John Owen on Why the Flesh Must Be Mortified (and a bit of cheese on the side)

We bid a sad farewell to James (the epistle of). Much straightforward practical wisdom there and much to think about and work out in our lives. Now that manybooks are visible at a glance, have been reunited with the Puritans. They don't profess to be the complete word of God but there's much biblical truth in their writing. A good follow-on from James.

Here's John Owen on Why the Flesh Must Be Mortified* from The Mortification of Sin. Good stuff. Well worth a bunch of friends, accompanied by low GI nibbles (as if there will be any appetite after Owen's punches to the solar plexus), settling in for a mass read:

So Paul challenges the Colossian believers in Colossians 3:5, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." To whom does he speak? To those who were "risen with Christ" (3:1); those who were "dead" with him (3:3); those whose life Christ was, and who should "appear with him in glory" (3:4).

Do you mortify**? Do you make mortification your daily work? You must always be at it while you live; cease not a day from this work; always be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Your position of being dead with Christ, your new life with him, will not excuse you from this work. And our Saviour tells us how his Father deals with every branch in him that bears fruit, every true and living branch. "He prunes it, that it may bring forth more fruit," John 15:2. He prunes it and that not for a day or two, but while it is a branch in this world. And the apostle tells you what was his practice, 1 Corinthians 9:27, "I discipline my body and keep it under control" "I do it," says he, "daily; it is the work of my life: I omit it not; this is my business." And if this were the work and business of Paul, who was so incomparably exalted in grace, revelations, enjoyments, privileges, consolations, above the ordinary measure of believers, where may we possibly be exempt from this work and duty*** while we are still in this world?

There are 6 reasons why we need to be at this important work:

1. Indwelling sin always abides while we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified.
Some vain, foolish, and ignorant men think they can perfectly keep the commands of God, and attain perfection in this life, and be wholly and perfectly dead to sin. It is more than probable that the men of those abominations never knew what belonged to the keeping of any one of God's commands, and are so much below perfection, that they never attained to a perfection of parts in obedience or universal obedience in sincerity. And, therefore, many in our days who have talked of perfection have been wiser, and have affirmed it to consist in knowing no difference between good and evil. Not that they are perfect in the things we call good, but that all is alike to them, and the height of wickedness is their perfection. Others who have found out a new way to it, by denying original, indwelling sin, and tempering the spirituality of the law of God unto men's carnal hearts, as they have sufficiently discovered themselves to be ignorant of the life of Christ and the power of it in believers, so they have invented a new righteousness that the gospel knows not of, being vainly puffed up by their fleshly minds.

For us, who dare not be wise above what is written, nor boast by other men's conjectures of what God has not done for us, we say that indwelling sin lives in us, in some measure and degree, while we are in this world. We dare not speak as "though we had already attained, or were already perfect," Philippians 3:12. Our "inward man is to be renewed day by day" while we live, 2 Corinthians 4:16; and according to the renovations of the new are the breaches and decays of the old. While we are here we "know but in part," 1 Cor. 13:12, having a remaining darkness to be gradually removed by our "growth in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ," 2 Peter 3:18; and "the flesh lusts against the Spirit, so that we cannot do the things that we would," Galatians 5:17; and are therefore defective in our obedience as well as in our light, 1 John 1:8. We have a "body of death," Romans 7:24; from whence we are not delivered but by the death of our bodies, Philippians 3:21. Now, it being our duty to mortify, to be killing of sin while it is in us, we must be at work. He that is appointed to kill an enemy, if he quits before the other ceases living, does only half his work, Galatians 6:9; Hebrews 12:1; 2 Corinthians 7:1.

2. Sin not only still abides in us, but is still acting, still labouring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh.
When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all conditions, even where there is least suspicion. Sin not only abides in us, but "the law of the members is still rebelling against the law of the mind," Romans 7:23; and "the spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy," James 4:5. It is always in continual work; "the flesh lusts against the Spirit," Galatians 5:17; lust is still tempting and conceiving sin, James 1:14; in every moral action it is always either inclining to evil, or hindering from that which is good, or disframing the spirit from communion with God. It inclines to evil. "The evil which I would not, that I do," says Paul, Romans 7:19. Why is that? Why, "Because in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing." And it hinders from good: "The good that I would do, that I do not," verse 19;-- "Upon the same account, either I do it not, or not as I should; all my holy things being defiled by this sin." "The flesh lusts against the Spirit, so that you cannot do the things that you would," Galatians 5:17. And it unframes our spirit, and is called "The sin that so grievous complaints that the apostle makes of it, Romans 7. So that sin is always acting, always conceiving, always seducing and tempting. Who can say that he had ever any thing to do with God or for God, that indwelling sin had not a hand in the corrupting of what he did? And this trade will it drive more or less all our days.

If, then, sin will be always acting, if we be not always mortifying, we are lost creatures. He that stands still and suffers his enemies to double blows upon him without resistance, will undoubtedly be conquered in the issue. If sin is subtle, watchful, strong, and always at work in the business of killing our souls, and we are slothful, negligent, foolish, in bringing about the ruin of sin, can we expect a favourable outcome? There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on; and it will be so while we live in this world.

The saints know there is no safety against sin but only that to be found in a constant warfare.

3. Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins.
Paul tells us what the works and fruits of sin are, Galatians 5:19-21, "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like." You know what sin did in David and many others. Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head.

Sin may not be heard speaking a scandalous word in man's hearts, it may not seem to be provoking him to any great scandal; but yet every rise of lust, it is taking its course, and will soon come to the height of villainy: it is like the grave, it is never satisfied.

