OCT 23 | The Bible's Worst Advice Givers: Learning What NOT to Do from Scripture's Misguided Counselors
When Good Intentions Lead to Bad Counsel
Have you ever been in the darkest season of your life, only to have someone look at you and say, "Well, you must have done something to deserve this"? If so, you've encountered what the Bible reveals as one of humanity's oldest problems: well-meaning people who give terrible advice.
The Scriptures don't just provide us with heroes to emulate and wisdom to follow. Sometimes, the Bible shows us spectacular failures—people who got it wrong in ways that are both cringe-worthy and strangely relatable. And honestly? These cautionary tales might be more helpful than the success stories, because we've all been these people at some point. We've all given advice we thought was spiritual but was actually harmful. And we've all been wounded by people who confused their theological systems with compassion.
In this comprehensive exploration, we'll examine three categories of biblical advice-givers who teach us invaluable lessons about what NOT to do when someone is suffering. These aren't villains—they're sincere people who made common mistakes that echo through church hallways and Christian communities today. By understanding their failures, we can become better comforters, wiser counselors, and more Christ-like companions to those in pain.
Job's Friends: When Theology Trumps Compassion
The Setup: A Masterclass in Presence
The book of Job introduces us to three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—who initially model exactly what suffering people need. When they hear that their friend has lost everything (his children, his wealth, and his health), they travel to be with him. And for seven days, they do something extraordinary: they simply sit in silence.
Job 2:11-13 tells us they "sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was." This is beautiful pastoral care. They didn't rush to fix anything. They didn't offer quick solutions. They were simply present in the ashes with their devastated friend.
For one glorious week, they got it exactly right.
The Catastrophic Mistake: Opening Their Mouths
But then Eliphaz speaks. And what comes out reveals a theological framework that prioritizes systematic tidiness over human complexity. His counsel can be summarized in a simple equation: "The innocent don't suffer. If you're suffering, you must have sinned. Just repent, and God will restore you."
On the surface, this sounds theologically sound. It fits a certain reading of Deuteronomy and the covenant blessings and curses. It's clean. It's logical. It makes the universe feel orderly and predictable.
There's just one problem: it's wrong.
The Deeper Issue: Protecting Ourselves from Mystery
What makes Eliphaz's counsel so insidious is that it isn't motivated by malice but by fear. He cannot tolerate the mystery of innocent suffering. If Job—a righteous man—can suffer catastrophically for no apparent reason, then Eliphaz himself is vulnerable. His theological system exists not just to explain God, but to protect him from uncertainty.
This is the pattern we see repeated throughout the dialogues between Job and his friends. They would rather accuse an innocent man than admit, "I don't understand why this is happening." They need Job's suffering to make sense within their framework, so they twist reality to fit their theology instead of adjusting their theology to fit reality.
The Modern Echo: "Everything Happens for a Reason"
We do this constantly in contemporary Christian culture. Someone gets cancer, and we scramble to find a reason: "They were too stressed." "They didn't eat organic." "Maybe there's unconfessed sin." We spiritualize tragedy because if there's a formula—if suffering can be explained and therefore avoided—then we're safe.
But the book of Job systematically demolishes this comfortable theology. God Himself eventually appears and vindicates Job, explicitly stating that the friends spoke wrongly about Him. The equation doesn't work. Righteousness doesn't guarantee comfort, and suffering doesn't indicate sin.
The Label: Miserable Comforters
Job himself gives us the perfect term for this phenomenon. In Job 16:2, he tells his friends, "I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you!" The Hebrew word translated "miserable" is 'amal, which carries connotations of being troublesome, burdensome, and grievous.
Think about that. These men traveled to comfort their friend. But instead of easing his burden, they added to it. Their theological certainty became an additional weight he had to carry.
The First Lesson: Don't Prioritize Your Theology Over Someone's Pain
Here's the crucial takeaway: When you prioritize maintaining your theological system over acknowledging someone's legitimate pain, you become what Scripture calls a miserable comforter. You may think you're defending God's character or upholding biblical truth, but you're actually doing violence to a person made in God's image.
