What did James Know - that will help us?
The book of James is an attractive read for us because we sometimes get into situations that are a mess. James knew mess, and it's not too awful hard to understand why. Imagine, just try to get your head around what it must have been like to be the brother to God as human? We just can't get there, but we can get close.
2Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Briefly lets focus on verse 3, it's often overlooked as sitting between the heavy concept of verse 2 which opens the door on an entirely different way of reflecting on rough times, and verse 4 which closes the thought about enduring. But here's where it has to get a bit strange, do you wonder that perhaps James may have heard, "Your brother doesn't make messes..." Just food for thought...so in verse 3 we see the idea of faith, the idea of it producing something which allows you to continue on in the midst of rough times.
Notice some particular word phrases here, because they are meaningful - "the testing of ---your faith---" that should raise your eyebrows only a slight bit, but it should raise them, faith, one of the most difficult of all constructs of Christianity to define, and here James says it can be unique to the individual- it is, your faith. That's a different concept than many folks have because most folks actually only rarely examine the concept of faith, they simply exist in it or they don't. For many people that's a simple matter- they pray, because they believe in prayer. They speak to Jesus because through the Bible they have come to understand that as He walked through walls (John 20:26-28) and appeared to men walking (Luke 24:13) and is recorded as having appeared to as many as
500 hundred.So we read this in 2018, and we wonder, don't we- and yet, one singular significant spellbinding obvious historical fact presents itself, the Bible, despite all the attempts to stomp it out, is still here and if Christ didn't appear to these people, why'd the writer put it to papyri?
1 comment:
How do you measure "Faith" ... This is a question that I beat myself with for a long time... Particularly when you see in Hebrews "we need to get off the milk and get serious" So how do we truly get serious? Do we sell off all our possessions, and give the money to the poor.. But wait that means you are now one of the poor.. Do we shun every one, including our loved ones to walk from home to home looking for believers to feed and shelter us and preach the Word they already know? How about just take the Bible as a God inspired letter to our inner self and practice what it tells us... We put faith in so many things made by the hands of another man, cars, airplanes ... roller-coasters ... Ships made of steel that stay afloat.. but if any of these things has a flaw... Well you know... Faith in Jesus comes by hearing according to scripture and builds in us everyday just like the love of God, is seen in our actions at work not by infatuation and sweaty palms..
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