And herein lies the deceitfulness of sin, by which it prevails in hardening the hearts of men and so bring them to their ruin, Hebrews 3:13. It is modest in its first motions and proposals, but having once got footing in the heart by them, it constantly makes advances and presses on further. The advancement of sin makes the soul take little notice of how much it has already fallen away from God. The soul is ndifferent to sin and is hardened as sin continues to grow. And sin still presses forward because it has no bounds but the utter relinquishment of God and opposition to him; that it proceeds towards its height by degrees, making good the ground it has gotten by hardness, is not from its nature, but its deceitfulness.

Now nothing can prevent this but mortification; that withers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour, so that whatever it aims at it is crossed in. There is not the best saint in the world but, if he should give over this duty, would fall into as many cursed sins as ever any did of his kind.

4. This is one main reason why the Spirit and the new nature is given to us, that we may have a principle within whereby to oppose sin and lust.
"The flesh lusts against the Spirit." Well! and what then? Why, "The Spirit also lusts against the flesh," Galatians 5:17. There is a propensity in the Spirit, or spiritual new nature, to be acting against the flesh, as well as in the flesh to be acting against the Spirit: so 2 Peter 1:4,5. It is our participation in the divine nature that gives us an escape from the pollutions that are in the world through lust; and, Romans 7:23, there is a law of the mind, as well as a law of the members.

Now this is, first, the most unjust and unreasonable thing in the world, when two combatants are engaged, to bind one and keep him up from doing his utmost, and to leave the other at liberty to wound him at his pleasure; and, secondly, the foolishest thing in the world to bind him who fights for our eternal condition, and to let him alone who seeks and violently attempts our everlasting ruin. The contest is for our lives and souls. Not to be daily employing the Spirit and new nature for the mortifying of sin, is to neglect that excellent succour which God has given us against our greatest enemy. If we neglect to make use of what we have received, God may justly hold his hand from giving us more. His graces, as well as his gifts, are bestowed on us to use, exercise, and trade with. Not to be daily mortifying sin, is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace, and love of God, who has furnished us with a principle of doing it.

5. Negligence in this duty casts the soul into a perfect contrary condition to that which the apostle affirms was his, 2 Corinthians 4:16, "Though our outward man perishes, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."
Neglience in the duty of mortification ensures that the inward man perishes, and the outward man is renewed day by day. Exercise and success are the two main cherishers of grace in the heart; when it is suffered to lie still, it withers and decays: the things of it are ready to die, Revelations 3:2; and sin gets ground towards the hardening of the heart, Hebrews 3:13. By the omission of the duty of mortification, grace withers, lust flourishes, and the frame of the heart grows worse and worse. And the Lord knows what desperate and fearful issues it has had with many. Where sin, through the neglect of mortification, gets a considerable victory, it breaks the bones of the soul, Psalm 31:10, and makes a man weak, sick, and ready to die, Psalm 38:3-5, so that he cannot look up, Psalm 60:12, Isaiah 33:24. And when poor creatures will take blow by blow, wound after wound, foil after foil, and never rouse up themselves to a vigorous opposition, can they expect any thing but to be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and that their souls should bleed to death? 2 John 8. Indeed, it is a sad thing to consider the fearful issues of this neglect, which lie under our eyes every day. Do we not see those, whom we knew humble, melting, broken-hearted Christians, tender and fearful to offend, zealous for God and all his ways, his Sabbaths and ordinances, grown, through neglect of watching unto this duty, earthly, carnal, cold, wrathful, complying with the men of the world and things of the world, to the scandal of religion and the fearful temptation of them that know them?

True evangelical mortification is all but lost between a rigid, stubborn frame of spirit, which is for the most part earthly, legal, censorious, partial, consistent with wrath, envy, malice, pride, on the one hand, and pretences of liberty, grace, and I know not what, on the other.

6. It is our duty to be "perfecting holiness in the fear of God," 2 Corinthians 7:1; to be "growing in grace" every day, 1 Peter 2:3, 2 Peter 3:18; to be "renewing our inward man day by day," 2 Corinthians 4:16.
Now, this cannot be done without the daily mortifying of sin. Sin sets its strength against every act of holiness, and against every degree we grow to. Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who does not kill sin in his way takes no steps towards his journey's end. He who finds no opposition from it, and who sets not himself in every particular to its mortification, is at peace with it, not dying to it.

This, then, is the first general principle of our ensuing discourse: Notwithstanding the meritorious mortification, if I may so speak, of all and every sin the cross of Christ; notwithstanding the real foundation of universal mortification laid in our first conversion, by conviction of sin, humiliation for sin, and the implantation of a new principle opposite to it and destructive of it; yet sin does so remain, so act and work in the best of believers, while they live in this world, that the constant daily mortification of it is all their days incumbent on them. Before I proceed to the consideration of the next principle, I cannot but by the way complain of many professors of these days, who, instead of bringing forth such great and evident fruits of mortification as are expected, scarce bear any leaves of it. There is, indeed, a broad light fallen upon the men of this generation, and together with many spiritual gifts communicated, which, with some other considerations, have wonderfully enlarged the bounds of professors and profession****; both they and it are exceedingly multiplied and increased. Hence there is a noise of religion and religious duties in every corner, preaching in abundance, and that not in an empty, light, trivial, and vain manner, as formerly, but to a good proportion of a spiritual gift, so that if you will measure the number of believers by light, gifts, and profession, the church may have cause to say, "Who hath born me all these?" But now if you will take the measure of them by this great discriminating grace of Christians, perhaps you will find their number not so multiplied. Where almost is that professor who owes his conversion to these days of light, and so talks and professes at such a rate of spirituality as few in former days were, in any measure, acquainted with (I will not judge them, but perhaps boasting what the Lord has done in them), that does not give evidence of a miserably unmortified heart? If vain spending of time, idleness, unprofitableness in men's places, envy, strife, variance, emulations, wrath, pride, worldliness, selfishness, 1 Corinthians 1, be badges of Christians, we have them on us and amongst us in abundance. And if it be so with them who have much light, and which, we hope, is saving, what shall we say of some who would be accounted religious and yet despise the gospel light, and for the duty we have in hand, know no more of it but what consists in men's denying themselves sometimes in outward enjoyments, which is one of the outmost branches of it, which they will seldom practice? The good Lord send out a spirit of mortification to cure our distempers, or we are in a sad condition!

