James 2 - Feb 21st

So this week we all sat down after lots of food to think about James 2.



v1

'My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality'

It made us think of Acts 10:34,35:

'In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.'

Because if God doesn't show partiality to us - accepting us no matter what we are or where we come from, so long as we really believe in Him and are trying our best to follow Him - then who are we to discriminate between people because of the way they look or their background?! God and Jesus are the only two who can see someone's heart, and that's surely more important than good clothes.

Whilst looking at this, we agreed that if the shabby guy came to a lecture and then started kicking up a fuss and we had to ask him to leave, then that's obviously not discrimination, it's rational (so long as we would behave the same way towards the rich guy too).



v6,7

'Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?'

Our instinctive reaction is 'well, it's not only the rich!' But really, it kinda is (remembering that, as always, there are exceptions to the 'rule'). In our country not many people want to know about God, our campaigns often seem to fall flat, or there's few responses. But at the Intercity we were looking at the CBM work in Africa, and the response they are getting there is immense! Their problem before (like in the olden days, they were known as the 'heathens' by Christian countries) was that they hadn't had the opportunity to hear the Truth.

The beatitudes, in Matt 5, seem also to be aimed at people in poorer situations (though there are deeper meanings too, if you keep digging for them).

'Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled...'

Also if look at James 1:9,10,

'Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away.'

A rich person has to realise that in the grand scheme of things, his riches are worthless, and they can't save him from death or any other thing. God is his only hope.

Proverbs 16:19

'Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, Than to divide the spoil with the proud.'

That kind of roughly equates rich with proud, poor with humble - which in reality is the natural progression of both - that's the way temptation leads us to.



We wandered off briefly onto how God has put everyone into a situation they are able to cope with (1 Cor 10:13, look it up =D ) so WOW for all the people we've been hearing about recently - Africa, Russia, etc...





v19

'You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe--and tremble!'



So who are the demons?

Strong's word is 'devil or god' and the same word as all the 'demons' Jesus cast out of people to heal them, during his ministry. But Exodus 4:11

'So the LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?'

So it's God who causes/controls illnesses - not little mystical floaty demon things that live inside people. But it still says demon. So we looked at a few things.

• We took a peek at Harry Whittaker's 'The Very Devil', and to try and quickly summarise the two chapters he dedicated to demons, he reckons they're angels of evil (like the angel of death at the Passover - a messenger God uses to bring about bad things, not something that is actually evil in itself). Jesus spoke and had authority of the demons in his ministry, telling them to leave ill people, and they obeyed! So if the messengers of God obeyed Jesus, how much more should we?!


• Remember Felix? How he heard what Paul had to say, trembled, and then sent Paul out from his presence and forgot. (Acts 24:25). Perhaps James' point is that just believing isn't enough - we can't just hear, get a bit scared and believe, then do nothing to change yourself - we have to act on that belief. Which fits into the context of the verses around: '24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.'

Which brings us nicely onto that section about faith without works being dead - pointless, worthless and not faith. Romans 4 talks sort of the same subject (go read it for yourself) but doesn't talk so much about works. So why? Wouldn't it be a contradiction if one said all you need is faith and the other said you HAVE to have works? Well... no, because the whole point of what James is saying is that it isn't actually real faith if it doesn't drive you to doing something. So if we read the Bible, and believe it's true, that's not the whole story. BECAUSE you believe it's true, you should be reading all it says and thinking 'oo, that means I should be making changes to my life, and putting effort into doing the sorts of things that God wants me to do'. If you believe in God, the real God, then you know that He is the one with authority to not let you into the Kingdom, He's the one who says in the Bible all that He wants you to do with your life. And that doesn't involve sitting around doing nowt. We also have to remember at the same time, that it isn't ticky boxes - it's not ONLY the works God wants to see. You need to have the correct motive for doing the right things.

This took our wee thought train to 1 Corinthians 3, where it talks about all the different things 'built' by believers. And we reckon it ISN'T that the gold is better than the straw, but that we all have different levels of ability, and that what's important is that these 'buildings' are our best efforts. AND they're ALL built on the foundation of Christ, which is the most important thing of all.

There you go =) I'm not sure if I explained it all as well as I could've, so if there are confusing bits let me know in a comment =)

James chapter 1, 14th Feb 2010

Hello to the restart of GRG!

