Jame Chapter 1:2-4 Focal verse 2 Brethren and Joy

WHAT did James know that will help us? 

Ever talk to somebody who knows it better than you do? Notice how they listen, then notice how they talk. Feel like it’s real? No it feels very false, it’s a conversation in which they feel they are making sense, but you realize, they don’t hear a single word you’ve said, been there? Your writer used to work at a place that was a dream job, in which, there were nightmare elements at work, so the dream was turned ever so slightly until it was no dream at all, how? Because as it was usual to happen, the boss would hear me utter “Look I’m saying red, they’re hearing and spouting back – blue.”

That was a phrase that the government taught me how to say when working as a network administrator it was part of what they thought was enlightened leadership in race and human relations. They thought and wrote that “We are now in the next century, this is the year 2000, and how we think and conduct ourselves must be a combined red and blue states and cultures effort. No longer to register and listen to the voices of division from those bases.” The boss had no idea what he was hearing, and the reason he had no idea is he really didn’t understand the fights which occurred over the issues being discussed in the 70’s in the Army by a Race Relations leader for his unit. If any organization wanted to believe they were ‘hep’ to the needs of it’s soldiers, believe me, that Army did, but come 2000, all those terms began to change in such a subtle way, still with me? James is my friends, subtle. He is writing as a man who has signed his death warrant. Do you honestly believe he wanted to? Do you honestly believe he sat there as the pastor of the Jerusalem gathering, and figured it be better to be dead? Not even close my friend, and yet, in writing his letter, he signed his death warrant, and he did it so that people could read: “2-My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3-Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4-But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” (NIV)

My online commentary, “Morningside with Dr. D.” Is just now being breathed life back into, it was let go from emphasis a few years back when the church we were pastoring at decided in some sense that they wanted a different direction. Church’s are very much like groups in any general sense, when they want a different direction, either the leader can hear that, and act on it, or, they will in all likelihood, choose a different leader. We have this luxury in our time, the people who followed James, and who he pastored, didn’t, and that singular historical fact of the matter escapes us so easily when we read what he writes. We’re challenged for the most part, not directly by governments of evil, although in some instances, that certainly occurs without you hearing much about it, last year voice of the martyrs reported 1237 deaths by being murdered for not being willing to say they weren’t followers of Jesus; most of you who read this, won’t be in such a situation, at the present time- let that sink in.

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;” Let’s begin with this seemingly simple concept- ah, but dear Christian, or dear reader, it isn’t simple at all, not when you analyze or stop your busy, busy, day to take it in. Brethren, ah my, it is being done away with, as you read this, enormous evil forces are at work to kill the sense of family, to kill the sense of belonging, to kill the sense of being, “Brethren.” “Oh c’mon Dana, that’s ridiculous, there are no “evil forces” doing such, you’re just paranoid.” OK, I get that response, and could quip back, “Well so was the Grinch, and look what happened.” But that would be quip, and although much deeper than folks care to go about Dr. Seuss, is still enough of an opening to thought that I’d say, consider it’s possible, here’s why. If you wanted to kill the Holy Spirit, oh I know, we don’t discuss the Holy Spirit as being real, but just for the sake of argument, let’s say that He is; and let’s say that your task is to kill Him, how are you going to do that, seeing as how He is in every believer who is “Born from above.” (Very literally what Christ said to Nicodemus that night...”You must be born from above,” poorly translated, I would think even Dr. Mounce might agree, as “You must be born again.” [John 3:7] that translation, awkward and lacking, still gets the point across.) There are at present so many believers that trying to kill the Holy Spirit would be a tough assignment, would you gather them all together? That would mean a very strange, nation size; occurrence? That’s not at all likely is it? Would you take them on one at a time, well that could take a while, couldn’t it? Or would you devise a virus- oh-oh; now we’re talking terms that 2018 readers can relate to- a virus to kill the Holy Spirit? Hmm, that’s an idea, could you do it? What dear Christian do you think it would look like?

Bear in mind, this isn’t an anti-technology spew, not a rant against the modern use of modern tools, at all, but it is, a cautionary note. Why a cautionary note; because new devices to communicate aren’t bad, they are massively good, but used in inappropriate ways, for evil, they carry an equally innocuous value. Therein is the danger in mass communications. Radio began the cautionary note with the famous broadcast by Orson Welles of H.G. Wells “War of the Worlds.” That moment shined a light on the power of this new inventions ability to communicate with people. Perhaps the next moments that highlighted the power not just of sound transmitted, but now images, would be the assassination of John Kennedy. Most people are familiar with a movie taken of that moment by a bystander named Zapruder. In your modern, some years ago, stance of memory, there was a person standing in front of a tank in China, it was filmed in a place called Tienanmen Square on June 5 1989. People born then today are approximately 29 years old! They may have been taught this as history, they may remember seeing it, but as to what it meant, as to what it accomplished? It was communication, that’s to be sure, just as a side note, they call that man the mystery man of Tienanmen square, know why? The point here is easy, this new technology we have seems like a very useful tool, but it may be something far more deadly than we realize, or can realize. A result of which is, we tend to deny it, ignore it, and protest any who say such.

Let me portend that during the times James put his truth to papyri maybe even parchment or vellum, papyri, from what little I’ve been able to determine, the most likely physical writing element, as we use paper, they used a type of paper we’d find grainy and not electric- “aquatic sedge (Cyperus papyrus) native to Africa, having a tall stem and an umbellate inflorescence with numerous arching rays.” (freedictionary.com) Let’s guess that it had an odor of river about it. Let’s guess that James didn’t care- and let’s begin believing that today it comes to us from God- believe me, this isn’t how my day was planned, writing a commentary.