There are two evils which certainly attend every unmortified professor - the first, in himself; the other, in respect of others:
1. In himself. Let him pretend what he will, he has slight thoughts of sin; at least, of sins of daily infirmity. The root of an unmortified course is the digestion of sin without bitterness in the heart. When a man imagines he has such apprehension of grace and mercy as to be able, without bitterness, to swallow and digest daily sins, that man is at the very brink of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Neither is there a greater evidence of a false and rotten heart in the world than to drive such a trade. To use the blood of Christ, which is given to cleanse us, 1 John 1:7, Titus 2:14; the exaltation of Christ, which is to give us repentance, Acts 5:31; the doctrine of grace, which teaches us to deny all ungodliness, Titus 2:11,12 to countenance sin, is a rebellion that in the issue will break the bones.

At this door have gone out from us most of the professors that have apostatised in the days wherein we live. For a while they were most of them under convictions; these kept them to their duties, and brought them to profession; so they "escaped the pollutions that are in the world, through the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ," 2 Peter 2:20: but having got an acquaintance with the doctrine of the gospel, and being weary of duty, for which they had no true desire, they began to allow themselves to neglect these things because of the doctrine of grace. Now, when once this evil had laid hold of them, they speedily tumbled into perdition.

2. To others. Unmortified professors have an evil influence on others in two ways:
(1.) It hardens them, by persuading them that they are in as good condition as the best professors whenever they see that their want of mortification does not concern them. These unmortified professors have a zeal for religion; but it is accompanied with want of forbearance and universal righteousness. They deny prodigality, but with worldliness; they separate from the world, but live wholly to themselves, taking no care to exercise loving-kindness in the earth; or they talk spiritually, and live vainly; mention communion with God, and are every way conformed to the world; boasting of forgiveness of sin, and never forgiving others. And with such considerations do poor creatures harden their hearts in their unregeneracy.

(2.) They deceive them, in making them believe that if they can come up to their standard of "holiness" it shall be well with them; and so it grows an easy thing to have the great temptation of repute in religion to wrestle withal, when they may go far beyond them as to what appears in them, and yet come short of eternal life.

*taken from Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Have tried to update the language a bit and have abridged the work slightly.

**mortify = putting a living thing to death, to take away all of its strength, vigour and power so that it cannot act, or exert, or put forth any proper actings of its own. Indwelling sin is compared to a person, a living person, called "the old man", with his faculties, and properties, his wisdom, craft, subtlety and strength. The "old man" is utterly mortified and slain by the cross of Christ. He is said to be "crucified with Christ" (Romans 6:6) and ourselves to be dead with him (v8). This takes place in regeneration. The work of the Holy Spirit, who is planted in our hearts, also opposes the lusts of the flesh (Galatians 5:17). This whole work is done by degrees, and is to be carried on towards perfection all of our days. (from John Owen, Introduction to The Mortification of Sin, as abridged and made easy to read by Richard Rushing)

***duty = "If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Romans 8:13)
"the body" = "the flesh" = indwelling sin

****professors - those who profess to have faith in Christ, not those worrying about their tenure
profession - profession of faith, not the career that is cast in jeopardy by this creditcrunchglobalfinancialcrisis

Muaythai Aftermath and Two Cents on Sickness and Sin, and Prayer in James 5

The day after national fencing competitions, we used to wake with a start at 2pm on Sunday, after a night out at the local with the other uni teams and a long dangerous early morning drive back to campus bumping along unlit backroads in the Hungarian's Hungarian "it brought me to England from Hungary, it will bring us across this country!" car, and start craving salty food. Badly.

As further evidence of the coral pinkness of my health, a similar situation arose after a single evening of muaythai where it was revealed that my punches were embarrassingly limpwristed, my stance had reverted to the fencing crab-crawl and my sprained right thumb was really sprained. Fortunately there was rye crispbread knäckebröd, salmon paste, smoked salmon and dill to be assembled with one hand into something saltily edible with the minimal agitation to the grumbly body. Bork bork bork!*

If the body had been really sick though, in a serious bedridden sort of way, and this had been advertised on the Facebook status, then its person would have been inundated with well-meaning confident James 5:14-15 self-invites: "We'll bring some elders and a bit of oil!"

But if the elders and oil gig didn't turn the ship around, then caring Charismatic friends might have a quiet word about defectiveness in the faith of the sick person (cf James 1:6-8), defectiveness of the prayer or, perhaps, even defectiveness in the faith of the one praying (cf James 5:15). Catholic friends might recommend auricular confession (confession of sins through a priest) and then, when the end seemed near, extreme unction (last rites where a priest anoints and prayers with a specific form of words over someone who is dying). Evangelical friends would merely comment on sickness being part of the fallen world and a consequence of the general sinfulness of mankind and then ask for a list of songs for the wake.

If James thus far has been warning Christians of their double-mindedness in different circumstances then we can assume he continues to do so in this passage.

Experience within the church body will demonstrate that affliction and suffering (James 5:13a) can and does draw us away from God. So James' exhortation is that if suffering and affliction come to us, we should turn to God (James 5:13a) rather than turn away from him. Do not use this as an opportunity to slip away from him in despair.

Experience within the church body will also demonstrate that if all is going well and the Christian is successful not only in his personal life and career but also in church life and spiritual life, he too can be tempted to turned away from God, too confident that it is his self-made abilities and opportunities that brought him thus far and that his successes are his alone as well. To these, James reminds them to draw near to God too, in praise (James 5:13b) for their happiness.

