Outside, It Was Stormy And Dark...

... perhaps so we might follow His street lamps and road signs.

For James tells us:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-3)

and

As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (James 5:10-11)

and from a distance of centuries, John Newton shouts encouragement to those who, having asked the Shepherd for similar directions, have been put on that good old trodden path:

I asked the LORD that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of his salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, his face.

'Twas he who taught me thus to pray,
And he, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favoured hour,
At once he'd answer my request;
And by his love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, he made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with his own hand he seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

LORD, why is this, I trembling cried,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
"’Tis in this way, the LORD replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith.

These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may'st find thy all in me."

(John Newton, Olney Hymns)

And we do not stop to gawk at car wrecks in the darkness, for our hope drives us on homewards:

There is a hope that burns within my heart,
That gives me strength for ev'ry passing day;
a glimpse of glory now revealed in meager part,
Yet drives all doubt away:
I stand in Christ, with sins forgiv'n;
and Christ in me, the hope of heav'n!
My highest calling and my deepest joy,
to make His will my home.

There is a hope that lifts my weary head,
A consolation strong against despair,
That when the world has plunged me in its deepest pit,
I find the Savior there!
Through present sufferings, future's fear,
He whispers, "Courage!" in my ear.
For I am safe in everlasting arms,
And they will lead me home.

There is a hope that stands the test of time,
That lifts my eyes beyond the beckoning grave,
To see the matchless beauty of a day divine
When I behold His face!
When sufferings cease and sorrows die,
and every longing satisfied,
then joy unspeakable will flood my soul,
For I am truly home.

© Stuart Townend, Kingsway Music
(An untoward dislike of wind instruments means i only listen from 0:58 to 4:28)
(HT: the B)

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

Lunar New Year Lunacy with the Ox-y Morons, and Faith, Works and Justification in James 2:14-26

At dinner, there was an old Christmas tree resisting retirement to the storeroom. It attempted to stay relevant for the lunar new year of the ox by having a squeezy cow tied to it with red ribbon and garnished with a plastic gold ingot. Looking down from her tree perch, festive cow observed the conversation at the table deteriorating from serious talk on global currency, the situation in Gaza and Obama's promises, to walking one's wife at MacRitchie with a human harness and the savvy business idea behind youporn.com (accompanied by neighbour-to-call-999 crazy laughter).

The boca negra, one chocolatey chocolate cake that takes its major characteristic seriously, claims not to have contributed to the madness but it was completely consumed and is thus persona non grata for the purposes of claims of innocence. Perhaps the blame may also lie in the partial solar eclipse. Or the muddled drinks and the wine. Or the company.

On the day of the first somesortof solar eclipse of 2009, which was also the first day of the lunar/Chinese new year, we started as usual on a healthy note by frying up a batch of turnip and carrot cake. Very good with garlic chilli sauce. Chinese New Year isn't Chinese New Year if you don't end the festivities with a raging sore throat.

Like the Mosaic locusts, the relatives descended upon us, ate and laughed and were gone in 3 hours. They rather liked the curry chicken and the chocolate cake-pudding with raspberry yoghurt ice-cream - looks rather dodgy but the interplay of the bittersweet with the soursweet was interesting. And you could legitimately tell the rellies weren't just being polite because of the people queueing in the kitchen for seconds and thirds and eldest uncle, erm, insisting on having it right now right here in his white wine glass.

The chicken curry took the better part of the night before to prep. The recipe for the chocolate cake-pudding is as follows:

• attempt to make boca negra
  
• forget to switch portable oven from "Grill" to "Oven"
  
• wander off
  
• ignore smell of burning
  
• return to a smoke-filled kitchen and neighbours yelling "Fire! Fire!"
  
• calmly take smoking cake-like object out from oven
  
• equally calmly turn said object over onto huge plate
• contemplate pudding-like chocolate stuff glooped all over plate
• scoop unburnt bits into bowl and refrigerate
• serve with raspberry yoghurt gelato from Venezia Gelataria
  

On things half-baked, we come to James 2:14-26. Or perhaps it would be too grand to call the unreal faith of a professed Christian unaccompanied by works "half-baked".

