James Week 2

Introduction

Welcome back, last week we started a series on James and hopefully we walked away having learned something new. One thing that I want to remind everyone before we get started is this new thing we are trying. If anyone has questions regarding the information I am talking about please feel free to ask. If you raise your hands I will try and get to a natural stopping point and let you ask your question. Just keep in mind that the question should pertain to what we are talking about and not be something random. Also, if anyone at any points feels the desire to stand up and add to what I am saying or share something that goes along with the topic feel free too. If you feel the spirit leading you to do that please do. Last week someone approached me afterwards and asked a few questions and asked me to expand on a few points I had made. I would have loved it if that person had done that during the service that way if I wasn’t explaining something well enough or my point wasn’t clear, it might have helped other people understand. So please, don’t think it will be rude, i will not take any personal offence, if you feel the spirit leading you to say something, do it.

With that being said, I wanted to cover a little bit of what we talked about last week. Last week we discussed the Book of James and some of the background information on the book. The book, or letter, was most likely written in the mid 40’s AD. We can make this our best estimate because in James chapter 2, which we will be getting into today, James has a teaching on faith and deeds that seems to go against Paul’s teaching on salvation by faith. While James and Paul had very similar views on this, there is a possiblity that James didn’t quite fully grasp what Paul meant or even knew that Paul was behind the teaching. James would have known what Paul meant after 48 AD when the aposltes met in Jerusalem for a council meeting. James and Paul would have had time to hash out what each other meant. Had James written this letter after 48 AD he probably would have worded chapter 2 differently, or even mentioned Paul and expanded on Paul’s teaching. The fact that Paul is not mentioned in this letter points to the letter having been written prior to the council in 48 AD.

We talked about James the brother of Jesus having written the letter. James the brother of John was killed in 44 AD and we know this from Acts 12. James the brother of Jesus was killed in 62 AD. And we know that information from the book The Antiquities of the Jews.

We also covered James 1:1-18 last week and talked about perseverance through trials and temptation brings about spiritual maturity or spiritual wholeness. James gives us this imagery of a spiritually divided person in James 1:6-8. He talks about one who doubts should not expect to receive anything from God, but we dug into the word doubt and learned that it had much stronger connotations than just simple doubting, rather James was saying that if we don’t consistently side with Jesus and we side more with the world, that is when we are double minded. I like to think of it as spiritually divided, or having multiple personality disorder but in a spiritual sense, where we serve God with one hand but the world with the other.

Today we are going to be digging further into this idea of spiritual wholeness and spiritual division in the rest of James 1 and James 2.

James 1:19-26

Alright, same as last week i am going to have you guys read the scripture for me. It gives me a chance to drink some water which is the real reason I do it. Let’s start with James 1:19-21 .

So we see James transition from talking about the pursuit of spiritual wholeness that is gained from trials into the evidence of spiritual wholeness. And he starts with a quick talk on speech and anger. The “take note of this” in verse 19 is a general call to pay attention and signals a pause in Jame’s argument as he switches from one topic to another. Now this is a very common theme in Jewish wisdom literature, but James being Jewish and writing to a Jewish audience, includes this because he knows that his readers are struggling in this area. In fact they must have been struggling to badly because James will mentions it five more times throughout his letter. The readers must have REALLY been struggling with this but can you blame them? I mean this is a common theme that we see even today. Let’s be real, you don’t have to raise your hands for this one, but we just had thanksgiving a few days ago and i am sure that some conversations got brought up and some of us could have used this verse as a reminder.

But in verse 20 we see why everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Because mans anger does not product the righteousness that God desires. Now like I mentioned earlier, this is a very common theme among Jewish literature. Some examples of other verses regarding this topic are Prov. 17:28, 10:19, 11:12, 13:3. And I wanted to share a verse from Jewish intertestamental literature. This comes from the book of Sirach, which James would have been familiar with. Now this book was written about 150 BC, so before Christ time. And if you have the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible it is in there.

Here is Sir. 5:11-13

“Be quick to hear, but deliberate in answering. If you know what to say, answer your neighbor; but if not, put your hand over your mouth. Honor and dishonor come from speaking, and the tongue of mortals may be their downfall.”

So you see, this idea of hasty speech is a very common theme. And what James is really trying to get across is that uncontrolled anger leads to uncontrolled speech. How often do we find ourselves regretting something that we said “in the heat of the moment” James reminds us that the wise person will learn to control the emotion of anger and eliminate one of the most common sources of hasty and unwise speech. James go on to tell us in verse 20 why Christians should be slow to become angry. he says it is because anger does not bring about the righteousness that God desires. Now this word righteousness means “to be put right with.” Now in this sense that James is using it, it is from the Human side of righteousness, not God’s. James is telling us that human anger does not produce behavior that is pleasing to God. Now God’s righteousness is something different, but this word righteousness that is used is similar to how Jesus uses it when he says in Matt.5:20 “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Now James is most likely thinking of a type of anger that results in sinful acts, such as violence, murder, and especially in this context, unwise speech. James is probably not intending to prohibit all anger of any kind. Even Jesus got angry. Remember how I said last week that James was like the proverbs of the new testament? Wisdom literature often use absolute assertions in order to make a point. We see Proverbs do this as well. So we can assume that James is intending us to read his warning as a general truth that applies in most cases. Generally speaking, human anger is not usually pleasing to God because it can lead to all different kinds of sins. That it can be never pleasing to God would be an interpretation that is insensitive to the style in which James writes his point.