Sickness is one of the chief things that draws us away from God. Too often, we are wrapped-up self-pity and caught up in the downward spiral of depression when we are in pain and uncomfortable and useless and a burden to those around us. (And if sin is cause of sickness, then God will seem very far away indeed.)

So whatever the circumstance in life, if we claim we believe in God, then we are not to be double-minded and not to wander from our professed confession of the reality of God and his truth.

If we are sick then, we should consider our illness in the light of God's word. The connection between sickness and sin is not necessarily causal. Some sickness is just a matter of not following the natural laws God set in the structure of the universe, for example, boxing with an injured finger is most likely to further injure the said finger. And besides, Jesus explicitly disabused his disciples of the legalistic notion of causality in the narrative of the man born blind in John 9:

His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life..."

At the same time, there have also been biblical circumstances in which sickness and sin have been declared to be interlinked, for example, the situation in 1 Corinthians 11:17-33 where some brothers were weak and ill and had even died because of their sin.

Interestingly enough, the Corinthian situation was similar to the one in James, featuring inner doublemindedness exposed in the disgraceful lack of love and ill-treatment of each other within the church body. So it is possible that James the apostle, having some direct revelation from God, knew that this was the reason for sickness in this congregation.

James' chosen reference to Elijah the More Than Weatherman (James 5:17-18) is also interesting. Instead of plugging the spot-on short sweet example of Elijah Raises Widow's Son From The Dead (1 Kings 17:8-24) which would fit in nicely with the current situation, James instead uses the rather long drought narrative in the wider 1 Kings 17-18 chapters. The point of the Elijah narrative appears to hinge on 1 Kings 18:21 where Elijah asks Israel, God's chosen people,""How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." Perhaps then James 5:13-20 is not so much about the cause of sickness or the power of prayer as what James has been banging on about all this while: if God is God, then follow him and obey his commands, exude heavenly wisdom rather than the earthly wisdom that comes from this world and from the devil (James 3:13-4:17).

God is passionately concerned with the way we relate to one another. If we treat each other badly, it is a very serious matter and we come under judgement. A person who falls ill in that situation is encouraged to consider his possible sinfulness.**

What a different culture James is urging upon his audience who were mired in pride, self-confidence, self-righteousness, partiality, judgementalism, oppression and bullying, grumbling against each other, speaking badly against each other and using their tongues in all sorts of disgusting ways. Instead they are to humble themselves both before God and before other men, acknowledging before both God and men that they were unable to do this or that thing or to heal themselves. And they were to entrust each other with confessions of sins (a public health campaign), and to love and care for one another and to pray for each other! A most gut-wrenchingly ego-deflatingly difficult thing to do if they were entrenched in seething disagreements and barely-disguised hatred for each other.

But if they knew that God was God and how serious he was about relationships within the body that his holy law included the law of neighbourly love, then they must change or continue to sin and face judgement (both current sickness and final condemnation).

This possibly then fits in with James 5:19-20 where the salvation of the sinner is a reference back to salvation of the sick person.

*safer than having the Swedish Chef cook. From Seasame Street, we learnt that live ingredients were dangerous things - like the roast toorkey, roast peegy, toortle with a souped up-shell, strangling spaghetti, deadly dough, squirrels in a stew about squirrel stew and lobster banditos.

Ah but the wonders of food preparation assisted by a shotgun - like getting the holes in your donuts and getting your salad chopped and your brussel sprouts minimised and multiplied.

And then the chocolate moose! And the cakenschmoosher - hiyak!

**Efficacy of prayers? (1) When you are sick, you most often can't pray, so you humbly ask people to bear this burden. (2) When two or more gathered, there is the promised manifestation of the power of God. (3) One of the marks of immaturity in young Christians is arrogance. Perhaps elders being hopefully more mature would have better helped to put situation right especially where the cause was sin. (4) Prayer of faith (James 5:15): Dick Lucas thinks this is something specific - special power in prayer given to some Christians where they know the answer is yes. Andy Gemmill thinks it is prayers prayed for other people that God wants to hear, that is prayers of the faithful who are after God's heart rather than prayers of the doubleminded who are after their own selfish desires, wanting to spend on their own passions. Douglas Moo notes that "in the name of the Lord" doesn't mean just appending it to the end of the prayer but that the content of the prayer is to be according to the will of the Lord. So Elijah, a common sinful person, demonstrated great power in prayer because he prayed in this way.

So is all proper faithful prayer for healing efficacious? Moo says that if prayer in fact recognises the overruling providential purposes of God, then a prayer for healing must usually be qualified by a recognition that God's will in the matter is supreme. It is clear in the NT that God does not always will to heal the faithful. Infact, Paul's own prayer for his healing was not answered (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) and the thorn in the flesh remained. Also, Paul mentioned that he left Trophimus sick in Miletus in Titus 3:20.

Anointing with oil probably not medicinal but rather anointing as consecretion to God.

Saving or raising up (James 5:15) is probably with reference to the sick bed. If this is a situation where sin is connected with sickness - if the person is convicted of sin, repents and confesses, they will know that when they are healed they have also been forgiven.

James

• Muaythai Aftermath and Two Cents on Sickness and Sin, and Prayer in James 5
• Baking Bread and James 4:13-17
• Beef Tournedos, Thaipusam and James 3:13 - 4:12
• Stories, the Tongues That Tell Them and James 3:1-12
• Lunar New Year Lunacy with the Ox-y Morons, and Faith, Works and Justification in James 2:14-26
• Braised Short-Ribs of Dead Cow, Creamless Strawberry Pav, 44th POTUS' Inauguration and James 2:1-13
• Mirror Masks and True Religion and Worship in James 1:19-27
  
• A Feather Duster, Discipline and Happiness, Righteousness and Trials in James 1:2-4

Baking Bread and James 4:13-17

Somewhere between thanking God for opposable thumbs for stirring and hand heels for kneading and electricity for oven-baking, while waiting for the malted* wheat and bran and barley dough to rest and rise, we were talking about the application of James 4:13-17 to baking**.

