The God who stays the course.

James 1.16-18.

In verse 15, James used a pregnancy metaphor to describe how one’s own desires conceives and gives birth to sin. In these verses, he kept up the metaphors. God’s like the planets and moon, only unlike them, he doesn’t go through phases and retrogrades. And we’re like the firstfruits, the crops the Hebrews took their tithes from.

James 1.16-18 KWL

16 Don’t be led astray, my beloved fellow Christians: 17 Every good gift,

every perfect present from above, came down from the Father of heavenly lights.

There’s no phase, no seasonal shadows, with him.

18 His will birthed us by his truthful word, for us to be one of the firstfruits of his creation.

“Don’t be led astray” connects with the previous idea: God isn’t the source of temptation and sin. We are. Determinists regularly make that mistake, figuring if they were almighty like God, they’d let nothing out of their control, and project that view upon God. Even though God clearly, regularly objects to sin throughout the bible, and states he had nothing to do with it. Jr 7.31, 19.5, 32.35 But determinists insist he does so have something to do with it, for not even birds fall out of trees without God’s knowledge. Mt 10.29

Since a lot of determinists profess they’re only following John Calvin’s lead, just for fun let’s have Calvin correct ’em.

Do not err. This is an argument from what is opposite; for as God is the author of all good, it is absurd to suppose him to be the author of evil. To do good is what properly belongs to him, and according to his nature; and from him all good things come to us. Then, whatever evil he does, is not agreeable to his nature. But as it sometimes happens, that he who quits himself well through life, yet in some things fails, he meets this doubt by denying that God is mutable like men. But if God is in all things and always like himself, it hence follows that well-doing is his perpetual work. Calvin at James 1.16-18 

By “whatever evil he does,” Calvin explained in his next paragraph: Sometimes God’s gotta punish sinners with acts we might prima facie call “evil,” but aren’t really. It’s not at all in God’s nature to do evil. Not accidentally, not passively, not intentionally, not ever. There’s no dark side to him. 1Jn 1.5 No secret evil plan. What he revealed of himself to us, is who he legitimately is.

And if we wanna compare God with the heavenly lights he created… well, for this interpretation we need to learn a little ancient astronomy.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

Quit the excuses and resist temptation.

James 1.12-15.

The letter of James moves from suffering to the related subject of temptation—’cause when we’re suffering, or even threatened with it, it’s easy to fall into temptation.

But when presented with quick ’n dirty ways out, a bothersome number of Christians shrug, and take the immoral and sinful option. Because it’s easier, and because of cheap grace: They figure God forgives all, so God’ll forgive that too. Sin some more, and there’ll be more grace, which’ll take care of it. Ro 6.1 Resisting temptation is just too hard.

Worse: Some of us will get downright fatalistic about it: “I couldn’t see any other way out.” Never mind the apostles telling us God always provides one; 1Co 10.13 they figured our fallen world is so twisted, they’ll find themselves in no-win scenarios, trapped with a tragic moral choice where there’s nothing but sinful decisions. (Pry a little and you’ll find there were moral options, but they just didn’t care for them.) Blame society. Blame biological urges beyond their control. They might even blame God.

Rubbish, James taught:

James 1.12-15 KWL

12 A man who survives temptation is awesome:

Being tested, he’ll get life’s crown, which God promised those who love him.

13 You who are tempted: Never say, “I’m tempted by God.”

God’s not tempted to do evil: He tempts nobody.

14 Each person is tempted, lured away, baited, by their own desires.

15 Then the desire conceives and gives birth to sin; the full-grown sin produces death.

Lots to unpack here.

Starting with the reminder God rewards people who do resist temptation. Some of ’em come in this life; some in the next. 2Ti 4.8, Rv 3.5, 12, 21 His kingdom, fully inaugurated once Jesus returns, is one of those rewards. It’s what we Christians are busy preparing ourselves, and our world, to exist in. Should be, anyway. Crowns, in the first century, meant you won, whether you won a footrace or a battle. If you haven’t personally defeated temptation… well, you may still inherit the kingdom, but you don’t merit any crown.

And possibly won’t inherit the kingdom. Jesus expects those who love him are gonna do as he tells us. Jn 14.15 Those who don’t, who figure Jesus’s instructions are merely nice hypothetical ideals, who deem God’s commands obsolete in the current dispensation, have no evidence, no fruit, of our love for Jesus. We’ve got bad fruit at best; we may not even know Jesus, nor have ever really trusted him to save us. If anything, we inherit outer darkness.

No, I’m not saying fruitlessness sends people to hell. Other way round: People on their way to hell are invariably gonna have rotten fruit, or no fruit. People who never resist temptation, who figure God’s unlimited forgiveness applies even to those who don’t love him at all, are setting themselves up for the worst surprise ever: They won’t receive the kingdom. Ga 5.21 Their whole lifestyle demonstrates otherwise.

As do their usual excuses for this lifestyle:

• “I can’t be good like that. Nobody can. Total depravity has screwed humanity over. ‘All have sinned,’ and everybody’s just gonna keep right on sinning till Jesus returns and fixes us.”
• “If God didn’t want me to sin, he should’ve kept that temptation away from me. He knew I’d fall right into it. I can’t help myself.”
• “We’re not saved by good works anyway!”
• “I’m not really to blame. The devil is. Society is. Or God—who permitted the devil to run amok, and for society to go astray—is.”

At their core, all these excuses have one thing in common: Determinism, the belief our circumstances are beyond our control, ’cause someone else has rigged the universe so we’ll follow a pre-planned path.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

Point to your humility. Not your wealth.

James 1.9-11.