To those who might have grumbled at James' emphasis on doing not just hearing (James 1:19-26), bridling the tongue (James 1:26), visiting orphans and widows, and keeping oneself unstained from the world (James 1:27): Ah James, stop being such a nag. After all, we're all justified by faith not works so spare us the yabber about all these chores!

(And indeed Paul said in Romans 3:28 "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." and again in Galatians 2:15-16 "we know that a person is not justified by works of the law(AE) but through faith in Jesus Christ".)

James isn't disputing sola fide ("by faith alone") in the Pauline sense - salvation through Christ alone, through his blood alone, through the grace of God alone, not by anything we can do. Rather he is emphasising one facet of that truth.

Somewhere along the supernova sugar-high that resulted from a compulsory family dessert buffet (and attendant anti-social bouncing off walls), the concept of "faith" got a good workthrough with some folk. Faith means, to a Christian, a fuller concept than the word might suggest in the minds of any other person. We know that true faith, saving faith, is that trust that lays hold of God through his promises and results in a new life (Romans 5:1). One dimension of this saving faith is an intellectual conviction, a certainty of truths, of things invisible and things future (Hebrews 11:1-2).

Another necessary component of this saving faith is "works" (James 2:14). James does not appear to be talking about the Pauline meaning of "works" by which the Gentiles thought they could be good enough to save themselves, but some outward demonstration that the person before him is a man of faith*. He is challenging the people who seem to have a sort of defective faith, a counterfeit copy of faith that has not resulted in any of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) by giving the ironic illustration of a man of faith snug in furs and bursting from a warm dinner saying glibly to the poor shivering fellow with the grumbling belly next to him in church "Alright, toodle-doo and hope you find some clothing and a bit to eat soon!" without doing anything about it (James 2:16).

So you believe in the 5 solas and are proud that your theology is reformed and sound? You think you and your little friends alone know the full glory of the doctrines of prayer and predestination, and these have more completely informed your faith? Then how can you dismiss a brother in need with a careless "Ok, I'll pray for you"? This absurdity harks back to the forgetful man who stares himself in the mirror only to forget what he looks like immediately after (James 1:22-25). Hearing must lead to doing. Well, yes, it's important to have good theology. The great revelation that God is one is marvellous indeed. Every pious Jew recited this twice daily (Deuteronomy 6:4). This factoid does not escape the attention of Satan's cronies, those demons who caught on faster than any of the disciples that Jesus was part of the Godhead (see Mark 1:24, Mark 5:7). And this knowledge is enough to cause them to rightly fear God (which is more than can be said of an office worker in Raffles Place or the housewife in Ang Mo Kio). But fat lot of good their intellectual "faith" does them. So one might consider them spiritually superior to many but their mental assent and right theology "faith" isn't saving faith, the sort of faith that results in the "work" of repentance.**

Not convinced about this well-rounded concept of faith? Still clinging onto the wrong understanding of justification by faith? says James. Check out the Scriptural evidence. Exhibit One: Father Abraham, father of the faithful, the one through whom Israel's relationship with God began properly after the Fall. Sure, before Abraham had done any works to deserve it, God had already counted his belief to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6). So in the Pauline sense, it is true that justification, being declared right with God, is not something do work for by perfect obedience to the law because our deeds can never live up to God's standard (Romans 4:3; Galatians 3:6).

But justification of faith is no cover for careless, bochap living. Genesis 22 tells us that what happened decades after Abe was credited righteousness by God was a test of his profession of faith. When he had offered Isaac up to be sacrified in obedience to God, the angel then said "now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me" (Genesis 22:12). Surely God knows everything so James says that this was in fact a fulfilment and completion of the earlier confession of faith and pronouncement of justification.***

And so Exhibit Two: Rahab the Gentile prostitute's faith in the God of the Jews was shown to be true when she acted on her belief by hiding the Israelite spies ("messengers" James calls them, how PC) and, erm, misdirecting their pursuers (Joshua 2).