Come now, you who say,"Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit" — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say,"If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

James follows his general warning to stop the silly and fatal double-mindedness and urging to practise true humility with specific practical examples of what this might mean.

James 4:13-17 appears to be about presumption and arrogance demonstrated in planning for the future: the business plan for next financial year that has no regard for God. This sort of planner is supremely confident in the "laws of nature", the "laws of the market", and his own tried-and-tested wisdom. Why, he took the business over from his father and learnt all the ropes when he was a wee lad on his grandfather's knees. He has seen numerous market upturns and downturns. He has spread his risk and has acquired an extensive business network of trustworthy associates. All his decisions are well-considered and likely to be right. He constantly declines media interviews asking for his predictions for the economy. He can sleep soundly at night and is never over-anxious.

And this isn't just about businessmen, it's about anyone who prepares for the future assuming that everything will go on predictably as before. It is as if God made universe and then just left it to run like clockwork, and that if only we discover how things work, we would be masters of the universe and of our tomorrows.

James isn't dissing planning or business as godless. There is no special spirituality in slackness disguised as spontaneity either. The problem isn't in the planning but planning as if God were not there and as if we controlled our own lives.

And if we were honest with ourselves, we are completely ignorant of tomorrow (James 4:14). Not that we don't have some idea that we will be going to school or work or to meet someone for a meal next week but we are ignorant in the sense that we have no complete control over what tomorrow will bring. Whatever we do, we can't make the future conform to our plans. It always happens that we are shocked when someone laughing and alive today is cold and dead tomorrow. And everyone at the wake will say how no one expected it, and perhaps fail to add, least of all the recently and suddenly deceased. How can we boast about tomorrow (Proverbs 27:1) if we don't know what tomorrow will bring? No one expects certain nations to be at war, or the current world financial crisis, or earthquakes or tsunamis in Indonesia, or people and cattle and animals drowning or being attacked by crocodiles in floods in some parts of Australia and being burnt to death fleeing forest fires in another.

And our lives are so fragile, so insubstantial, like the morning mist (James 4:15). There is only a heartbeat between life and death. Someone takes his attention from the wheel, a major blood vessel bursts, a grand piano drops from the 14th floor, and we are gone.

If we are not in control of the future or of even the length of our lives or how we will die, then we should remember that all things bow to God's sovereign will. That only if he wills, we shall (i) live; and (ii) do this or that (James 4:15). The planned analytical mind is a gift from God, but it must remember that all things are done in the presence of God on whom its very existence is dependent.

James is not encouraging us to take "if the Lord wills" as a pious phrase to be tacked onto the end of every sentence like a talisman. (A similar phrase, In šāʾ Allāh,crops up quite a bit in dealings with Saudis (though notably, not in dealings with people in Dubai). According to wikipedia, In šāʾ Allāh (إن شاء الله) is a term in Arabic evoked by many Muslims to indicate hope for an event to occur in the future. Muslim scholar Ibn Abbas states that it is in fact obligatory for a Muslim to say Insha'Allah when referring to something he or she intends to do in the future. If carelessness leads to the omission of the phrase, it may be said at a later time upon the realisation of the omission. The Victorian Christians had a similar habit of appending bits of their letters with DV, the Latin abbreviation for Deo Volente.)

James is talking about planning the next career move, the next project, the next ministry plan, the next action etc with God consciously in mind and with remembering who we are and how everything might change tomorrow. He is concerned with godliness in daily living now in the planning, today not just plans for tomorrow.

But naturally, fundamentally, man doees not like to be under God and fights to be free from him. But in this "freedom", he finds he is not master but the Satan is his master instead. The natural man is naturally arrogant and confident in his ability to shape the future and this arrogance is evil (James 4:16). But how many would sense something amiss in the chairman's letter in the annual report charting the course for the future of the company without mention of God?

And for us Christians who ought to know better: what is the fundamental attitude of our hearts? Is it total dependence on God for his goodness and grace in giving us lives to live and to work. The sin of omitting to recognise that the future does not belong to us (James 4:17) is very subtle. We all know that it is right to acknowledge God in our lives, but if we can talk to our friends, family, colleagues, business partners without acknowledging that we are not in control but God is, then it is probable that in our hearts who think we are god and are being unfaithful to our God.

(Dick Lucas with a good pastoral reflection: if we don't understand this, then God gets the blame when things go wrong - why has God done this to us, we have not deserved this, we have planned this, done this, prepared that, and then suddenly this. But we were doing our will and then when God doesn't say amen, your will is good, we blame God. It is not our will be done on earth and in heaven but God's will.)

Dick Lucas, James 4:13-17
Andy Gemmill, James 4 & 5

*no exciting stories so far, unlike Kneadyguy's adventures. I attribute this to the lack of sarcastic wit amongst members of my household. Regardless, malted grain is exciting stuff, able to accommodate both bread and whisky in its CV. Whisky-brewing isn't something I intend to try at home, having been irrevocably scarred by a childhood memory of my homebrewed wine (painstakingly squeezed red grape juice fermented in the honest sunshine in a Yakult bottle laced with dregs of acidophilus) snatched away from my lips by a sharp-eyed nanny.

However, the store-bought stuff is lovely with a square of fudgey brownie and a good read.

Also completely brilliant, if single malt and port wood-finished, with azuki-bean-paste kashiwa-mochi...

...if God wills that we live long enough, that our taste buds will continue to function, that the whisky or brownie or kashiwa-mochi will be made if we do such and such a thing...

