James 1:19-27: Right Actions

"Be not only hearers of the word, deceiving yourselves, but do what it says." ~ James 1:22

James challenges his audience: "Do you believe God's Word can transform your life or not?" Of course so! Yet, in the stillness of our hearts, we have doubts. These doubts can infect our actions and poison our relationships. In these verses, James names some the malign fruits of doubt: anger (v.20), moral filth (v.21), a loose tongue (v.26), and looking into a mirror and forgetting what you look like (v.24).

The last metaphor is peculiarly apt. A mirror doesn't hide or conceal anything; rather, it faithfully reflects your image back at you. This has two fateful implications. First, we have to acknowledge the sin in our lives. If I have a pimple on my nose, the mirror is going to show it every time, no matter how I try to wish it away. Second, looking in a mirror reminds us that we are daughters and sons of God, made in His likeness (Gen 1:27). Zits or no, we can't deny that we have a Maker who loves us, knows our hearts, and wants to enter into fellowship with us.

Hearing is meaningless without acting. If I'm driving down a highway, and I hear over the AM radio that there's an accident ten miles ahead, I'm going to plan an alternate route. No sensible driver would keep going and get stuck in traffic. But with something infinitely more meaningful - the ultimate end of our sould - we have God's Word and His creation to warn us to take a new path, but we persist in our sin down the road that leads to death.

Praise be to God and his Son, Jesus, that with your Spirit we can "humbly accepted the word planted in you, which can save you" (v.21)!

James 1: 12-18: Temptation

"Each man is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed." ~ James 1:14

Yesterday, we heard that God wants each of his beloved ones to be "mature and complete, not lacking anything" (v. 4). James confronts, head-on, the greatest obstacle to mature belief in Jesus Christ: temptation. Earlier this summer, in the context of Jesus's desert temptation, I noted that Satan is the source of temptation. Growing believers struggle with this fact, sometimes for years. My own record humbles me - though I sense that victory is drawing near.

When men and women choose to put away their old lives and dedicate their bodies and souls to Jesus, it's hard not to expect imminent, drastic transformation. I suspect that certain kinds of evangelism (not all) condition new converts to expect instant change in their lives solely by the act of believing. James writes to correct this false teaching, which prevailed in his time too!

He is clear that God loves good and hates evil: "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone" (v. 13). God permits Satan to extend a hand over certain portions of our lives, but only so we can say No to sin and Yes to grace. Then, we will receive "the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him" (v. 12).

Alleluia to our God whose Spirit brings us out of sinful death and gives us abundant life!

James 1: 1-11 - Perseverance

"Brothers, consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of any kind." ~ James 1:2

James, the half-brother of Jesus and pastor of the Jerusalem church, wrote what is perhaps the earliest book of the New Testament. It's as fresh and relevant today as it was nineteen hundred and threescore years ago. The book is a energetically argued guide to true holiness - that is, lived holiness, in contrast to loud professions of faith. In essence, it's a call for all of us believers to reject Pharisaic pride, that most stubborn of sins.

Trials are part of the Christian life. Jesus promised his followers comfort in an ultimate, cosmic sense, but he never promised a comfortable life. My annotated Bible wisely notes, "Whenever you face trials." Christ-followers will face trials; it's not optional! James says that if we can't withstand trials on our own, we must sincerely ask God for wisdom. The one who doubts God's provision is "a double-minded man, unstable in all he does" (v.8), doomed to estrangement from God when his half-hearted prayer goes unanswered.

Since we will face trials, regardless of earthly station, being poor or rich is inconsequential to God. James mentions the honor of poverty and the futility of riches throughout his epistle. Once, at St. Colette's, a man from the Haitian relief organization Food for the Poor preached. He was born into dire squalor, but rose above it, guided by the word he preached in suburban Detroit that morning:

"The Lord God is King! And He is a wealthy king. He has given me everything I need."

Welcome back!

This blog, after a long hiatus, is up and running again. I'm going to reflect on a different portion of Scripture: the epistles of 1 Peter, James, and 1 John. I heard these epistles on the road in August as part of a "Bible on CD" program sponsored by Lake Pointe Bible Church. The pith of these three texts struck me; each one sounded like an effective sermon.

Yet these texts are inspired words of God, not mere human sermons; what's more, their authors (I have doubts about 2 Peter, but I'm not a revisionist like Bart Ehrman either) effuse the texts with their personalities and their leadership roles in the early Church. If I were to introduce someone with no knowledge of Scripture to Christianity, I'd begin with the Gospel of Mark and immediately follow with these epistles.

I promise to blog daily, but slowly and thoughtfully. I anticipate each book to take about four weeks, which should wrap it up near Thanksgiving.

Matthew 4: Temptation

"Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one God. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."
~Deuteronomy 6:4-5

When the prince of night came to Jesus, our Savior came very close to reciting Shema Yisrael.

Jesus awaited Satan in the desert wastes of Judea. Matthew includes the odd note that "after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry." Of course he was; who wouldn't be? That's where Satan enters, literally: the gospel's very next words are "The tempter came to him." Just maybe, Satan could ally the incarnate Son of God in rebellion against the Father. Surely Jesus was not so restrained as to have his stomach rumble for food? But he was - and we are called to the same judicious restraint.

The Israelites were not so restrained. Jesus answers the devil's second temptation, the call to fling himself from the temple, with "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." The quotation is partial; Deuteronomy 6:16 finishes with "...to the test, as at Massah."

