Can Such Faith Save Him? (James 2:13-19)

Nineteenth-century French daredevil Jean Francois Gravelet Blondin (aka "Blondin the Great"), crossing a body of water on a tightrope

14What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. 18But someone may well say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works." 19You believe that God is one You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.


Most, if not all of the Jews (indeed, most people in general) of St. James’ day claimed to believe in God. Many of them even engaged in pious rituals. But too many of them totally neglected their fellow man, particularly the poor. Little has changed today. Most people in the world (roughly 90% of Americans) say that they believe in God. But what percentage of people actually do anything as a result of that faith? For how many of them does their faith actually affect their daily life?’

St. James poses a question to his readers: “What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?” In my previous faith tradition, I would have said, “Why yes, of course! Works play no role in salvation. If I say I have faith (assuming I’m not lying), then yes, I am saved.” But the clear answer that St. James has in mind is “No! Such faith cannot save him!”

Then he gives an example to illustrate this fact, drawing upon one of his favorite themes: the responsibility of Christians to care for the poor. He asks, “if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? The implied answer of course, is that it is of no use at all! If we find a person in need and just say that we hope their need gets filled, that does them no good. In order to actually do any good, and in order to prove that we really want them to be helped, we have to do something! We have to help them!

In the same way, “faith, if it has no works, is dead.” In other words, true faith contains within it works. True faith, faith that saves, cannot be separated from works; they are not two different things, but rather two sides of the same coin. Faith that does not issue forth in works is no faith at all. It is false faith, or in St. James’ words, it is “dead.”

St. James points out that a person could rightly say "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works." In other words, it is better to show faith with works than to attempt to show faith without works. For how can you really prove that you have faith except by works? As FF says, “…works are the only way in which saving faith can be shown to exist” (32, emphasis his).

There is an old story that is probably overused, but it illustrates St. James’ point perfectly, so please indulge me to use it. Back in 1859 there was a performer known as "The Great Blondin." This man was a stunt performer or "daredevil." He was a tightrope walker, and he would perform amazing death-defying tightrope stunts. People would come from far and wide to see The Great Blondin perform. They were amazed at his skill and courage. Blondin's stunts were dangerous enough to make the weak hearted swoon and faint.

Once, at one particularly spectacular stunt, where Blondin would attempt to cross the Niagra River on a tightrope, he yelled a question to the crowd. He asked, "Do you believe that I, the Great Blondin, can successfully cross high above this river on a tightrope?" And the crowd yelled back, "We believe! We believe!" Then Blondin began his crossing, and to the thrill of the crowd, he made it safely. The crowd went wild. They clapped and cheered and yelled all the more.

Then Blondin asked the people, "Do you believe that I, The Great Blondin, can again successfully cross over the Niagra River on this tightrope -- this time while pushing a wheelbarrow?" The crowd enthusiastically yelled back, "We believe! We believe! We believe!"

So seeing their enthusiasm, Blondin yelled to the crowd: "Who among you is willing to ride inside of the wheelbarrow and allow me to push you as I cross on this tightrope?" The crowd went silent. No one said a word. All that could be heard was the sound of the wind blowing....

(Note: To see a great photo of this event, click here.)

The Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and pretty much all Christians before Martin Luther have always believed that works are necessary for salvation. Works alone cannot save us, but neither can faith alone. I like to say it this way: We must have works to be saved because we must have faith to be saved.

Bosnia, Fourteen Years After the Dayton Agreement

Banja Luka, Bosnia, our home from January-March, 1999 and August 2000-April 2001

I have often given some thought to occasionally writing a few blog posts about our experiences in Bosnia, where we lived from March of 1997 until April of 2001 (with a break of about eight months in 1998). Of course, I have written a little about it, both in this blog and in my book, but I left out much. Would any of you be interested in hearing more about this?