**we all know about the yeast of the Pharisees but before attempting to home-bake bread I didn't know that yeast could also be dead and therefore inactive and useless for anything. You can tell a live yeast is at work by your dough growing, like an alien baby in a human womb, under the damp tea towel.

James

• Muaythai Aftermath and Two Cents on Sickness and Sin, and Prayer in James 5
• Baking Bread and James 4:13-17
• Beef Tournedos, Thaipusam and James 3:13 - 4:12
• Stories, the Tongues That Tell Them and James 3:1-12
• Lunar New Year Lunacy with the Ox-y Morons, and Faith, Works and Justification in James 2:14-26
• Braised Short-Ribs of Dead Cow, Creamless Strawberry Pav, 44th POTUS' Inauguration and James 2:1-13
• Mirror Masks and True Religion and Worship in James 1:19-27
  
• A Feather Duster, Discipline and Happiness, Righteousness and Trials in James 1:2-4

Beef Tournedos, Thaipusam and James 3:13 - 4:12

Twas the night before Thaipusam, when all through the house
Beef tournedos were sizzling, and thankfully not the mouse
Japanese sweet potatoes and butter-cream were mashed up with care
Knowing that dinner for the hungry four would soon be there.

Bleagh. The perils of dodgy doggerel.

Though grain-fed Angus and therefore not macho enough for some macho men, the beef was fairly sweet and tasty. And besides, a far meatier passage from James' epistle (James 3:13 - 4:12) awaited:

James addresses the person who thinks he is "wise and understanding" (James 3:13). Sophos ("wise") was apparently the technical term amongst Jews for the teacher/scribe/rabbi. So perhaps James is going back to giving those aspiring to be teachers (James 3:1) a good shake. But like much biblical truth, what he is about to say applies to all men.

Wisdom and understanding, like faith (James 3:14-26) are inner qualities invisible to the naked eye. And like real faith which cannot merely be head knowledge but must issue in works, real wisdom inevitably demonstrates itself in the lives of those who claim to be wise (James 3:13). Real wisdom which comes from above (James 3:17) is meek (James 3:13) - gentleness born not of weakness or resignation but of deliberate choice, pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere (James 3:17). It produces peace and results in a harvest of righteousness (James 3:18). There are no quarrels and fights amongst parties who are truly wise and understanding.

False wisdom that is earthly, unspiritual and even, demonic (James 3:15) can easily be known by its rotten fruits. The bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in the hearts issues in boasting and falsehood (James 3:14), resulting in disorder and every vile practice (James 3:16), and quarrels and fights (James 4:1-2).

Cause of war amongst men stems from our hearts. People have spent whole lives looking everywhere else to discover the cause of war but like the punchline to Roald Dahl's Lamb to Slaughter, the answer was right under their noses. The ultimate cause of fighting isn't ignorance and barbarianism so that with a little education and clean clothing we will all be better people; it isn't the lack of watchdogs and safeguards and regulation by authorities; and it certainly isn't the older generation clinging on to their outdated outmoded forms of government or conservative ideals which we the younger generation can change, yes we can.

In the heart of every man, woman and child is the insatiable desire to get what we want to the detriment of other people. Or perhaps "detriment" is too mild a word. What we do, observes James is that we murder - that is the depth of the evil in our bitter hatred toward others (James 4:1-2).

We Christians are murderers. So great is the tyranny of sin that it even survives redemption.

Having gone down to Little India to have a look at the Thaipusam festivities and seen devout Hindus carrying spiked kavadis of up to 50kg, walking on nail shoes, having their tongues speared and cheeks speared, attaching hooks into their backs to pull heavy carts, we were reminded of the uniqueness of the Christian God. He is the God who does not require us to get his attention by feats of endurance. To be accurate, he is the God who is so holy that no feats of endurance or extreme self-inflicted pain can ever purify us enough to approach him. To solve this problem, he gave his only Son to die for us so that we sinners would be able to communicate with a holy God without perishing as we ought. So all we need to do is to pray to him and he will listen. We do not need to persuade a reluctant God who has better things to do with his time to hear us.

But we are so stupidly prone to navel-gazing that we don't even take advantage of this benefit for which God himself has paid so high a price to ask him for things that we want (James 4:2). And those of us who do get around to asking him for things abuse the privilege, asking God to be our servant to gratify our desires and join us in serving our sick lusts (James 4:3). It is a mercy from God that he does not give us what we ask for (James 4:3) and thus condemn us in our sin.

By nature we desire the things and riches of this world and not the things of God. When we are converted and start having a relationship with God, we desire what he desires but soon the sin in our hearts causes us to slip back and start desiring the things of the world again.

"The world" doesn't refer to that which God made that is good and that we are to enjoy, for the Bible does tell us how to enjoy life. "The world" actually refers to society that has forgotten God; it knows of him of course and, like the demons, might tremble at his awesomeness (James 2:19) but it does not worship him nor submit to him. This world is jealous when we give any time to God, gasping with concern that we are taking Christianity too seriously and that religion in moderation is the key to successful living.

When we become its friends, when we return to being enthusiastic about its hobbies and interests, get stung by its criticisms, and desire its favour and praise, we become enemies with God (James 4:4). It could be the world's ploy that Christians are bogged down with identifying specifics as evil and of the devil - pilates and yoga perhaps or rock and alcohol. But really, the evil is within us and our actions, however the world might falsely comfort us of their innocuousness, are its fruit. How do we tell we are worldly? By our use of time and money, and hopes for our children, and hopes for ourselves, and our conduct. What are our dreams? What do we value - money, comfort, friends, marriage, fame, a place in human history, saving the world?