The previous week we looked at what we discussed last time GRG was on, and we put down ideas of what we'd like to look at. So, we decided to start with James, chapter by chapter. Let me go dig out my notebook...

Sorry if it's a bit of a jump around, but this is where our train of thought went.

Began looking at the crown of life, in James 1 verse 12.

12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

The crown of life is:

• everlasting life
• life in the Kingdom
• the head - talking about thinking. we'll think differently in the Kingdom. we will receive something that will change the way we think - for the better.

Who is the book of James written to? Was it to Gentile-only ecclesias, or passed around everyone?

In the book there are many mention of 'man'. Which James is this, is it the brother of Jesus? If so, it highlights the even greater contrast between James and Jesus.

take a peek at verse 5:

⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him

and 1 Thessalonians 5:

²³Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The only way you can be kept blameless is by God. If you think you've got everything you need, would you stop praying? Can you be completely content..? Waiting for Jesus though, you need to be patient and needing nothing - i mean, no worldly possessions.

A few of us at GRG go to study class, and we've been looking at the Kings for a little while. If you look at James 1:6:

⁶But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

You have to be aware of the influences around you (the sea [in the water cycle]) because it is very easy to be influenced - who you hang out with makes a difference to the way you're going to act. King Jeroboam or was it Rehoboam?.. i'll check later. Maybe Rehoboam. He first went to the elders for advice, but when he didn't like what they said, he went to the guys his own age for advice - who'd grown up in palaces all their lives and couldn't relate to those normal people living outside, and enforced worse taxes and tasks on them. That makes no sense... I'm off for some tea.

Right, second attempt. Yes, it was Rehoboam. He didn't like what the older and wiser ones advised him in... though they had been assisting with a fairly good kingdom with Solomon. But Rehoboam then went to his friends who had always grown up with royalty and couldn't relate to those out working, and laid much heavier tasks upon them and didn't seem to care - or just realise what it was like for them, because they knew no different.

Basically - this is about the influences around you. Rehoboam was influenced by his bad friends, and things just got worse.

We went on to look at the differences between tempting, and testing.

Tempting, there's a desire; whereas testing, its seeing how far someone will go, seeing if somethings good enough - see 1 Peter 1 and verse 7:

⁷so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

'tempt' only seems to occur in the New Testament, and its always in a bad context. However: tempting doesn't always have to be bad - you could be tempted to go to a fraternal!

God tests us, he doesn't tempt us, but when we are being tested we tempt ourselves.

Exodus 17 : 2 - why do you tempt the Lord your God? and in other versions, why do you put the Lord to the test? The people here are not trying to make God do something wrong, but they don't believe enough and are wanting to test him.

Next we looked at verse 23-

²³For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

and in other versions, that last part is "immediately forgets what... (1) kind of man (2) manner of man (3) he looks like "

The mirror is examining yourself in the Law. But it is useless if you have some sort of checklist and say, oh, i've done that. Done that. Done that. Not done that yet, better go do it so I can tick it off. What use is all your knowledge if you don't put it into practise? It'll quickly disappear. If you have faith, aren't you doing the opposite of what God says if you don't go out and tell people what you believe? I'll probably be going to this passage in a minute, but you know the one "faith without works is dead"?

You have to look at yourselves regularly > you need to read regularly so you don't forget. Reading your Bible won't make you preach, but preaching will make you read your Bible.

Now we're back at temptation! Is it a sin or not a sin?

Isn't it what you do about it?

If you don't immediately get rid of the temptation, no matter how small it is in the beginning, it will grow and grow more into your life.

Jesus when he was tempted, he immediately got Scripture back up.

Jesus - tempted - he never sinned.

So temptation is not a sin!

and 'intent', that's from the moment you've decided to do something about the temptation.

desire - sin - death

¹⁵Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Is the only thing we have control over - the desire? If we look at the word 'grown',.. growing, can we cut it off at any point? When it gets stronger, fiercer, you need more strength to cut it off, so the worse the sin gets, the more difficult it is to cut it our your life.

GOD and repentance.

and finally, a quick glance at verse 27 which talks about visiting widows and orphans in their affliction.

orphans - no parents

widow - no husband/wife

When we are baptised, we have God as our Father and we are the bride of Christ - so if orphans/widows, it is people without God. So we need to look after people in the world as well, eg preaching.

Hope you got something out of that, and look out for the following blogs about the rest of James. If something doesn't make sense, just add a comment :)