So our confessed faith, our professed trust in Christ, is also completed when we live a changed life. We cannot claim to have any real saving faith if our lives have not changed.

There are those who were born into Christian families and greatly regret not experiencing a dramatic conversion. While it is great when a person turns from drugs or prostitution or gangsterism etc when they receive Christ, it is not the apparent conversion that matters so much as the God-centred life lived after that should cause us to rejoice marvellously with tears in the eyes etc. So perhaps, to be pedantic (but with pedantry sometimes comes great truth), we should not say so-and-so was converted today but that he made a confession of faith and we'll see if his works justify his profession later.

The faith that saves is not purely about holding the right convictions though it is essential to know the object of our faith. And though important, it is not just about being able to discern between faithful/unfaithful, expository/topical/just plain out of context, good/bad, deep/shallow preaching and teaching. The certainty of our faith does not come from our spiritual heritage: evangelical, reformed, Moore Theological College, Peter Jensen and Phillip Jensen, St. Helen's Bishopsgate and friends, Dick Lucas, David Jackman, Cornhill Training Course, Mars Hill, Don Carson, Mark Dever, C J Mahaney, Albert Mohler etc. It comes from the evidence of such faith in one's life: it must make a man a friend of God (James 2:23) and therefore no friend of the world (James 4:4). It is seen and completed in the man whose faith remains steadfast in trials of various kinds (James 1:2-15), who does not just hear the word of God but also does it (James 1:22-27), who loves his neighbour and does not show partiality (James 2:1-13)****, who controls his tongue (James 3:1-12).

It is pointless have an outward shell that is adorned with flamboyant conversion testimonies or intricate patterns of doctrine or reams of paper explaining Romans or James or Revelation, if it is not animated by obedience to the God it claims to love. Such faith is infact dead in the water.

* Works
Not sure that dichotomisation of the Pauline and Jamesian use of the word "works" into "pre-salvation" and "post-salvation" works helps clarify things. This seems merely to point to chronology rather than motivation behind the works.

** Faith and Works
So we tried out a few ways of expressing this:
Faith = Salvation = Faith + Works doesn't quite work unless Works = 0.

Of course, this could be refined to Faith (Paul) = Salvation = Faith + Works (James) but James doesn't seem to be adding works to saving faith as a separate entity but works as authenticating the confession of faith, so the Martin Lutheran "faith is never alone" doesn't quite work either.

Possibly Faith = Salvation = Confession of Faith + Works (wherein Works = Fruits of the Spirit) might work.

Visually, possibly, saving faith = salvation as a two-dimensional consequence. If you viewed it in three-dimensions, it would become evident that works is a component of saving faith.

Metaphorically, possibly, saving faith is a purple car, let us say the only car, that can get you into Sentosa. Works is the wheels on that car without which it cannot properly be called a car and without which it cannot get you to the island of fake sandy beaches and piped-in Caribbean music.

*** Justification
Some take the Jamesian concept of "justification" to mean the end-time judgements that consider a Christian's post-salvation good works as proof of his authenticity of faith. Am inclined to think that in the context of this passage, the emphasis is not so much on The Day (although that will always be in the picture) but on the confirmatory value of good works in reference back to the hour we first thought we believed.

***** Partiality
The only contemporary application I have heard concerning this is of ushers seating different groups of people during service. In what other situations would this apply? If eg. it's about spending time with groups of people, other considerations come into play. Maybe it's more to do with general attitude said the natter-y neighbour after last Saturday's service. Perhaps.

Dick Lucas, James 2:14-26

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

Braised Short-Ribs of Dead Cow, Creamless Strawberry Pav, 44th POTUS' Inauguration and James 2:1-13

Childhood fantasies are funny things, and in their own way, naive and selfishly insular.

For children barred from eating any sort of red meat, fascination with the smell and texture of the cooked flesh of dead cows.

For children for whom sugar (refined, or of the fresh cherry or strawberry sucrose variety) could only be obtained by sneaking sugar packets from restaurants and eating the white stuff surreptitiously in a corner hidden by piles of yellow National Geographic magazines, dreams of the desserts and edible delights that were the bricks and motar of the witch's house in Hansel und Gretel.