Exodus 17 tells the story of Massah and Meribah, where the wandering Israelites in the desert could not restrain their thirst and grumbled to Moses. In Numbers 20, we read a fuller account of the story. God instructed Moses to speak to the rock; instead, he struck it twice with his staff. God in His mercy enabled water to gush forth, but the Lord told Moses [20:12] that he would be denied entry into Canaan for his disobedience.

If even Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, submitted to the tempter in the desert, who could withstand Satan's lies in the same place of privation, fifteen hundred years later? Only Jesus. Who knows and shares in the distress of our brothers and sisters who are hungry? Only Jesus. Who is our model when the world taxes our patience beyond our level of comfort? Only Jesus.

Tonight's prayer: Jesus, no power of hell or scheme of man could pluck you away from the purpose of your Father. You came face to face with Satan and prevailed. How petty and insignificant the rewards he offers us, compared to those he set before you - and yet how quick we are to grasp those empty promises. May you renew in us the strength to love our only Lord, the God of heaven and earth and our hearts. Amen.

Matthew 3

"I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."
~Matthew 3:11

John the Baptist heralds the coming of the Messiah. Such a simple fact, and yet such a profound one. One site goes so far to proclaim that "Christianity begins with John the Baptist". This hyperbolic statement, nonetheless, has some merit to it. The radical breach of the Incarnation changed Mary and Joseph's lives forever, but God the Father ordained Joseph as foster father and Mary as mother to the growing child Jesus. John's ministry begins the unveiling of Jesus' divinity - an ongoing process that began with Jesus' baptism and ended with His resurrection.

My annotated NAB points out that nearly thirty years have passed since the end of Matthew 2, when Joseph hears of Herod's death and moves Mary and the toddler Jesus out of Egypt to Nazareth. Both the Father and the Son waited patiently, knowing that the time had not yet come to fulfill the divine plan.

When John comes, he says, "Repent!" The Jews hear him, confess their sins, reform their lives, and submit to his baptism in the Jordan River. Baptism was a common practice among the Essenes, and some scholars speculate that John, with his ascetic lifestyle, was himself an Essene. But why baptism now? John does not call the Jews to repent for their own sakes; rather, he says, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!" (v.2). The baptism of John makes no sense apart from the imminent public ministry of the Messiah. Hence, he warns the Pharisees who seek him not to boast of their Abrahamic descent (v.9), for one man greater than Abraham already walks among them.

And so John, protesting his own insufficiency for the task, baptizes his cousin Jesus. The heavens open, the Holy Spirit rushes upon Jesus (as it did upon the young King David when Samuel anointed him), and God the Father announces His pleasure with His Son. With John's baptism, Jesus has passed the first test of his young life: growing to maturity in submission to his Father's will. But a far greater test awaits him.

Tonight's prayer: Jesus, you submitted to baptism by John in the Jordan River not because you needed to be cleansed, but so your plan for our salvation could be fulfilled. We are full of sinfulness and hypocrisy, just like the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to John. But, because you persuaded John to baptize you in water, we are beneficiaries of your baptism in the Holy Spirit. Kindle a fire in our hearts so that we may be continually cleansed by the living flame of the Spirit. Amen.

Matthew 2

"On coming to the house, they [the Magi] saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him."
~ Matthew 2:11a

O exalted faith of the Magi! Jesus, newly born, "one healthy, little giggling, dribbling baby boy" according to Dave Matthews, would not be a fit subject of worship in respectable Jewish thought; the Levitical priesthood waited for the Messiah to come in power, but Jesus came in weakness. Fittingly enough, then, the first ones to worship Jesus as God Himself are obscure men "from the East" (v.1) who appear nowhere else in the Gospels. They alone recognized God's sign of the star when all Israel remained ignorant.

Even worse, tradition holds that the Magi were astrologers - a disreputable practice in first-century Judaism. The Pharisees absolutely forbade it, based on an expansive reading of Deuteronomy 18:10-13. In his very infancy, Jesus drew near to him outcasts and lawbreakers, just as he would do during his public ministry.

The Magi's visit, however, has an unforeseen consequence: King Herod hears of the birth of the Messiah. This leads to an extraordinary scene (vs. 4-5). Herod urgently asks, "Where is the Messiah to be born?" The chief priests and teachers of the law nonchalantly answer him, "Oh, in Bethlehem." Unlike the Jews of Jerusalem, Herod, to his credit, understands that the Messiah might well be in his midst. To his everlasting shame (and, quite possibly, to his eternal torment), Herod's gut reaction is to kill him.

Of course, God's plan triumphs over Herod's petty scheming. The Magi hear and heed a dream to return home by another route. Joseph, as in Chapter 1, hears an angel's call to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt, where the family remains for several months. But all is not well; Herod, though the Messiah eludes his grasp, pitilessly slaughters all the boys of Bethlehem two years old and younger (v.16). Herod's decision to deny Jesus'
Messianic reality causes an act of senseless, tyrannical brutality.

Tonight's prayer: Almighty God, you give all humans have one of three choices: to remain ignorant of the Messiah like the chief priests and scholars of Jewish law, to know him and reject him like King Herod, or to know him and worship him like the Magi. Help us to adopt the humility of the Magi, who traveled hundreds of miles just to kneel and give good gifts before our Lord and Savior in the cradle. As we go forth and do your Son's work, let us be overjoyed by your presence (v.10). Amen.