James 1:21-27

So here we have another transition with the word Therefore. Now some commentators say that the therefore is setting up the transition into the next argument but others think it is a possible callback to James 1:18. What is really interesting is this idea that when we become Christians, we are born again and that we have been giving a new life by the standard of the word that saved them. You see when we are given this new life we are called to live differently, apart from out old life. We see an almost identical teaching in 1 Pet. 1:23-2:2 , in fact there are several similar teachings between James and 1 Pet.

“For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,”

Now 1 Pet was written after James so Peter most certainly borrowed this teaching. But the passage in 1 Pet and James 1:21 here remind us that we have been made new, through the word of God, which is Jesus christ and we are called to abandon the sinful behavior of our old live and begin living by the standard of Jesus.

When James says rid yourselves, it translates into “take off”. The reader would picture taking clothes off. And this metaphor of stripping off the pre christian lifestyle and putting on new clothes is a pretty common metaphor used in the New Testament. The armor of God being one of the more notable examples.

But James doesn’t quite do that, while he paints this picture of us stripping away the old filthy clothes that we have he doesn’t tell us to clothe ourselves in righteousness, instead he abandons the metaphor and tells us to accept or receive the word. And he does this because he wants to drive home the idea that we aren’t just adopting a new code of behavior, but that God’s words is what produces that new kind of behavior. Where Paul gives us the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness, James simply says to accept the word because adhering to the word of God, which is found in Christ, will produce the behavior that is pleasing to God.

Now his abandonment of the clothing metaphor is apparent in these next few verses. His use of “the word” is seen again in verse 22 where he says do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself, do what it says. James is now getting into the subject at hand and that is obedience to the word. James tells us that we must not merely listen, but do what it says. This always reminds me of kids. How many times have we told our kids to do something or not to do something and they nodded their heads and then five seconds later turned around and did it. It’s this idea of hearing, but not understanding right. And this is the heart of James pastoral concern and it is the best known verse in his letter. James is emphasing the importance of actually doing what the word says. Now this isn’t something that James just came up with right, we see Paul say the exact same thing in Romans 2:13 when he says,

“For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.”

In fact, James is actually echoing what Jesus commanded in Luke 11:28 when Jesus said,

“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.””

James is telling us the word, through which we are born into new life as he says in verse 18, and has been implanted in us, verse 21, must be put into practice. He goes on to say that those who merely listen to the word are on dangerous ground. They device themselves. Now this word deceive is a special word in the sense it is only used twice in the bible. It is found only 1 other time and that is in Col 2:4 where Paul is warning his readers not to be deceived by find false teachers. But it doesn’t just mean deceive, it can also be translated into defraud

The idea of “deceive” in these contexts is clear: to be “deceived” is to be blinded to the reality of one’s true religious state. People can think that they are right with God when they really are not. They trick themselves, they are frauds, imposters. And so it is for those people who “hear” the word—regular church attenders, seminary students, and even seminary professors—but do not “do” it. They are mistaken in thinking that they are truly right with God. For God’s word cannot be divided into parts. If one wants the benefits of its saving power, one must also embrace it as a guide for life. The person who fails to do the word, James therefore suggests (in an anticipation of his argument in 2:14–26), is a person who has not truly accepted God’s word at all..

He drives home this idea by giving us the image of someone who looks into the mirror and then turns around and immediately forgets what they look like. I think another way of thinking of this is someone who has something go in one ear and out another. That would be a good modern analogy, not that the simile used here is hard to understand. The point is that James is further emphasizing his point on actually doing what the word says.

He goes on to say but he who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and actually does it, they will be blessed in what they do. So we need to spend a little time here because it will set us up for the rest of the book. Now for a Jewish reader and a Jewish writer, when James says the law, he is talking about the torah. The rules and regulations that God gave Israel through Moses. Now OT writers have described the law of Moses as perfect and even as liberating, and in James 2:8 we see James exemplify the law. But we need to be careful before we simply equate law for James with the law of Moses.

First, James often bases his own commands to his readers on the teachings of Jesus, directly quoting the OT only rarely.

Second, James doesn’t make it clear anywhere else that he expects readers to continue to obey the Mosaic law pertaining to sacrifice and ritual.

And third, the flow of his talk from the ‘word’ to the ‘law’ shows that James considers the ‘law’ to be equivalent to the ‘word’. Yet the ‘word’ is equivalent to the ‘word of truth’ in vs. 18 which men and women gain salvation.