Two nights ago, we stayed up, cherry tart in hand, to watch the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America. Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed Barack Hussein Obama's swearing-in, but the cool-headed dude went on to give a speech pitched at the oratory (and history) books. He painted a sweeping vision for Americans, united as one; a vision that encompassed not just that part of the continental mass separating the Pacific from the Atlantic but also one that would radiate throughout the world.

The seemingly grander fantasies of grown men.

"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions...," said Obama because if nothing he is skilled enough to anticipate and address audience response,"their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done..." The basis of his confidence in the vision of Americans working together for a common purpose is their glorious history and their forefathers who "struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. [Who] saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction" and of whose legacy they were keepers.

(Arguably however, the past does not necessarily inform the future, especially for neo-nazis and regulars at KKK meetings who would see no reason to perpetuate the "mistakes" of America's history. Though citizens of the land, they will have no part in any "common purpose".)

"My brothers!" James calls out (James 2:1) in a tone of familiarity not unlike that invoked by the 44th POTUS. But James is claiming more than a common humanity or a common citizenship. For on those bases, we give to charity and help little old ladies cross roads. But not all of us all of the time. Because sin has entered into the world, sometimes monies are spent on frivolous luxuries and little old ladies are honked at and knocked down.

And the scale of James' stated ambition, the vision of a church not split by partiality or discrimination, is not based on the great and glorious history of Israel, heavily varnished by sweeping rhetoric. Scripture is more realistic than that. It recognises the innate sinfulness of men and women everywhere of all races and positions and creeds. There can be no multi-racial un-class-conscious society in any deep meaningful way except in the real brotherhood that is united by faith in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (James 2:1).

Jesus: as American as cherry pie? After all, a distinctive characteristic of Jesus was that he showed no partiality, supping and dining with sinners and tax collectors and consorting with prostitutes while the rabbis tsked and tutted outside. This presented an excellent opportunity for enemies to try to trip him up. Oh, an equal opportunist are you? Friend of the poor and the rich same-same? Then you must not think anything of that chap Caesar and surely you're telling us to ignore him and his Roman colonialist pan-handling as well? (Mark 12:14-17)

But in a manner not too popular with modern Americans, Jesus and later Paul failed to encourage us to consider ourselves equal in all respects with everyone else. They emphasised the need to give due honour where such honour was due: to the governing authorities instituted by God, even though they might not have been Christian, slaves were to obey their masters, respect was to be given to those senior in years. Age and authority merit from us a reasonable and courteous respect. We are not told to respect nothing.

Furthermore, even the most outwardly egalitarian of humans will make judgements on peoples and situations as part of daily life. And without the guiding hand of the Bible, we inevitably respect the wrong things. Judging people by the magnitude of their wealth in particular is a common folly in democratic capitalist societies. To treat wealth as meaningless is intellectual imbecility - the markets have evolved so that it is money that pays for food, shelter, nealthcare, transportation, and arguably, civilisation. The patently non-materialists too cannot avoid the inadvertent snobbery of giving uncalled-for preferential treatment to the allegedly disadvantaged, like the black politican who was interviewed as saying that the antidote to a corrupt senator who happened to be white was to put a black man in that office. The favouritism of the coloured skin.

And again, netizens often enjoy seeing the rich get punished both for their crimes as well as for their wealth in courts of law. But the Bible has always been refreshingly clear in stating that there be no discrimination in judgement - no partiality to the poor, nor deference to the great (Leviticus 19:15, Deuteronomy 1:17).

It is inevitable that if we do not take the Bible as truth, then we take on the standards of the world as truth. But if we profess to accept God's word and claim we have faith in him, then why how can we hear but not do (James 1:22-25)? How can we still play favourites within the church family (James 2:2-7)?

So we may not suck up to the politican during service with sycophantic motives towards his riches and influence and usefulness, but if we think that preaching in a savage reservation is greater than preaching to the owners of luxury yachts, or that the Chief of Defence Force volunteering as door-greeter is more humbled and thus more godly than the roadsweeper performing the same task, then perhaps we have subscribed to the half-truth that communism thrived on - the favouritism of farmers and dismissive and harsh treatment of the educated and well-off.