A parishioner of mine recently sent me a link to a video of a segment that aired on PBS last night. The video is a report on how on the 14th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which ended the Bosnian civil war, there has been little improvement in the political situation. The video is very well done, if a little biased against the Serbs. It is about 10 minutes long, but if you can spare the time, it's well worth the watch. It has some good footage of Sarajevo and Banja Luka, two of the three cities we lived in there. By watching it you will get a little of a feel for the country that impacted our lives so much. Enjoy.

If You Show Partiality (James 2:1-13)

Lazarus and the Rich Man

¹ My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. ² For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, ³ and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” ⁴ have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
⁵ Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? ⁶ But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? ⁷ Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? ⁸ If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well; ⁹ but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰ For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. ¹¹ For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. ¹² So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. ¹³ For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Now St. James devotes a lengthy passage to another way that Christians must be “doers of the word:” by not showing partiality to the rich, but rather by treating all people with equal respect and dignity.

Before I get to St. James’ overall theme, let me point out something interesting: The Greek word here translated “assemblies” is synagoge, from which the English word synagogue comes. The word literally means “together people” or, more smoothly, “gathering of people.” Normally this word does refer to an actual synagogue, that is, a building where Jewish people met to read and discuss the Torah and to pray, or a group of people that meet in such a building. Here, however, it refers to a Christian assembly, which would include prayers, Scripture readings, hymns, and a celebration of the Eucharist. St. James certainly does not use the word to refer to a building, since in the early Church there were no church buildings. Christians worshipped in homes or sometimes in secluded public places. In any case, St. James’ choice of the word synagoge points to the continuity between Judaism and the primitive Church. The earliest Christian assemblies were merely synagogues (in the sense of “gatherings”) of Jews who believed that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus.

In at least some of these “synagogues,” as St. James implies in verses 2 and 3, the rich and powerful were given preferential treatment, while the very poor were treated with disrespect. This must have been a fairly common problem in the very early Church (and sadly, history shows that it would continue to be throughout Christian history) for James to have devoted so much space to discussing it.

St. James strongly warns them that this should not be so. FF expands upon his words, writing “Such partiality to the glorious ones of this world is inconsistent with their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ., the One who is truly glorious, for when the Lord of glory came along us, He has nowhere to lay His head during His ministry and voluntarily washed the feet of His disciples…He thereby revealed that the true glory is that of the humble spirit, not that of outward ostentation” (29). When we give preference to the rich, the powerful, the famous, or the beautiful, we are no better than corrupt judges who accept bribes and favor the “mighty ones” of this world in their rulings.

Then the Lord’s brother reminds his readers (and us) that God has “chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him.” This of course brings to mind Jesus’ statement “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (and not only are the literally poor blessed, but also the “poor in spirit [Matt. 5:3]), and also his praise of the poor widow who gave two mites (Luke 21:1-4) and his parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31), as well as other teachings of our Lord. Throughout Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, we see that God has a special concern for the poor, and we should imitate that concern in our lives, not dishonoring the poor.

In verse six and seven, St. James gives another reason why his readers should not favor the rich: because of the latter people’s behavior. Not only did they oppress the early Christians and drag them into courts (this brings to mind the activities of a certain young man named Saul who is mentioned in the book of Acts…), but they also blaspheme the holy name of God, not just by their words but by their behavior. Why should Christians show preference to the very people who persecute them?

After reiterating his point in verses 8 and 9, St. James makes a startling statement in verse 10: “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” Wow! There is no doubt but that if you keep the whole law (again, here he doesn’t mean the Mosaic Law, in all likelihood, but rather the teachings of Christ and his Apostles) and stumble in one point, you have still sinned. But guilty of all? What can this mean? I think Fr. Farley explains it very well:

“James is not here proclaiming the necessity of sinlessness for salvation [Fr. James’ note: Good thing!], nor speaking about involuntary sins of weakness. He is speaking about one’s attitude to God, about a man who deliberately repudiates one of God’s commandments to defiantly choose his own way. Thus, if that man does not commit adultery but does murder, he has become a transgressor of the Law, a renegade from God, for he has deliberately turned away from what God has ordered. It is no use for that man to defend himself by pointing out to God that he has not committed adultery or by showing how many of God’s laws he has not broken. For his transgression is personal. The sin is not in breaking some abstract principle, but in rejecting a Person, for the same God who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ said also ‘Do not murder.’ He has rejected God’s authority over his life in committing the murder” (30-31).