Americans like to believe we’re all equal; that we don’t have classes. We do so. Wealthy people don’t associate with poor people. It makes them uncomfortable.

I’ve been poor; I speak from experience. The wealthy honestly don’t know what to do with the poor. If the wealthy wanna do something, like go out to dinner, go see a movie, go to Paris over the weekend… well, the poor can’t afford to participate, and regretfully decline. Whereupon the wealthy think, “Well, that was rude of me, inviting them to something they can’t afford. Maybe I should foot the bill. …But maybe I shouldn’t, ’cause they’ll feel I’m treating them like a charity case.” (Not if you don’t make a big deal about it.) “They’ll resent my offering to pay for everything.” (Not unless they’re ungrateful jerks.) “I really shouldn’t have to foot the bill for our entire relationship.” (Clearly you’re unfamiliar with dating.) “Maybe it’d be easier all around if I just gradually ease my poor friends out of my life.” (Maybe you’d really just rather hold onto your money, and you’re trying to disguise your guilt as charitability.)

It’s often because of karma. If you’re hospitable to others, you kinda expect to receive something back in return. But if you know you’re getting little in return, ’cause the poor can’t afford much, lots of people figure it’s not worth their time. Even though Jesus taught us to make a point of giving to people who can’t pay us back, Lk 14.12-14 because the Father appreciates and rewards such behavior. But the wealthy often prefer to put their bets on their money, and less so on their Lord.

Wealth’s a constant snare. It’s why the scriptures so often have to warn people to stop fixating on their possessions and focus on God. Like James did so here.

James 1.9-11 KWL

9 Emphasize humility, fellow Christians, when you’re up;

10 wealthy Christians, when you’re down.

11 For wealth will pass away like grassflowers: The sun rose in its heat and dried up the grass.

Its flower fell, its appearance destroyed—likewise the wealthy shrivel up on their life journey.

The wealthy may bellyache and suspect these instructions are some sort class warfare; bash the rich because you envy them and wanna take their property. It’s not that at all. There’s nothing wrong with wealthy people who follow Jesus instead of Mammon. It’s just so many of ’em unwittingly or hypocritically are following Mammon, and the “class warfare” bits of the bible are actually Mammon-warfare. Stop enslaving yourself to money!

Rich American Christians in particular. We’re way more enslaved to money than we’d like to believe. It influences our actions far more than it should. In this bit of James, the focus is on the fact we Christians oughta be humble at all times. For wealthy Christians—who don’t always remember to be humble, ’cause they think their wealth makes them great, or is a gauge of how much God loves them—this is something to remember when they’re down. ’Cause they’re gonna be down. Wealth isn’t dependable. God is.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

James, and optimistically growing in faith.

James 1.1-8.

James 1.1 KWL

James, slave of God and of Master Christ Jesus.

To the 12 tribes in the diaspora. Hello.

Who was James? This’d be Jesus’s brother Mt 13.55 Jacob bar Joseph. The Hebrew/Aramaic Yahaqóv got turned into Yákovos in Greek, then Iacomus in Latin, then James in Old French, and here we are. He was the bishop of the Jerusalem church till his martyrdom, around the year 66.

Protestants figure James is the son of Mary and Joseph, Jesus’s mom and adoptive dad.

Roman Catholics, and many Orthodox Christians, don’t care for that idea. They believe Jesus’s mom remained a perpetual virgin; that Mary and Joseph’s “marriage” was more of a guardian/ward deal, so Jesus was her only offspring, and James was either Joseph’s son through a previous marriage, or he was Jesus’s cousin James bar Alphaeus (“the Less,” ’cause he wasn’t Jesus’s other cousin James bar Zebedee) who was one of his Twelve, Mt 10.3 who was only called the Lord’s brother. Ga 1.19

The cousin theory is pretty popular. People even claim the Greek word adelfós/“brother” can also mean cousin. It can now, but nobody was using it that way in the first century. (Actually… nobody was using it that way till Christians started floating the idea Jesus’s siblings Mk 6.3 were really anepsiói/“cousins.”)

Thing is, Paul listed James outside the Twelve, 1Co 15.5-7 ’cause he only came to follow Jesus after his resurrection. Ac 1.14 So he’s not James bar Alphaeus, but James bar Joseph. But regardless of how he’s related to Jesus, Christians agree James is a member of Jesus’s family, and not a minor apostle. After all, he’s got a letter in the New Testament.

He wrote the letter we call James to “the diaspora,” the Jewish communities scattered throughout the Roman Empire and, for that matter, the whole world.

Dispensationalists claim because James was written to Jews, and because it appears to them to teach salvation by works instead of grace, (it absolutely doesn’t; I’ll explain another time) it was written with an Old Testament mindset, and therefore we “New Testament” Christians needn’t follow it any more than the Law. Martin Luther kinda wanted to stick it in the New Testament Apocrypha, if not pull it from the bible entirely, just because he really wasn’t sure how to reconcile sola grazia with James’s talk about good deeds and faith-works.

But James wrote it years after Jesus died for our sins, and wrote it to Jewish Christians—people who followed Jesus, same as he. People saved by God’s grace, same as he. And now that we’re saved by grace, God has some good works for us to do. Ep 2.10 Deleting it from scripture, or skipping it as no longer valid, is more about evading good works than trying to properly understand how the Holy Spirit informed James on the subject.

The apostles’ letters were written to fellow Christians. Unless they’re dealing with individuals and circumstances particular to that specific place, or point in history, they apply to all Christians. Us included. If you wanna weasel out of good works, or embrace cheap grace instead of the real thing, don’t try to disguise it by claiming all the good-works bits of the bible don’t count just because they don’t save.

Read the whole thing! ➡️