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September 25th, 2021

9/25/2021

This Sunday is our last week in the Epistle of James, with the text this time being at the very end of this literary masterpiece [5:13-20; there is also the option of reading the first twelve verses of chapter five]. But the end is not necessarily the most important point. Sometimes a final important point may be earlier within the work.

There are obviously a LOT of important points that the writer makes within this entire work. Are there any points which are slightly more important than the others? What is the overall structure and message of the work, and to what is it ultimately pointing? To help answer such a question, it is important to look again at the beginning of the work to find out what has been emphasized.

In the case of the Epistle of James, it is important to remember that the writer originally wrote to those who were of ‘the twelve tribes in the dispersion’. The first readers and hearers were both Jewish and dispersed. And the Jewish nature of the text is seen in the numerous commands. In some cases, these commands were gathered into groups of ten. It will be noted here that the Hebrew language had a very close connection to numbers; their letters were also their numbers.

With this importance of commands, it is also important to remember the two ‘levels’ of commands; when these commands are numbered, those that are counted are the more direct imperatives, in the ‘second person’ and not in the ‘third person’. (The word ‘let’ is usually incorporated in the translation to show that the imperative is in the third person.) The other distinction was the positive command (‘do this’) and the negative command (‘do not do that’).

The first half of the first chapter had a positive command that had to do with being dispersed, and then there was a negative command that also had to do with the dispersion. After the negative command, there were some very positive words about God, the Father, giving good and perfect gifts from above (see 1:17).

After this, there are a few negative commands; and some of the first of them seem to be at the beginning of sections rather than the end (see 2:1 & 3:1). There is a double negative command in the third chapter that seems to be near the end of a section. Interestingly enough, after this double prohibition (‘do not exult over and lie against the truth’; 3:14b), there is a contrast from the positive words that were in the first chapter: ‘This is not the wisdom from above, coming down, but on the contrary, is earthly, natural, demon-like (3:15; a somewhat-literal translation).’

After this section, the writer is nearing the end. That can be seen because he uses the word ‘therefore’ for the first time within the work (at 4:4). The commands after this word are a bit more important. What follows after ‘therefore’ are the following ten commands (with, again, somewhat-literal translations):

#1 (4:7a) Therefore, be subject to God….
            #2 (4:7b) and oppose the devil….
            #3 (4:8a) Draw near to God….
            #4 (4:8b) Sinners, cleanse hands….
            #5 (4:8c) and two-souled, hallow hearts….
            #6 (4:9a) Be distressed….
            #7 (4:9b) and mourn….
            #8 (4:9c) and weep….
            #9 (4:10) Be humbled before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
            #10 (4:11a) Do not speak against one another, brothers.

Like in the first chapter, after this section, there follows something quite positive, although it is somewhat hidden. The following is a somewhat-literal translation of what immediately follows the last command (1:11b-12). What seems to be the most positive words have been put in bold print.

The one speaking against a brother or judging the brother of him speaks against law and judges law. And if you judge law, you are not a doer of law but a judge. One is a lawgiver and a judge, the one being able to save and to destroy. And who are you, the one judging the neighbor?

This could be considered a ‘second stage’ of the gifts that were given in the first section of the epistle. These gifts are wonderful; they came from the Father above. They are able to save, and they are able to destroy—and those two things are a HUGE difference. If you would like to think of what point in the structure of the tabernacle or temple would match this, it may be the altar of sacrifice. At that point, because of what is sacrificed on the altar, something is destroyed, but something is also saved. And the one who is in charge of saving and destroying at that point is much better at his job than we could ever be.

The section that follows this positive point could be called a transition-point to the final section of the work (chapter 5). This section starts and ends with the phrase, ‘Come now.’ (4:13 & 5:1; and there is only one other use of the word ‘now’, in between these two occurrences, at 4:16, and there are no other occurrences of this word ‘come’ in this epistle.) The word basically means ‘lead’, and that is not a bad idea for those who are scattered. By a phrase which would appeal to those who are scattered, the writer has the attention of those who are ‘dispersed’ in some way. (Along with this section is the reminder that scattered people can easily focus on themselves by saying something like, ‘Tomorrow I am going to go HERE.’ The writer of this epistle, in a very wise way, puts our scattered focus on the Lord; see 4:15.)

After this ‘Come now’ section, it also happens that there are ten more commands. Note that the negative commands are not at the end this time, but are the fifth and the seventh. This is not the end of the writing, but in between these two commands is a better ending; it contains the last use of the word ‘telos’ or completion. And the Lord’s ending is a better ending than the ending of anyone else.

Here are the ten commands in the last chapter of the epistle (again, in somewhat-literal translations):

#1 (5:1) weep….
            #2 (5:7) Therefore, be longsuffering, brothers, until the Parousia of the Lord.
            #3 (5:8a) Also you be longsuffering….
#4 (5:8b) Strengthen the hearts of you, because the Parousia of the Lord has drawn near.
#5 (5:9) Do not murmur, brothers, against one another, lest you are judged.
Behold, the judge stands before the doors.
#6 (5:10-11) Take an example, brothers, of the suffering evil and of the
longsuffering of the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we esteem blessed the ones enduring; you heard of the endurance of Job; and you saw the completion of the Lord, that the Lord is very compassionate and pitying.
#7 (5:12) And before all things, my brothers, do not swear….
#8 (5:16a) Therefore, confess to one another the sins….
#9 (5:16b) and pray on behalf of one another….
#10 (5:19-20) My brothers, if anyone among you is led astray from the truth
and anyone turns him, know this—the one turning the sinner out of the error of way of him will save soul of him out of death and will hide a multitude of sins.