In other words, the reason we are guilty for breaking the whole law when we break one point of it is because by rejecting one law, we are rejecting the One who gave the law. And rejecting Christ is much more serious that rejecting one or two rules.

What we need to do, St. James says, is to “speak and do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty” – in other words, we need to live our lives as if we might be facing the Dread Judgment Seat of Christ tomorrow. And we need to be merciful…otherwise we will be shown no mercy at the Judgment (remember how Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy”).

Finally, St. James closes this section with a beautiful statement: Mercy triumphs over judgment.” Listen to what FF has to say about this (I love it!): “In saying this, James uses a vivid image, picturing mercy and condemnatory judgment as two adversaries. Which will prove the stonger? If we follow Christ’s Law of freedom and show mercy to the poor, then mercy will triumph on the Last Day. The verb rendered boast-off [“triumph” in the NKJV] Is the Greek katakauxaomai, an intensive of the verb with kauxomai, to boast. It is used in Romans 11:18 and means “to exult,” “to crow.” The image here is of mercy exultantly shouting in triumph over a defeated judgment, to our eternal salvation. Yet mercy will only triumph on the Day if we refuse to show partiality, and strive to love all men as Christ commanded” (31).

Parenthood Blessings, Part 7 – by Clint

Tommy and I playing at the park just a few days after returning to San Antonio


In the last installment, I related how we had our application to have Tommy considered a part of our family by the US Government had been rejected. Our home study and other requirements were not adequate. So I contacted the lady who had done our home study a year earlier for Estonia and she agreed to redo the home study. I got detailed instructions from the Dept. of Homeland Security on what was necessary and together, she and I crafted a home study that would be acceptable.

In the meantime, I had to pursue several other issues. We also had to have FBI fingerprints taken and sent to the FBI in Virginia to make sure that Debbie and I were not hardened criminals. While we knew that there was no real danger of anything coming back in the report, it turned out to be quite an ordeal. The first fingerprints we gave were not up to standards, either, so we had to go do them again. That added to the time that we had to wait.

Not only did we have to do all of these things, but once we finally had an acceptable home study, we had to be “approved” by a licensed adoption agency in the US. Honestly, we were blessed in this regard. Normally, the approving adoption agency must be from the home state in which the adopting parents reside. But since we lived in Estonia, any agency within the US would work. I sent out about 8 billion emails to various agencies to find out what we needed to do to gain their approval, as well as the cost. I heard back from several. Prices ranged from about $500 up to several thousand. I am pretty cheap, so I went with the lower price.

Honestly, that wasn’t the only reason. In reality, this agency (East West Adoptions in California) was the only one that didn’t just try to treat us like we were beginning the adoption process and was willing to work with us from where we actually were. They had experience with Estonian adoptions, as well. So we sent all of our materials to them and had everything approved. It then had to be sent to the State Capital in Sacramento to receive an Apostille. Then it was forwarded to us so we could resubmit it to the DHS office in Copenhagen – again.

I won’t go into more detail, but suffice it to say that I have greatly shortened this process for this brief article. There were actually quite a few things that we had to get done. I was paying for FedEx on just about everything to speed up the process. Our $5 adoption had gotten quite a bit more expensive.

Unfortunately, by this time the 90 days that we had been allotted by our sponsoring church was running out. We had submitted all of our documents, but had not heard back whether they were approved or not. Some numbskulls back at the sponsoring church, who did not have all of the information about the situation, but who thought they knew what was going on did some internet research and using that inadequate knowledge and some hearsay informed the rest of our “missions committee” that it would take over a year at a minimum to get this done. Our church was not willing to wait for such an extended period of time.