The proper response to mystery isn't to force-fit explanations. Sometimes the most theologically mature thing you can say is, "I don't know why this is happening, but I'm here with you."
Naaman's Servants: When "Good Advice" Shuts Down Legitimate Grievance
The Context: Power, Pride, and Leprosy
The story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5 gives us a more subtle example of problematic counsel. Naaman is a Syrian general—powerful, accomplished, and respected—who contracts leprosy. Through his wife's servant girl, he hears about a prophet in Israel who might heal him.
So Naaman assembles an entourage befitting his status: horses, chariots, silver, gold, and an official letter from his king. He travels to Israel expecting to be received with appropriate honor. Instead, the prophet Elisha doesn't even come out to greet him. He sends a messenger with a simple instruction: "Go wash in the Jordan River seven times."
Naaman's Rage: Legitimate or Proud?
Naaman is furious. His exact words (2 Kings 5:11-12) reveal his expectations: "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?"
Most sermons on this passage position Naaman's anger as sinful pride that needs to be overcome. And there's certainly an element of wounded ego here. But there's also something else: he was genuinely disrespected.
The Servants' Intervention: Smooth But Problematic
Naaman is about to leave in rage when his servants intervene with what sounds like wisdom: "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be clean'?"
The advice works. Naaman goes to the Jordan, washes seven times, and is miraculously healed. The servants are vindicated, right?
The Uncomfortable Truth: Legitimate Anger Was Dismissed
Here's what makes this example so instructive: The servants weren't entirely wrong, but they also weren't entirely right. Their counsel essentially said, "Swallow your pride. Be humble. Just do what you're told." And yes, humility is a virtue.
But what if Naaman's anger was partially legitimate? What if being treated dismissively—regardless of the healing outcome—was actually wrong? What if righteous anger is sometimes the appropriate response to disrespect?
The servants, in their desire to keep the peace and facilitate healing, shut down a legitimate grievance. They prioritized the outcome (healing) over the process (dignity).
The Pattern in Church Culture: Spiritualizing Suppression
This dynamic is rampant in Christian communities. Someone expresses hurt over how they were treated, and the response is:
"Don't be offended—that's pride."
"Extend grace—that's what Jesus would do."
"Maybe God is teaching you something through this."
"Be the bigger person."
Sometimes these responses are appropriate. But often, they're Christian-sounding ways of saying, "Your feelings are inconvenient, so suppress them so we can all move on."
The Second Lesson: Don't Shut Down Legitimate Anger in the Name of Peace
Not all anger is sinful. Not all offense is rooted in pride. Sometimes people are genuinely wronged, and the spiritually mature response isn't to smooth it over quickly but to acknowledge the injury.
Jesus Himself expressed anger (remember the temple cleansing?). The Psalms are filled with raw, honest complaints directed at God. The Bible makes space for lament, for protest, for saying, "This isn't right."
When we rush to shut down these emotions in the name of faith or forgiveness, we're not promoting healing—we're promoting suppression. And suppressed emotions don't disappear; they metastasize.
The Most Common Bad Advice: "Just Trust God More"
The Ubiquitous Counsel
If we did a survey of the most common advice given in Christian settings to people who are struggling, "just trust God more" would certainly rank in the top three, along with "have you prayed about it?" and "you need more faith."
The tricky part? These statements are all technically true. Trusting God is good. Prayer is powerful. Faith is essential. These are biblical concepts found throughout Scripture.
So what makes them bad advice?
The Problem: Faith as Formula
When someone is in crisis—dealing with depression, wrestling with unanswered prayer, suffering loss, facing chronic illness—responding with "just trust God more" transforms faith from relationship into formula. It implies:
If you trusted God properly, this wouldn't be happening
Your suffering is the result of insufficient faith
There's a linear equation: more trust = less problems
Your pain is essentially your fault
None of these are biblical. Jesus explicitly warned that in this world we would have trouble (John 16:33). The faithful heroes of Hebrews 11 experienced both miraculous deliverance and horrific suffering. Paul's "thorn in the flesh" remained despite his prayers.