Obama's political vehicle of government through mutual love and respect has been well-received. God is love? Even those opposed to Christianity have no problem with this statement. But they do not understand that because God is the Creator, God alone defines what love is, not us. And it's not about warm waffles and fuzzy hugs. God's specs of this thing called love can be found in his laws and commandments. Only if we obey his laws and commandments can we be making some headway in loving others properly. Hence, the outcry from certain communities over what they perceive to be outdated "conservative" Christian distaste over their way of life, and the accusations of the unlovingness of these Christians are unfounded. The protestors do not truly understand what love is.


If we turn the spotlight on just one facet of God's love, what glimmers forth here is love as lack of favouritism (Romans 2:11). If we claim to show love to some people and not to others, then our actions cannot have come from true love, divine love. The all-encompassing law of loving neighbour is not a relaxation of the law of obedience of the 10 commandments because they were so darned hard to keep but an explanation of their depth and the consequent scope of human obligations. So the 10 commandments were in fact, only examples of what it meant to love one's neighbour. We cannot claim to have kept to the spirit of the law (by our own interpretation) if we did not even obey the explicit details of what it means to keep the law.

And if the royal law, the law of liberty, is a direct reflection of the character of God, then we cannot call some details important and others not (James 2:10-13). We cannot divide them into venial sins and mortal sins. This guards us against the deceitfulness and self-righteousness of taking refuge in our disobedience by stressing our obedience to other bits.

James does not merely administer a friendly slap on the wrist here. He puts out a dire warning: discriminate and die. For if you show partiality, you break the law of loving neighbour and sin and shall be convicted as transgressors (James 2:9). And the sentence for such law-breaking is death (James 1:15), because it demonstrates that despite your profession of allegiance to Christ, you worship the king of this world, not God; you are an enemy of state, of the kingdom that will triumph in the end.

We who are the firstfruits of God's creatures (James 1:18) have no excuse: we know God, we are not ignorant of his laws (because not only has God revealed to us his statutes time and again in the Bible, we also have the implanted word (James 1:21)) nor of the need to obey them, nor do we lack the ability to do what is required of us through the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26).

• The Obama Inauguration Speech Generator
• Deb at smitten kitchen - Braised Beef Short-Ribs
• Dick Lucas on James 2:1-7, James 2:8-13
  

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

Mirror Masks and True Religion and Worship in James 1:19-27

The non-objectivity of the world as disclosed by the photographic lens?

...the object is never anything more than an imaginary line. The world is an object that is both imminent and ungraspable. How far is the world? How does one obtain a clearer focus point? Is photography a mirror which briefly captures this imaginary line of the world? Or is it man who, blinded by the enlarged reflection of his own consciousness, falsifies visual perspectives and blurs the accuracy of the world?" (Jean Baudrillard, Photography, Or The Writing Of Light)

While crit theorists were debating the reality of the knots that entangled them, social gospelisers were cracking the whip at coke-bottle-eyed evangelicals: true Christians must be more practical. Less of your talks and studies and more of our going out into the world and doing things, please.

But James assumes that our starting point is the open Bible on our lap. For God brought us forth through the word of truth (James 1:18) and it is the word, implanted, that is able to save our souls (James 1:21). Elsewhere, we are injuncted to give an intent ear to the word of God as first priority. Martha might be the patron saint of the century but it was Mary who received the commendation.

The great reluctance to crack the spine of a black leather-bound might be attributed to lack of belief in the Bible as the word of God or the greater doubt that God does speak at all. But regardless of reason, the fact is that we fail to edify in our speech and actions because we haven't listened and our minds and hearts remain uninformed about God's laws and intention for his children (2 Timothy 3:15-17).

It is from this foundation of God's word that James warns that we mustn't be hearers only of the word but doers as well (James 1:22). James isn't talking about hypocrites here, the white-washed tombs the plebs were only too happy to hear included in Jesus' exposé. The subject of the letter were real Christians - they had the implanted word, yet they were encouraged to receive it with meekness (James 1:21).