These three points considered along with the addition of the word ‘perfect’ suggests that James is talking about the ‘law’ in its perfected form as it was perfected while the qualification ‘that gives freedom’ in 2:12, refers to the new covenant promise of the law written on the heart found in Jer. 31:31-34.

““The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.””

So when James says perfect law, he is most likely not simply talking about the mosaic law, but rather a law that was perfected through Christ and a new covenant that was made through Christ. Luke 22:20 .

The reason this is important to point out is because if we think that James is holding on to the mosaic law it becomes easy to dismiss his teachings as ‘too Jewish’ as people have done in the past. It is important to know that James wasn’t talking about the mosaic law, but the law that perfected through Christ. Which is why we no longer practice all of the elements of Judaism.

Now in verse 26 James says those who consider themselves religious and do not yet keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves and their religion is worthless. This is a call back to the earlier topic of hasty speech mentioned earlier. The word religious here only appears once in the NT and the word religion only appears four times. So it is a fairly rare word. The translated word is typically used to describe worship in general, especially often toward the outward practice of ceremonies in honor of a god. Now what is interesting is that James doesn’t use the word righteous here. He doesn’t say those who consider themselves “right before God” deceive themselves, he uses this word religious for a very specific reason. We will see in chapter 2 that James talks about faith and works. But James is trying to paint the picture of someone who goes through the motions. They go to all the ceremonies, they know all the things to say, they know when they are supposed to kneel and get up. They have the religion aspect of their faith down. They know how to do all the “outward” actions that cause people to look at them and think, man that person is really religious. But James says no, if you are going to claim to have this ‘religion’ then specific and concrete actions are needed to demonstrate the reality of that claim. We see this word deceive again and it is a different Greek word. The first time we saw it it translated into defrauding, almost like an imposter. This time has more to do with tricking or cheating. Either way, the meaning that James is trying to get across is that if you claim to have this religion, and do all these acts of worship yet you cannot control what you say, then you are tricking yourselves and have no actual religion at all.

And i love that he used this word religion here becuase it just drives home his point. Remember, the word here means an act of worship. He says an act of worship that our Father accepts as pure and faultless is to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

He says one test of pure religion is the degree to which we extend aid to the helpless in our world. He says widows and orphans here because this is common imagery used throughout the old testament. Seen in Ps. 68:5 and Exod. 22:22. This isn’t to say that we only need to take care of widows and orphans, but rather a generalization of helping those who cannot help themselves. Whether they are widwos and orphans, or immigrants trying to adjust ot a new life, impoverished third-world countries, the handicapped, the homeless. This is what God our father says is true and pure acts of worship.

The other indicator of a true religion is to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James is careful to include this because he doesn’t want people to think that they can get away with just outward and social acts of worship. The world is a common biblical way of referring to the ungodly worldview and lifestyle that encourages behavior that causes us to distance our self from the Love of God. James says since we have been born again and stripped away our old moral filth that we are called to reject the lifestyle of the world and keep ourselves spotless, a literal translation of the Greek word here, from the the world’s influence.

Closing

Now we spent a lot of time on these few verses because it sets us up for the rest of the book. This little paragraph is going to be crucial and serves as the introduction into chapter 2 where James digs further into this idea that obedience to the word is the evidence of spiritual wholeness and a genuine Christian. But how powerful were these few verses. This is something that the readers were struggling with 2000 years ago but how crazy is it that we can relate so closely to this? One of the biggest plagues in the Western church is people who are outwardly religious but don’t actually do what Jesus says. How much hateful or divisive speech do we see come from people who claim the title of Christian? We see too much of it on Facebook and other social media platforms and it is easy to look around and nod our heads and think of examples of what we have seen, but we can be just as guilty. James isn’t writing to say “look around you and see who is guilty of this”. He is trying to get the reader to take a look at their own behavior and actions and see if their words truly reflect that of Christ. We can do all the right things, we can go to church, we can sing worship, we can have Jesus bumper sticks and we can even make the occasional social media post about God. But just because we do those things doesn’t mean that we are actually DOING what Jesus says. We aren’t called to give an outward appearance of the religion of Christ and merely listen to the word. We are called to do what it says. If we want to see how pure our religion actually is, we need to do an honest evaluation on what are we doing to actually take care of those. And also look at our lifestyle. The way we live our life, and the things that we do and say, should be so different from someone who doesn’t follow Christ that anyone would be able to tell a difference. But if someone can’t tell the difference between someone of this world and someone of Christ then we are deceiving ourselves and our faith is non existent. And it starts with watching what we say and being deliberate with our words. We need to make sure that in all circumstances, our words reflect the love of Jesus, even when we are angry or disagree with someone.

And guys I really don’t think James expects perfection. His point isn’t that if we make one mistake we are lying to ourselves and our faith is worthless. But if we have truly been transformed by the spirit and we are earnestly trying to live life according to God’s word then we should naturally see actions that demonstrate our faith and the first place that people will notice that behavior is in the way we talk. So as we leave, let us pray that God gives us wisdom to be deliberate with our speech and that it reflects the love and mercy he has shown to us.