James Chapter One verse 19-27 Emphasis verse 19

What did James know that will help us?

     If there is any doubt left in anybodies mind about the times being different today than they were just ten short years ago, take an honest look at the LGBTQ movement that didn't exist then.  This entire block of protest oriented movement has come into it's own with the last five years, it might have had an undercurrent existence, but it wasn't mainstream in it's wide proclamation until the last five years.  And it represents a minority shift in values being projected onto the majority and that's new as well.  What do I mean by that, a minority, not many people register as a member of this sex declaring sect, they don't have big numbers of members, but they sound like they do, and they make anyone who takes any sort of opposing stand seem out of touch with modern thinking to put it kindly.  What does this have to do with the writings of a disciple and church leader thousands of years ago?  They had small groups of dissenting believers who thought everybody should be like them, the vocal minority who yells loud to get approval from the non vocal majority is not a new way.  
    What is new since the time of Jame's writing is the change in the outward ways of people.  During the time that James wrote, people lived in village groups, even though they had separate abodes, rooms in which they slept, their common area around those lodgings was the village square where they shared chores that could be done by groups, brought the produce in (they were largely agrarian), and chatted about the day as the day went on.  They were friendly with each other because it was necessary for life, but also because, you will find, we humans tend to be likable folk, it's why we've done well as a specie.  Enter James who says:  


Bearing in mind dear reader that in the Greek there aren't divisions as we separate the scripture, but James in chapter one seems to group logically into two main sections, the first after his declaration of who is writing is the section with verses 2-18 that we've gone over in previous entries- that section might be designated and sometimes is designated as "Trials and Temptations."  Now we move to a section that is often referred to as "Listening and Doing."  It will be obvious why that is, so it seemed prudent at the outset of this section to take a look at those verses then focusing on the break out of logic in Jame's inspired writing:  

19My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,20because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

22Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

26Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

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    Notice the "My dear brothers and sisters,"  in an age where we are trying to confuse ourselves about how we are, and what we are, James begins by stating that this is to those who love him as brothers and sisters.  People will do things for siblings they won't do for anyone else.  Let's lock that down, you will do things for a brother or sister that you won't for anyone else, why is that?  Let me suggest a couple of potentials, one is, brothers and sisters have spent a huge amount of time together- and that time brings out both the bad and the good of what a person is.  Brothers and sisters know the real of each other, and cling to it instead of rejecting it.  
    
The other suggestion is more subtle but it amounts to this, it's a decision that you are going to defend them, no matter what, and sticking to that has a production of results that brothers and sisters talk about as, "Yeah he was always getting himself into trouble, but I'd step in and..."  Even when those times were bad, once a family called me to do a funeral for a biker, he'd been a rough dude, but his brother was there and two sisters and they were constantly saying "Yeah but we got him out of that..."  

One other item interesting to note from that sad occasion, everybody believed that even though he lived like hell, he feared hell and believed that Jesus would get him out of hell?  OK, you better believe that seemed to me to be an interesting thing to remember about a person?  They remembered little kind things that he had done, and over a period of about two hours, his real character began to emerge, he might have been a rough dude, there is no doubt in my mind that's a rough life, but he had plenty of love in his existence.  My hope is someday in heaven I'll hear a voice saying, "Glad you preached it that way, you told the truth about me, not what everyone assumed was the deal..."

Wrapping up this entry, please note the entry "take note of this," that's an emphatic, it means to place special emphasis on what's to follow that "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry."  Everyone is a fascinating term, isn't it?  Everyone as it is translated here in the NIV is a good attempt at the Greek word which is two words actually, "pas anthropos" roughly translated as "pas"- "every," "anthropos," "man." But if you have signed on to BillMounce.com know that this translator and contributor to the New International Version of the Bible will take bold stands for truth in getting the words right.  Why is this so important as to be in a commentary on James, one of those writings, because as we noted at the outset of this page, we're now trying to decide that men and women can be different than men and women, so the meaning of words is very important indeed.