Next from that simple matter of “What we are,” we are “Christians,” and most of you know that originally was a term making fun of those who believed in “The way,” the New Testament records that it was first in Antioch (Acts 11:26, penned by a historian, Dr. Luke) where those who were “Brethren,” and we should add by proxy of belief (for my Homophobic readers) sisters as well, and kids, in other words, “The family,” members who believe and agree with each other that Jesus Christ is Lord. From that simple matter James moves to a rather complicated series of arguments- and we’re going to attempt to make that appeal which is centrally focused on love- uh, introduction chapter 1 verse 1- make sense to us reading it in the year 2018.

“2-My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;” what we look at next after Brethren – we’ve sort of covered that, is the count it all joy, and of course books have been written about the subject of joy; my own sense of joy is the difference between times in your life and what happens,for example, when as a young boy in Torrance California my friends and I would go to the central park, think it’s still there, by the way, have Google earthed it; and we’d climb trees and there would be these fruits there and we’d eat them. They were marvelous. Being boys we’d find ways to mischievously throw these fruits at passerby and then hide. One day, one of the fathers of a little girl we threw them at, who didn’t appreciate it, hid himself and waited for us. What he taught us is, when you’re about

5’4 and all of 90 pounds and you’re facing a 210 pound ferociously upset dad, you’re really thankful when he says “I’d beat your stupid A#$’s but my daughter’s over there, and we’re Christian’s, and I don’t know what she’d think.” We were plenty scared, then he said, “Go, go over there and tell her you’re sorry.” Hey, it wasn’t rocks- it was fruit, c’mon...but, we were – yes we were filled with joy at the prospect of saying, “We’re sorry.” Crazy thing joy?

Sure was glad that dad was a Christian...

Joy, remember well the first time my friend Rob across the street said, “My dad plays drums down at Elitch’s man, he’s got a set in the basement, wanna see?” He taught me how to drum, but drumming is in my soul, it came so natural to me, it was like setting down into a nice warm comfortable bath when those sticks hit my hands, all of a sudden, drumming on desks with my pencil, tapping with my fingers, never being able to sit still, not really, not like some folks, man all of a sudden, at the ripe old age of thirteen, it made sense.

Joy, it comes in lots of flavors. My son being born, in a German hospital, because I was in the Army, and the fact that my son was born, and that I was able to be there- this was 1979, October fifteenth, but my point is, in 1979 going in the birth room was still not totally the normal way for dads. The Army was doing everything it could to normalize living. Seeing my son born was mind blowing, something you never forget because believe me sons, my-my, they can challenge dads in ways only dads know.

Joy it gets deep down, all those years in college, being royally ripped off because as a first time student I’d no concept of what learning was. As I tell my Grandson, who still doesn’t get it, he’s in high school and he’s ‘blowing it off,’ I tell him, “Man you get it for free! You don’t even have to pay for it! Dude, I had to pay Dr. Mounce a hundred bucks to teach me Greek, you think I liked that?” But joy comes in all kinds of depths as I got one degree, followed by another degree, followed by a doctorate- you’ve no idea what it means to miss your mom

until you just wished as hard as you could that she could’ve been there to see her rebellious, worthless teenager, because I pretty much was, finally obtain not just a doctorate degree, but one in of all things, theology! Mom would have been proud, because her usual statement to me as I messed up time and again as a teenager was, “Jesus can and will forgive you, you only have to ask Him.” That boy, her son, had earned a doctorate about studying and discussing and learning about God- and now, that person gets the honor of being read by you. What a joy.

Count it all is a process we’re gonna have to cover in another entry...we’ve pretty much consumed as much of your morningside time as we can. Joy is the Greek term “chara” and from my Greek Interlinear NASB and NIV by Dr. William D. Mounce and Robert H. Mounce, is also used in other gospel’s and although it takes up space I want to break them out for you:

Also to let you know as a link that all quotes from this reference site: http://biblehub.com/faithstatement.htm

Matthew 2:10 -”When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” (NIV)

Matthew 13:20 - “The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.” (NIV)

Luke 2:10 - “But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” (NIV)

Joy seems to me that we might agree it’s deep, it resonates within our inner being, and because my belief is we have such, it sinks into our souls. Now let me wax a tiny bit theological here- souls- my sense is, no matter how Freud tries to make belief in such unnecessary, he fails. No matter how so called biologists, and genetic biologists, such as
Dr. Richard Dawkins, try, they fail, at the point that one reaches an inexplicable moment, by which my meaning is, you’d rather do something else, but you’re constrained- and for the life of you, you can’t make sense of why? This has happened to me so many times in my life – mostly because, as you might guess, my mouth frequently has gotten me places that my brain and body weren’t ready for – to put it lightly, a result of which is, there is no explaining why my natural self didn’t reign. Dawkins or Freud might choose to say it another way – but my sense is, there is a deeper place in humans that holds a dearer part of all we are, the soul.

James wrote to the soul, yes, in the overarching view of what his letter means, my goodness, it will be love, my convinced state of that is marrow deep, years and years of inner arguing about James being right or wrong...but in the final analysis, James writes to the soul. Does James touch your soul? How can he not…do you count yourself as one of us, if you don’t, no better time to do so than now, be only to filled with joy to share such with you? James ...my-my- didn’t he just nail it down...my-my, he is somethin’ isn’t he? Jesus...is...the all in all joy.