The Subtext: Your Pain Makes Me Uncomfortable
Here's what's often happening beneath the surface when we give this advice: We're uncomfortable with mystery, with suffering we can't fix, with the tension of living in a fallen world where bad things happen to faithful people.
Saying "just trust God more" or "have you prayed about it?" serves multiple unconscious purposes:
It gives us something to say (anything to fill the awkward silence)
It positions us as helpful (we're giving "spiritual" counsel)
It creates distance (your problem is your insufficient faith, not random tragedy)
It protects us (if there's a formula, we can avoid what you're experiencing)
Job's Friends Redux
This brings us full circle to Job's friends. Throughout the dialogues, they essentially tell Job to trust God more, repent more, have more faith. And God's final judgment? "You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has" (Job 42:7).
Job's raw honesty—his complaints, his confusion, his refusal to accept tidy explanations—was more pleasing to God than his friends' pious platitudes.
The Third Lesson: Don't Treat Faith Like a Magic Formula
Faith is relationship, not transaction. It's clinging to God in the darkness, not a technique for turning on the lights. When we reduce it to a formula, we diminish both the mystery of God and the dignity of human suffering.
People don't need more formulas when they're struggling. They need presence. They need someone willing to sit in the mess with them without rushing to clean it up.
What the Bible's Worst Advice Givers Have in Common
Looking across these examples, several patterns emerge:
Pattern One: Prioritizing Comfort Over Truth
All these advice-givers want to make suffering make sense. They need it to fit a system, follow a pattern, have a solution. Because if suffering is random or mysterious, they're not safe either.
Pattern Two: Protecting Themselves More Than Helping Others
Job's friends protect their theology. Naaman's servants protect the healing opportunity. The "just pray more" crowd protects themselves from the discomfort of unanswerable questions.
Pattern Three: Speaking Instead of Listening
Notice that all these examples involve people talking at someone who's suffering rather than listening to them. They come with answers before they've fully understood the questions.
Pattern Four: Confusing Activity with Ministry
There's a compulsion to do something, say something, fix something. The idea of simply being present without having answers feels insufficient. But sometimes presence is precisely what's needed.
The Biblical Alternative: Jesus and the Ministry of Tears
If Job's friends represent bad counsel, Jesus represents the alternative. And the most instructive moment comes in John 11, at the death of Lazarus.
The Shortest and Most Powerful Verse
"Jesus wept" (John 11:35).
Two words. The shortest verse in the English Bible. And possibly the most profound response to human suffering in all of Scripture.
Jesus knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. He had already told the disciples this was going to happen. He wasn't crying because He was without hope or powerless.
He wept because His friends were grieving. Because death is horrible even when resurrection is coming. Because the appropriate response to suffering isn't explanation—it's emotion.
What Jesus Didn't Do
Notice what's absent from this scene:
No theological lecture about why Lazarus died
No explanation that "this is all part of God's plan"
No rebuke of Mary and Martha for their grief
No suggestion that they lacked faith
No attempt to make them feel better prematurely
He simply entered into their grief. He felt with them instead of fixing them.
The Model for Misery Relief (Not Misery Causing)
Romans 12:15 gives us the pattern: "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." Not explain to those who mourn. Not fix those who mourn. Not spiritualize away their mourning. Just mourn with them.
This is desperately uncomfortable for those of us who like having answers, who are trained to be helpers, who build our identity around being useful. But it's what suffering people actually need.
Practical Application: How to Not Be a Miserable Comforter
Guideline One: Prioritize Presence Over Answers
The first and most important thing you can offer someone in crisis is your presence. Not your wisdom, not your theological framework, not your suggestions—just you, showing up, staying, being there.
Job's friends got this right for seven days. Follow their initial example, not their eventual disaster.
Guideline Two: Listen More Than You Speak
When you do speak, make it mostly questions that help them process, not statements that shut down their processing. "How are you feeling?" "What's the hardest part right now?" "What do you need?" These are far more helpful than "Have you tried..." or "You should..."
