“For ask the previous generation, and pay attention to what their ancestors discovered, since we were born only yesterday and know nothing.” (vv. 8-9)

Pretty much everybody knows that I am a nostalgic guy.

I like the stuff of yesteryear. And, though my yesteryear may not be as far back as yours, it all remains endlessly interesting to me. There is a charm and a simplicity and a purity that seems to speak from days gone by—and, generally, it speaks peace.

In our modern culture, we have become a people obsessed with new and next, with something like progress. But are we actually any wiser, any purer, or any more secure because of it? I think we could learn from the words of Job’s friend when he says, “Ask the previous generation, and pay attention to what their fathers discovered”—because what they discovered was a real reliance upon the God of the Bible. Not everything back there is good, but there remains a ground in history that we have largely given away.

Maybe the stuff of yesteryear—their faith, their morality, their patterned worship—is worth bringing back.

— Tyler