   

What Did James Know That Will Help Us [James chapter 1 verse 16-18]

What did James know that will help us?

   You and I, we, are in the midst of the most massive delusion making reality shifting technologies ever in the history of man.  Let's try to think of it this way, Bill Gates, a name you recognize as one of the worlds wealthiest men, founder of Microsoft one of the worlds largest and most prestigious computer companies; put it in these terms, "Not since the Gutenberg printing press has a revolutionary upgrade in technology had such a powerful effect as the computer."  [Business at the Speed of Thought] Gates wrote that theorem in his landmark work two decades back! 
    In those days we discussed the potential to do quantum computing, today, it happens.  In those days we discussed virtual reality, today we have online virtual communities where people choose their identity and interact.  While it is still less than totally real, it's only about two years away until the average person will be able to don a mask and go into a world unlike anything they've ever experienced before.  Just as in my doctoral thesis a decade back the simple concept of Christianity keeping up with social media, was postulated as being something the church would be slow to adjust to- so in this time did James see a clear threat to the lives of his flocks faith!  They were being deceived about the god's, when they knew the one true God, just as we are now being deceived about God who is being replaced in our minds by a technology that does miracles.  James saw it and was inspired to write about it thousands of years ago because nothing, absolutely nothing is as important to following Christ as faith!  He wrote:

16Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 

17Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. 

18In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

Were people in the times James wrote of different than we are today, fundamentally, no.  The same basic human needs existed then as exist today, food, shelter, continuing the family, work and productive use of ones time, all were the same issues then as today.  They were primarily agricultural folk, we aren't.  They had precious few copies of scripture of any kind, the gathering of the Jewish worshipers, men leading, with the families able to sit around the outside the central place of opening the scrolls, was in " Hebrew: בית כנסת‬ bet kenesset, 'house of assembly' or בית תפילה‬ bet tefila, "house of prayer", [Wiki-Synagogue, 2018] The scrolls were kept and cherished, few parchments of any letters existed, it is possible that this was a circular letter shared among the Christians now known as "The Way."  And to those people James said, "Don't be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters."  Because we know the word of God is eternal, such is being said also to you today, and for your children in the future coming, if Christ tarries His return, they will read, don't be deceived.  It is not a question therefore that we are, deceived, it is in the form of a requested urgent strong recommendation, don't be.

Time marches forward, from the present, with memories of the past.  That past, however strongly the physicists among us would like you to believe, doesn't exist, does.  It exists in the impact it has upon your present thinking.  To deny that is to deny the essence of what it means to realize we are sinners, and we are, sinners.  "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.."  [1 John 1:8] 

We are in a perpetual walk with a Lord who is God, Jesus is our Lord, but make no mistake about it. without His forgiving blood atonement, you and I are doomed to an eternity in hell.  We don't like to discuss it, but that's the truth, Jesus did shed his blood that through forgiveness of our sins we might be saved from God the Father who cannot look upon sin- therefore in His Holy Presence sin vanishes, it can't exist- but under the blood sacrifice of Jesus our sins are forgiven.  It is the most complicated yet profoundly simple aspect of the born from above human being.  So simple that many miss it, Paul said that would be the case- and that's unfortunate because it is so simple to ask Christ to forgive you of your sins- and yet, if you don't believe that you're capable of "missing the mark," if you never do wrong, if you've never failed in any way shape or form, well shucks, what need of Jesus have you?  "Every Good and perfect gift..."

Now James gets deep - "18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created."  Imagine that the universe(s) and all created everything belongs and is through God- no, you can't?  Don't feel bad, neither can I, neither can any human, ever- except one- Jesus who said, "I am the way, the truth and the life no man can come unto the Father save by me." [vv. John 14:5]  James now takes us to the place prepared for our kneeling- "that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created."  OK lets not miss those two little connecting items, OF ALL.