They told us to find someone in Estonia to watch Tommy for us and to come home. Needless to say, that was not an option for us. Those who know me would be proud of me. I was actually civil and kind when I told them to go jump in a lake. In fact, I don’t even think I was THAT harsh. But they got my point. The talk of us immediately returning without Tommy was dropped.

However, they begin to reduce my salary. Rather than receiving my monthly paycheck in the normal way, they reduced my salary by 20% every two weeks and paid me bi-weekly. They had decided to put the squeeze on me.

Of course, not only was I losing income each month while I was in Estonia, I had no real job prospects for when I returned to Texas. It is hard to interview from 8000 miles away from the job. But I began to search for options in earnest. I considered teaching English in China, but we had the same immigration issues there. In fact, I began to search for a job ANYWHERE in the world where I could take Tommy.

Finally, our sponsors told us to purchase tickets for all five of us, even without the required visa for Tommy. They promised to not make us return without him and agreed that if the visa had not been issued by the time the tickets were scheduled for, that we could reschedule and they would pay for the added cost. I looked at what time I thought the soonest we could possibly be ready to return and purchased the tickets – October 29.


Joey and Tommy had a "late" birthday party right after we returned to San Antonio - Tommy was 2

One week before our departure date, on October 22, God smiled on us and our paperwork was approved in Copenhagen. Of course, that wasn’t the final step. We had to take Tommy to Helsinki, Finland to get the immigration visa. Our paperwork was forwarded to the US Embassy in Helsinki and we made an appointment for Wednesday, October 27 to get the visa.

Then we ran into another snag. Because Tommy had the non-citizen gray passport, he could not freely go to Finland, but needed a visa from the Finnish government in order to enter their country. So I went to apply for one on Monday, October 25. They said it would be no problem; it would be available for pickup in three weeks. That obviously was not going to work with our schedule. So I contacted the US Embassy in Estonia and they pulled some strings for me and Tommy received his Finnish visa on Tuesday, October 26.

We went over on the 27th, received his visa, and returned to Tallinn, Estonia that same day. We had been packed for three months. We hugged all of our friends and loved ones in Estonia goodbye and boarded our plane right on schedule. In one week, we went from not knowing when we would be returning to sitting on the plane. It was a great week.

We landed in Dallas, Tommy had his visa stamped and we continued on to San Antonio, where Debbie’s family met us at the airport. You would think this should be the end of the story, and it should be. Tommy’s visa was the type that, once it was stamped in Dallas, made him automatically be a US Citizen. We simply had to wait for the paperwork to be mailed to us.

When it arrived, we found out that we were not quite done with paperwork and the government on this issue…

+Patriarch PAVLE of Serbia

Patriarch +PAVLE of Serbia (1914-2009)

I seldom ever post Church news stories, but since I feel such a great debt to the Serbian Orthodox Church, I wanted to post this about their Patriarch, +PAVLE, who just fell asleep in the Lord. What a great man of God he was! May his memory be eternal!

The Patriarch was born Gojko Stojcevic on September 11 1914 at Kucanci, a village which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire but is now in Croatia. After attending the Fourth Male Gymnasium in Belgrade, he studied at a seminary in Sarajevo. During the Second World War he took refuge in a monastery at Ovcar, and then returned to Belgrade, where he briefly worked in the construction industry. In 1946 he became a monk at Blagovestenje monastery in Ovcar, taking the name Pavle (Paul). For 11 years he lived as a monk at the Raca Monastery in central Serbia, and from 1950 lectured at the Prizen Seminary in Kosovo. From 1955 to 1957 Pavle studied Orthodox Theology at the University of Athens, where he discovered a particular gift for liturgics – he was later to become one of the most prolific liturgical writers in the Serbian Church.