Guideline Three: Validate Legitimate Emotions
If someone is angry, sad, confused, or doubting—even if those emotions make you uncomfortable—validate them. "That makes sense." "I would feel the same way." "That's really hard."
You don't have to agree with every thought they express to affirm that their feelings are legitimate responses to their circumstances.
Guideline Four: Resist the Urge to Explain or Fix
Most bad advice comes from our discomfort with not having solutions. Practice sitting with mystery. Practice saying, "I don't know why this is happening" or "I don't have any answers, but I'm here."
This feels insufficient to the advice-giver, but it's often exactly what the sufferer needs.
Guideline Five: Don't Spiritualize Everything
Not every hardship is a spiritual lesson. Not every tragedy has a purpose you need to identify. Sometimes bad things just happen in a broken world, and the appropriate response is lament, not lesson-extraction.
Guideline Six: Check Your Motivations
Before you speak, ask yourself: Am I about to say this to help them, or to make myself feel better? To provide comfort, or to relieve my own discomfort? To address their need, or to demonstrate my wisdom?
Honest self-examination can prevent a lot of miserable comforting.
Guideline Seven: Follow Up with Action, Not Just Words
The best "advice" is often practical help: "I'm bringing dinner Tuesday." "I've scheduled time to clean your house." "I'm going to sit with you once a week for the next month—no agenda, just presence."
Actions communicate care in ways that words often can't.
For Those Who've Received Terrible Advice
If you're reading this as someone who's been hurt by well-meaning but harmful counsel, here's what you need to know:
You're Not Crazy
If advice that sounded spiritual made you feel worse instead of better, trust that instinct. You're not lacking faith or being oversensitive. Sometimes people just don't know how to sit with pain, and they say harmful things while thinking they're being helpful.
You're Not Doing It Wrong
"Just trust God more" implies you're failing at faith. But clinging to God in darkness, asking honest questions, expressing real emotions—these are all forms of trust. Faith isn't the absence of doubt; it's loyalty in the presence of doubt.
You Have Permission to Grieve
You don't have to force positivity. You don't have to find the silver lining. You don't have to testify about lessons learned before you've actually learned them. The Bible is full of lament—raw, honest, sometimes angry expressions of pain directed at God. That's part of faith, not contrary to it.
You Can Set Boundaries
If someone keeps giving you advice that hurts rather than helps, you have permission to say, "I appreciate your concern, but what I need right now is just someone to sit with me" or "I'm not looking for advice—I just need to be heard."
Protecting yourself from additional harm isn't ungrateful or unspiritual. It's wise.
The Wisdom in Biblical Failure Stories
The Bible's inclusion of these terrible advice-givers is itself instructive. Scripture doesn't sanitize human failure. It shows us people getting it wrong—sometimes spectacularly—so we can learn from their mistakes rather than repeating them.
Job's friends teach us that theological correctness without compassion is miserable comfort. Naaman's servants show us that smoothing over legitimate grievances creates suppression, not healing. And the ubiquitous "just trust God more" counsel reveals how we often prioritize our own comfort over others' pain.
But more importantly, Jesus shows us the alternative: Enter into suffering rather than explaining it away. Weep with those who weep. Be present without needing to fix. Create space for honest emotion without rushing to resolution.
This is harder than giving advice. It requires us to sit with discomfort, tolerate mystery, and resist our compulsion to solve problems. But it's what transforms us from miserable comforters into Christ-like companions.
The goal isn't to never get it wrong—we're all going to be Job's friends sometimes. The goal is to learn from these biblical cautionary tales so that when we inevitably fail, we fail less often and recover more quickly.
Because ultimately, the ministry of presence is the ministry of Jesus, who didn't send a manual or a formula but came Himself. Who entered into human suffering completely. Who wept at gravesides and sweat blood in gardens and cried out in abandonment on a cross.
That's the kind of comfort that actually comforts. That's wisdom worth learning from Scripture's worst advice-givers.
An Invitation to go Deeper….
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