If we hear but do not do, we are only deceiving ourselves. Long-in-the-teeth Christians who have learnt to read the Bible properly and get the main point from a chapter in a book of the Bible, who work hard at the talks they are to give, don't need someone to ask them "Where did you get what you have just said from this passage?". But they must not mistake competent comprehension for suitable obedience. Similarly, those who thoroughly enjoy a faithful talk or get great truths from our daily QT but not to go and do anything about it must not think that we are in any way blessed if we do not act on what we have learnt (cf James 1:25). We would be like the supermarket shopper who pays for his groceries and then walks off without them because his silly mind thinks payment = acquisition of goods. (Or perhaps this is not a common experience.)

James, who never had to face a supermarket checkout, likens this to the absurdity of staring intently at the landscape and features of our face in the mirror, turning away, and at once forgetting what we have seen. It is a silly situation that FAILs more than many of the entries on FAIL blog: "Hey," a shopkeeper might say to the man entering his shop after having spent a good hour using the reflective solar film of his shop window as a mirror,"nice nose. We don't get alot of beaks around here." "I've got a beak? Oh, how unusual! I never knew!" Yet, it is the common Christian experience that we do forget, and in vast quantities. So we remember so-and-so as a good speaker, or that there was a good talk last month, a good study last week, a good camp last holiday, and hey, we have a neat file of notes to prove it. But does that mean we really remember what we learnt and completely internalised it that our minds and hearts have been changed by it?

And again in James 1:26-27, James does not warn the hypocrites, the proverbial Sunday Christians, the men (goes the old sermon chestnut) who go to church regularly every week and bible studies and think they are thus saved; James is warning those whom he acknowledges as his beloved brothers (James 1: 16, 19) - the people who have known the new birth.

To these he throws down a challenge: does your religion mean that you master your tongue (James 1:26); is it displayed in your self-control? Do you use your immense "people skills" and way with words to judge and gossip, plot and plan? What do you say in council meetings, deacon sessions? How do you use your opportunities on the pulpit and when teaching small groups? What do you talk about during fellowship meals and gatherings? If we have really heard the word of God, letting slander, gossip and unedifying talk emerge from our lips is absurd. It would be difficult for the objective observer to conclude that we'd listened to God in the first place!

The doing isn't really about social work - the outwardly tangible things people can put together for a biography that will sell at mission conventions and be serialised in Readers' Digest. On one hand, it is about self-control. In addition to internal control, it is about how our religion is demonstrated in our relationships with other people, particularly those who are in need of help (James 1:27a). The Greek word translated as "visit", says Dick Lucas, also appears in Matthew 25 and Luke 7:16. It is used of God visiting his people and making things happen for the benefit of these people. It would be incomprehensible to claim to be well-taught but uninterested in burdensome, energy-sapping, needy IMH-regulars (though of course we'd be amenable to pooling together to get little arms-length "encouragement gifts" for them).

And what of our relationship with God? The reference to "the world" is by default shorthand for our relationship with God, for loving the world means turning our backs to God (cf 1 John 2:15). The world is society organised without reference to God or his son. Previously we loved the world, then God worked on our hearts and so we turned our backs to the world and lived for him but the world is always enticing us to creep back. So Christians have tried to institute by-laws to prevent contamination by the world: no theatre, no dancing, no drinking or smoking. But such legalism and pharsaism was too naive. The current swing towards the other extreme of total liberty, however, tends to lack control. Perhaps the better test is to ask whether this or that draws our hearts from heaven and fastens them to earth; whether it hinders us from setting our hearts on things above and in investing in things above. Like protecting state secrets from covert intelligence gathering, usually of the attractive young female genre, we are to keep ourselves and our relationship with God unspotted from what may seem to be unbelievably fetching temptations. For what fellowship has darkness with light asks Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18.

The proof's in the pudding; the blessing's in the hearing and then the doing.





Dick Lucas, James
Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, MirrorMask
Dorie Greenspan, French Pear Tart with some chocolate in the tart dough and great inertia vis-a-vis working with pears.

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