On completion of his studies he was elected Bishop of Raska-Prizren (the diocese includes Kosovo), remaining in that post for 33 years until his election as Patriarch on December 1 1990. Pavle had by this time experienced at first hand the hatred that was to consume the former Yugoslavia: in 1989 he had been beaten up by a group of Albanian youths in Kosovo, receiving injuries that required three months' hospital treatment.

The Milosevic regime was to lose the support of the Patriarch and his Church, and Pavle made efforts to find common ground between the various opposition groups. Traditionally the Church remained outside politics in Serbia, but at a synod meeting in June 1999 – after NATO had ended 11 weeks of air strikes [FJ: These are the air strikes that made it necessary for us to evacuate from Banja Luka, Bosnia] – it called for Milosevic to stand down. Six months earlier, in a sermon in Belgrade, the Patriarch had declared that the struggle for Kosovo, where Albanians outnumbered Serbs by nine to one, would be decided as much by demographics as by the outcome of war. "Who has the most sheep in the field, that is his field," he said, adding: "Multiply yourselves." Following attacks by the Albanian population, some 80,000 Serbs had fled Kosovo – out of a population of around 200,000 – and Pavle urged the remaining Serbs to stay in the province. "If this trend is not stopped immediately," he said in June 1999, "the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo will be complete." Pavle remained popular among his flock, who admired his humility. He was said to make his own shoes, and tended to use public transport – he did not like to travel by car, saying: "I will not purchase one until every Albanian and Serbian household in Kosovo and Metohija has an automobile."

The Patriarch supervised the first official Serbian translation of the New Testament, which was published in 1984.[FJ: And what a great translation it is. I have had the privilege to read much of it. The language is elegant but modern and uncomplicated]

Patriarch Pavle had been suffering from ill health since last year, and although he was nominally still head of the Church, his duties had been carried out by Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro.

Holy Week in Verse (An MK Comes Home, Part 11) - by James Hargrave

Boris Pasternak was a great Russian poet of the 20th century. As an adult he converted from Judaism to the Orthodox Church, and suffered for his faith. Here are the poems of his that I read and meditated on during Holy Saturday of 2002 at his gravesite in Peredelkino outside of Moscow, Russia:



August

This was its promise, held to faithfully:
The early morning sun came in this way
Until the angle of its saffron beam
Between the curtains and the sofa lay,

And with its ochre heat it spread across
The village houses, and the nearby wood,
Upon my bed and on my dampened pillow
And to the corner where the bookcase stood.

Then I recalled the reason why my pillow
Had been so dampened by those tears that fell-
I'd dreamt I saw you coming one by one
Across the wood to wish me your farewell.

You came in ones and twos, a straggling crowd;
Then suddenly someone mentioned a word:
It was the sixth of August, by Old Style,
And the Transfiguration of Our Lord.


For from Mount Tabor usually this day
There comes a light without a flame to shine,
And autumn draws all eyes upon itself
As clear and unmistaken as a sign.

But you came forward through the tiny, stripped,
The pauperly and trembling alder grove,
Into the graveyard's coppice, russet-red,
Which, like stamped gingerbread, lay there and glowed.

And with the silence of those high treetops
Was neighbour only the imposing sky
And in the echoed crowing of the cocks
The distances and distances rang by:

There in the churchyard underneath the trees,
Like some surveyor from the government
Death gazed on my pale face to estimate
How large a grave would suit my measurement.

Grave of Boris Pasternak beside the Church of the Transfiguration

All those who stood there could distinctly hear
A quiet voice emerge from where I lay:
The voice was mine, my past; prophetic words
That sounded now, unsullied by decay:

'Farewell, wonder of azure and of gold
Surrounding the Transfiguration's power:
Assuage now with a woman's last caress
The bitterness of my predestined hour!

'Farewell timeless expanse of passing years!
Farewell, woman who flung your challenge steeled
Against the abyss of humiliations:
For it is I who am your battlefield!

'Farewell, you span of open wings outspread,
The voluntary obstinacy of flight,
O figure of the world revealed in speech,
Creative genius, wonder-working might!'

