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Job 15:9-10. "What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that is not clear to us? Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, older than your father."

 

This is Eliphaz, one of Job's friends, expressing his frustration at not being able to understand where Job is coming from, and appealing to the acquired knowledge of those older than Job in support of his arguments.

 

It is so difficult, impossible actually, to make others understand what we know through faith. Faith makes us see the world in a completely different way, one that is not describable to people who are relying solely on human understanding. Eliphaz does not have Job's faith, so he cannot understand Job's point of view.  Job will try throughout the book bearing his name to explain to his friends who he really is and what he is struggling with, but they will always end up talking past each other, because Job and his friends are not  viewing reality the same way.

 

Job knows and trusts God enough not to doubt, but to have questions about what is happening to him. His suffering does not seem like something the God he knows would allow, but he does know that it is not punishment for some evil on his part (as his friends are so sure it must be), and he never questions the goodness of God. Eliphaz is looking at the world from a human understanding, rather than a deep faith. If he has faith, it has not sufficiently touched his heart. So Eliphaz does not want to engage with the questions that Job is actually asking, instead, he preaches to Job, appealing to the elders for backup. Job is well past that point of view. I'm sure he wishes Eliphaz and other elders well, but he really does have (as Eliphaz guesses) an understanding that they do not have, one he cannot give to them as it is the fruit of his faith. No explanation will suffice for Job's friends unless and until they come to see the world through the eyes of true faith, and that won't happen until God knows the time is right for each of them.

 

Faith lets us know things that others do not know. It makes things understandable that are not clear to others. We can try to explain, try to illuminate things for those who do not yet see clearly, and sometimes we are successful, which is a wonderful thing. But those who are still relying on their own understanding or the authority of others are not persuadable by us. The best thing to do is leave them in God's hands and pray for them to eventually see what is clear to us.