Our relationship with God is unique also because never has man thought up a god that would treasure his relationship with us more than we ourselves care for it. In the Old Testament, the relationship between God and his people was described as that of a bridegroom and bride. God is not just a lover of his people but a jealous lover (James 4:5, Deuteronomy 32:16 and 32:21, Exodus 20:5 and 34:14, Zechariah 8:2). God loves men with such a passion that he cannot bear any other love within the hearts of men.

How then can we return to our first love? We can't ourselves, but as if the privilege of an intimate relationship were not enough, God gives us more grace (James 4:6). When we are sliding down the slippery road back to hell, God graciously brings us back to him again. Obviously we will need to humble ourselves - to know our place before God, to submit ourselves to him. No man is without a master - it is either God or the devil. If we do not submit to God, then our master is the devil and we never will be able to resist him, we will remain constantly under his tyrannical power. So bow the knee, acknowledge God's authority, surrender and be willing to obey (James 4:7). And start to fight against worldly desires again. There must not be any ceasefire negotiation with sin. We must draw near to God in prayer (James 4:8), and make ourselves single-minded for God. We are to clean our own hands and purify our own hearts (James 4:8). We must be in deadly earnest about it and stop that light-hearted gay attitude that dismisses sin easily. If we truly understood our status, we would start weeping over our own sin (James 4:9).

If we are repentant and humble ourselves before God and know our position before him, then surely we cannot speak evil against our brothers or judge them (James 4:11). For doing so would be acting contrary to the God and his laws (James 4:12) which we profess to love.

Apparently, katalalia ("speaking evil") does not mean quarrelling but rather speaking against another person, disparaging a person's character and motive, usually behind his back. It is the sin of those who meet in corners and gather in little groups and pass on confidential information which destroy the good name of those who are not there to defend themselves. It includes negative speculation about the motives of others. It can also mean speaking about someone to bring him down in his own eyes or those of others. And the things we say don't necessarily have to be completely untrue, for Satan himself specialises in half-truths. And truly, we are so sinful that we can even use complete truths destructively, sometimes heavily dusted with the Christian sugar-coating of love. We usually do this to build ourselves up, both the speaker and hearer feeling a glow of self-righteousness in the after.

By so doing, we exalting ourselves above God's law of love and dismissing it readily saying that our rule about wanting to talk about someone is better than that one.

The prohibition against judging our brother does not to rule out civil courts and judges, for we are told that God institutes authorities over societies; neither can it rule out discernment because we are told to weigh things up and to rebuke another if necessary. Instead, it seems to be the sort of judgement, possibly final verdict, that lift us up into God's place to judge another as our subject.

Don't we remember, we who call ourselves Christians, that if man's words are powerful, God's words which created the entire world and which do not return to him empty but accomplish what God pleases (Isaiah 55:11) are infinitely more powerful? Don't we remember what God really thinks of us rebellious sinners could have destroyed us with his words, but that with his Word he rescued us instead? Can we still speak about others mercilessly, perhaps not in manner but in content, and can we still collude in this sin by listening mercilessly as well?

Who are we, exactly, who think so little of the mercy of God, that we show so little mercy to others? Who are we who think our law of words is better than God's love of love? Who are we who think that we know that innermost motives of others that we presume to condemn them as judge?

Gratuitous photo of nice goreng pisang man at Tekka market

Dick Lucas, James 4:1-10
Dick Lucas, James 4:11-12
Andy Gemmill, James 4-5
Cathy McKay's honest reflections about Worldliness in Disguise

James

• Muaythai Aftermath and Two Cents on Sickness and Sin, and Prayer in James 5
• Baking Bread and James 4:13-17
• Beef Tournedos, Thaipusam and James 3:13 - 4:12
• Stories, the Tongues That Tell Them and James 3:1-12
• Lunar New Year Lunacy with the Ox-y Morons, and Faith, Works and Justification in James 2:14-26
• Braised Short-Ribs of Dead Cow, Creamless Strawberry Pav, 44th POTUS' Inauguration and James 2:1-13
• Mirror Masks and True Religion and Worship in James 1:19-27
  
• A Feather Duster, Discipline and Happiness, Righteousness and Trials in James 1:2-4

Stories, the Tongues That Tell Them and James 3:1-12

Saturday night pizzas and sparkling rosés. A cake in oven* after the pizzas.

Then chocolate chip biscuits and earl greys. And we were telling stories of stories by telling the stories. Because the best way to describe a story is to tell it.

What a wonderful thing to be a real teller of stories, to entertain refugees from the Black Death or pilgrims on that butt-sore donkey ride to and from Canterbury, to give stories as payment for a tankard of ale, a hot bowl of stew and a kip in a soft bed in a wayside inn, to construct inviting worlds for weary labourers to step into for just a while and forget their sweaty bodies, to use cliffhangers for the postponement of one's own death.

The magic of a good yarn can't really be broken down into its component parts by scholars - oh, here we observe the progression of character, and there, a plot device used to create a point of divergence. Legends, folk tales and fairy tales, myths pay little heed to set literary technique. But everyone knows a good tale when they hear one: the storyteller starts to speak, the tourniquet is tight and the needle is in the vein, then the tourniquet is off and the plunger is in and soon they scarcely notice the world around them fade, replaced by a cosmos of fairies in forests and monsters guarding untold treasures and heros saving worlds and sailing off to adventures in foreign lands.

Some stories are this-world factoids woven with impossible hopes and aspirations. Other stories are dreams articulated. But perhaps, still other stories create the very things they tell of. And perhaps certain other stories are the only permanent things in the world.

Well, God's stories for sure.

Though puny fragile, his creatures know too the longevity of the vibration of their little vocal chords. The stories we tell our children existed in various forms long before ground on which our houses are built was populated and will exist long after any traces of us or our homes can be found. So with an eye to posterity, "historical" accounts have always been commissioned by the victors of bloody skirmishes to commemorate their bravery and divine birth, and by stark contrast, the scumminess of the losers. And so Qin Shi Huang, arriving on the scene to find the stories not quite in his favour, burnt books and buried scholars. But words are not so easily silenced.