(translator unknown)

Bad Days

When Passion Week started and Jesus
Came down to the city, that day
Hosannahs burst out at his entry
And palm leaves were strewn in his way.

But days grow more stern and more stormy.
No love can man's hardness unbend;
Their brows are contemptuously frowning,
And now come the postscript, the end.

Grey, leaden and heavy, the heavens
Were pressing on treetops and roofs.
The Pharisees, fawning like foxes,
Were secretly searching for proofs.

The lords of the Temple let scoundrels
Pass judgement, and those who at first
Had fervently followed and hailed him,
Now all just as zealously cursed.

The crowd on the neighbouring sector
Was looking inside through the gate.
They jostled, intent on the outcome,
Bewildered and willing to wait.

And whispers and rumours were creeping,
Repeating the dominant theme.
The flight into Egypt, his childhood
Already seemed faint as a dream.

And Jesus remembered the desert,
The days in the wilderness spent,
The tempting with power by Satan,
That lofty, majestic descent.

He thought of the wedding at Cana,
The feast and the miracles; and
How once he had walked on the waters
Through mist to a boat, as on land;

The beggarly crowd in a hovel,
The cellar to which he was led;
How, startled, the candle-flame guttered
When Lazarus rose from the dead...

(translated by Lydia Pasternak Slater)

Magdalene

I.

As soon as night descends, we meet.
Remorse my memories releases,
The demons of my past compete,
And draw and tear my heart to pieces,
Sin, vice and madness and deceit,
When I was slave of men's caprices
And when my dwelling was the street.

The deathly silence is not far;
A few more moments only matter,
Which the Inevitable bar.
But at the edge, before they scatter,
In front of Thee my life I shatter,
As though an alabaster jar.

O what might not have been my fate
By now, my Teacher and my Saviour,
Did not eternity await
Me at the table, as a late
New victim of my past behaviour!

But what can sin now mean to me,
And death, and hell, and sulphur burning,
When, like a graft onto a tree,
I have-- for everyone to see--
Grown into being part of Thee
In my immeasurable yearning?

When pressed against my knees I place
Thy precious feet, and weep, despairing,
Perhaps I'm learning to embrace
The cross's rough four-sided face;
And, fainting, all my being sways
Towards Thee, Thy burial preparing.

II.

People clean their homes before the feast.
Stepping from the bustle of the street
I go down before Thee on my knees
And anoint with myrrh Thy holy feet.

Groping round, I cannot find the shoes
For the tears that well up with my sighs.
My impatient tresses, breaking loose,
Like a pall hang thick before my eyes.

I take up Thy feet onto my lap,
Wash them clean with hot tears from my eyes,
In my hair Thy precious feet I wrap,
And my string of pearls around them tie.

I see now the future in detail,
As if it were stopped in flight by Thee.
Like a raving sibyl, I could tell
What would happen, how it will all be.

In the temple, veils will fall tomorrow,
We shall form a frightened group apart,
And the earth will shake-- perhaps from sorrow
And from pity for my tortured heart.

Troops will then reform and march away
To the thud of hoofs and heavy tread,
And the cross will reach towards the sky
Like a water-spout above our heads.

By the cross, I'll fall down on the ground,
I shall bite my lips till I draw blood.
On the cross, your arms will be spread out--
Wide enough to hug the whole wide world.

Who's this for, this glory and this strife?
Who's this for, this torment and this might?
Are there enough souls on earth, and lives?
Are there enough cities, dales and heights?
But three days-- such days and nights will pass--
They will fill me with such crushing dread
That I'll see the joyous truth, at last
I shall know Christ will rise from the dead.

