This is a no-brainer. So don’t just read a single verse, read the verses around it. They will help you understand the single verse correctly. If you took Elihu’s theology on angels and ran with it as correct theology, you would have missed the context of this verse (a veiled attack on Job’s character) and you would end up giving angels much more power than they really have.