It is an amazing thing to consider the power of words, those symbols of thoughts and, when strung together in a language known to at least 2 people, modes of communication. And truly, stories are communicable. Quite innocently, you catch them and are infected by them. They peek out in dreams and nightmares and are subtly stitched into the lining of real life. "I have a dream," says one man and changes the course of entire nations and cultures. Even after the original ones have grown old and died. After all, it was the serpent's five words "You shall not surely die" that changed the path of the entire human race.

Jesus affirmed the permanence of our words, even the throw-away careless ones. They will be remembered and kept in store until the end of this world. Then we will be either justified or condemned by them (Matthew 12:36-37).

This would not worry us if we were navel-gazers, more intent in getting our navels to a "higher rung" in the church hierarchy as teachers or pastors or elders or deacons, liking the sound of our own voices and that people to shush each other to listen to the half-considered notions that spring from our mouths (James 3:1a). But it should.

If even the careless word is judged, then what more the deliberate oratorical sermons or pastoral pronouncements that emerge from our lips that will be heard and will affect tens, or hundreds or thousands**? If we consider that we are all sinful (James 3:2) and that the tongue is the part of the body most induced to sin (James 3:3-8), then surely we ought to have the appropriate safeguards in place before bringing it out for a wriggle, especially in front of a microphone. How careful we must be if the main tool of our job is the part most prone to terrible failure! What a dangerous thing it is to be a teacher!

Useless live figurehead having a morning fag at the bow

The tongue seems a fairly small organ, roughened up with papillae and taste buds, bashfully tucked away in the oral cavity. But like the bit in the mouth of a horse (James 3:3) or the small rudder on a large ship (James 3:4), that saliva-coated muscle is able to direct great things.

So if we were mature ("perfect" cf James 1:4), we could do great things with our tongues. But alas, our tongues are usually uncontrolled and fulfil their potential for great destruction, much to the delight of the source of all this, the devil (James 3:6). The horrible twisted evil little thing stains and ruins our whole life and destroys those of others too (James 3:6). So whilst humankind can domesticate large predators, it is helpless to control that very thing that resides in our mouths (James 3:7). So the tongue remains wild, restless, full of deadly poison. And we all know how weeks and months and years are sometimes preoccupied with dealing with the fail-out from a sentence or two (James 3:8). The devil isn't in parseltongue, it's in those few rather normally false, biting, slanderous words.

But it's not as if the tongue itself is the evil that resides within us so that if we shear off our tongues, we will be free from the control of our sinful nature and the world. Our tongues are only barometers of our spiritual condition. James looks at outside for evidence of inside. It is our real attitudes and thoughts that are vocalised by the tongue and it is these that corrupt the whole person.

"...it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person," said Jesus,"what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person" (Matthew 12:11, 18-20, 33-37)

We rail against skimpily dressed women and the rampant and cheap sex prostituted by the mass media, but the tongue is the most unvalued temptation and possibly the most socially destructive instrument of sin. Possibly, the more entrenched we are within a church community, the more people accept without question what we say because of our position or longevity within a social circle, the greater our temptation to sin in this way. In our jealousy or selfish ambition or self-seeking, we destroy reputations on a whim, we tear down rather than build up, we incite disharmony and rebellion, we manipulate, we encourage gossip and slander, all usually under the cover of sharing our concern for God or the church or others. Far too many a post-service snigger or flippant fellowship meal or rash email/sms/chat has spawned untold grief and destruction of lives.

If we claim to have taken hold of the truth and received the Spirit which is able to change us to be more like Christ, then this state of affairs is sick and as utterly unnatural as salty tepid water in our Evian spring water bottled at source or stinky durians growing in our delicate heirloom tomato patch.

And if we hear a brother or sister fall into one of the many traps that litter this area, we must be quick to yank them away. There is nothing like a cabal of shared gossip to build community and togetherness. But this is not the foundation on which Christ's body is to be built. The danger of losing friends, who might perceive one's lack of eagerness to partake of the information exchange as a betrayal of their friendship, is real. But the fire of hell is real too.

Dick Lucas, James 3:1-12
Christopher Chia, James 3:1-12
Desiring God 2008 National Conference had the tongue and words as its theme. Free downloads. As with everything else, use with discretion.

PS:

This is not the worst of it but surely we are all too savvy about this very common inconsistency. Courtesy of Desiring God Ministries.

*Neil Gaiman likens stories to cakes - "Sometimes the cake won't rise, no matter what you do, and every now and again the cake tastes better than you ever could have dreamed it would". This was true of a boca negra, which'd tasted far better when improperly baked, glooped out and a little burnt, than properly baked and characterless.

**"Ministers are noteworthy of their calling. All preachers are vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy. In fact, the more faithful preachers are to the Word of God in their preaching, the more liable they are to the charge of hypocrisy. Why? Because the more faithful people are to the Word of God, the higher the message is that they will preach. The higher the message, the further they will be from obeying it themselves." R.C. Sproul

***Neil Gaiman reading The Graveyard Book for which he won the Newbery.


James

• Muaythai Aftermath and Two Cents on Sickness and Sin, and Prayer in James 5
• Baking Bread and James 4:13-17
• Beef Tournedos, Thaipusam and James 3:13 - 4:12
• Stories, the Tongues That Tell Them and James 3:1-12
• Lunar New Year Lunacy with the Ox-y Morons, and Faith, Works and Justification in James 2:14-26
• Braised Short-Ribs of Dead Cow, Creamless Strawberry Pav, 44th POTUS' Inauguration and James 2:1-13
• Mirror Masks and True Religion and Worship in James 1:19-27
  
• A Feather Duster, Discipline and Happiness, Righteousness and Trials in James 1:2-4