(translated by Avril Pyman)

Be Doers of the Word (James 1:19-27)

²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; ²⁴ for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. ²⁵ But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. ²⁶ If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. ²⁷ Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Recall that while the phrase “the Word” certainly can also apply to the written word, i.e., the Scriptures, here it refers primarily to oral teaching. This is confirmed by St. James’ choice of the word “hearers” rather than “readers.” Some Jews in St. James’ day (and some Christians today) think that just listening to people expound upon the Scriptures was adequate for one’s spiritual life. But St. James makes it clear that listening to the word is not enough – we must put it into practice! If we think that all we have to do is hear (or read), without practicing biblical commands, we are deceiving ourselves.

St. James illustrates the folly of listening but not doing the word with a humorous comparison. I love the way FF explains it: “With typical Jewish humor, James paints a picture of a man who checks himself in a mirror and then rushes off, doing nothing about what he has just seen. Surely one looks in the mirror for the purpose of washing off whatever dirt is there? In the same way, a man only hears the Word in order to improve his life and repent of whatever the teaching instructs him to repent of” (26). Indeed! And yet how often do we as Christians hear a teaching, particularly one that we need to apply to our life, and then either forget to do it or simply refuse. This is folly.

St. James contrasts the image of a person cursorily looking into a mirror to another image of a wiser person who looks or peers intently into “the perfect law of liberty.” The Greek word used here for “looks” carries the idea of someone “stooping down to get a closer look, to look long and hard at something” (FF, 26). It is used in John 20:11 to describe Mary Magdalene stooping down and gazing intently into Jesus’ empty tomb.

But what is this “perfect law of liberty” James refers to? Since his readers were Jewish Christians, it would be natural for them to think of the Mosaic Law. However, the context and the flow of the text demand that this “perfect law” is the same thing as the “word” referred to in verses 22 and 23; in other words, it is the Gospel. It is the teaching of Christ, the apostles, and the leaders of the Church. So, St. James is saying that we need to gaze intently into the Law—to not only listen to it (and read it), but to study it and attempt to understand it to the best of our ability.

But St. James takes his command a step further. Christians are also required to “continue” in the Gospel. The Greek word parameno, normally translated “continue”, literally means to “remain alongside.” As FF points out, “It is used by Paul in Philippians 1:23 for his remaining and continuing on earth in the community of his beloved Philippians. The thought here in James is of the Christian Community constantly living in the company of the teaching…of never leaving it, but always keeping it in his mind” (26-27). St. James restates the thought himself, saying that we should be not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work.” Note how he uses “Work” and “Word” interchangeably, further emphasizing that learning the Christian faith and practicing it must go hand-in-hand. If we do this, St. James assures us, we will be blessed.

Finally, St. James gives some concrete examples of what it means to be “doers of the word.” The first of these is a negative example: If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless (v. 26). Control of the tongue is a great concern of St. James’ as we will see later in the epistle. A person who cannot control his speech but nevertheless fancies himself as “religious” (the Greek word could also be translated as “pious” or even “dedicated to God” is only fooling himself and is really only a “hearer of the word” not a “doer.”

As positive examples, St. James cites the importance of “visit[ing] orphans and widows in their trouble,” and “keep[ing] oneself unspotted from the world” (v. 27). In referring to visiting orphans and widows, which is just one of many ways to help the needy, St. James is echoing the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles and the practice of the early Church. Works of mercy are not just something nice to do, but optional. They are part and parcel of the Christian life. Our Lord expects them of us. As FF writes, “This is the piety that truly brings reward from God. One’s hearing of the Word must be fulfilled in works; hearing must result in doing (vv. 22, 25). The perfect Law of Christ’s teaching counsels such acts of mercy and such commitment to holiness:” (27).

Equally important to performing acts of charity is keeping ourselves pure from the world’s influence. FF has some great words to say about this: “The world here means the network of systems and relationships that oppose God (compare 4:4)—not society as such, but worldliness. St. James here counsels not physical withdrawal from society, but inner detachment from it. This world always exerts a pull on the believer, to drag him away from fidelity to God and from poverty of spirit. True piety will cling to God’s ways, showing mercy to the poor and seeking only the Kingdom” (27).

These things are not easy to do, but they are part of our calling as Christians. If we will do them, God will reward us.