The sentence which contains the last imperative, the last sentence of the entire epistle, has similar language to the first negative ‘do not be led astray’ at 1:16. All through this epistle, the writer has had things to say to those who are scattered.

Before this last list of commands, it was mentioned why the negative commands are basically in the middle, surrounding the Lord’s completion. If, like above, you are thinking about what point in the tabernacle or temple would match this point in the epistle, one could think of the most holy place or ‘the holy of holies’. This is where the high priest ended up on that very special day of the year. This is a good place to have an ‘ending’ or ‘completion’, especially if one feels ‘scattered’.

This completion of the Lord that is in the sixth command may be pointing us to the cross. Even if the Jews who were getting this epistle were not present outside of Jerusalem when Jesus was on the cross, the symbol of the cross was significant in the Christian Church from basically the beginning, and the cross was a significant ‘gathering point’ for these who were scattered. Jesus, with his cross, brought them to completion. And he does similar things today.

Perhaps a tabernacle/temple structure will be studied in the next epistle, the Epistle to the Hebrews. Within all these laws is some very good news, just as in the tabernacle/temple there is also some good news. That importance of the negative commands may also be pointing us to the four prohibitions which come up in Acts 15, which James relates for the first time and also which may be connected to the four gospel accounts. In the same way, after some bad news comes some good news. More details about those connections must be saved for another time as well.

What is the point of looking at this text in this way? It is a good reminder that all words are not created equal. There are some small sections that are pointed to that are important, and these contain the closest thing to good news in this epistle. The people who were hearing these words for the first time—and this applies to some people today—those people were very focused on the Law, the bad news. But this epistle seems to be hinting at things that are much more important.

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September 18th, 2021

9/18/2021

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We continue on in the Epistle of James, and this week’s reading [3:13-4:10] closely follows the reading of the previous week. And we are nearing the end of this interesting epistle. What is the final message for those to whom the letter was originally written, to those who have been scattered ‘in the dispersion’ (James 1:1)?

Whenever you travel, there is usually an end to your travels. There is a word that comes up several times within the epistle that hints at an ending. It could be considered a completion, a perfection, a fulfillment. It is translated in a variety of ways, and it occurs in a variety of forms. Here are its eight occurrences—as a noun, verb, and an adjective—as well as its context (and the word itself will be in bold, and it will be translated in a similar way throughout the epistle, to help you find it more easily; and the translations themselves will also be somewhat literal):

1:4a     And let endurance have a complete work….

1:4b     …in order that you may be complete and entire, in nothing having lacked.

1:17     Every giving good and every complete gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights, with whom is no variation or shadow of turning.

1:25     But the one having looked into law, a complete one, that of freedom, and continuing; this one, not having become a hearer of forgetfulness, but on the contrary, a doer of work, this one blessed in his doing.

2:8       If indeed you complete a royal law, according to the writing, ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well.

2:22     You see that the faith worked with his works, and from the works that faith was completed.

3:2       For many we all stumble; if anyone stumbles not in a word, this a complete man, able to bridle also the whole body.

5:11     Behold, we esteem blessed the ones enduring; you heard of the endurance of Job; and you saw the completion of the Lord, that the Lord is full of compassion and pitying.

There is an interesting ‘coincidence’ that is somewhat hidden within this work, with the words with which this idea of ‘completion’ is connected. The word starts by being connected to endurance, as a result of enduring something or being patient. And the last occurrence also ends with mentioning endurance right before, the endurance of Job, but the word at this last occurrence is connected to Someone much more important.

The second occurrence speaks to the one who is reading or listening to the words of the text, that the person may be complete. And the second occurrence from the end speaks of a complete man as one who does not stumble in what he says.

The third occurrence is connected to gifts that come from above, from our heavenly Father. And the third occurrence from the end is referring to Abraham and the time of his testing by the Lord, a time when the Lord was significantly involved in his life and would have significant ramifications—when the Lord told him to sacrifice his son. In this situation, the faith and the works go together; it could be said that the faith is ‘concrete’ and finds its ending in the works.

The fourth occurrence of ‘complete’ is connected to the law. And there is a connection to the law in the fourth occurrence from the end.

With these similar connections, there is also a progression toward an end. The movement starts with the person who has been ‘dispersed’, and the movement progresses toward the law (which is not always a negative word!), and this is in the important middle-section of the structure. And rather than having the progression go toward the person who is trying to endure and come to some finality, the writer says that ‘you saw the completion of the Lord’. Next week we will look at the importance of this section in James.

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September 11th, 2021

9/11/2021

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Last week’s writing started us in the Epistle of James, a writing to those who were scattered in the ‘dispersion’. This week’s reading is from the first part of chapter 3[:1-12]. Last week we looked at two significant commands in the first chapter, one was positive; and one, negative. (Do this; do not do that.) And what they commanded was comforting to those who were (and may still be) dispersed.

Commands are important for the Jews. Another thing that is important, that closely connects to commands, is the word ‘law’, and one of the more important meanings of this word is the first five books of the Old Testament. These books, as a whole, are also called the Torah (a Hebrew word), and this word has the meaning of instruction or teaching. The word Pentateuch may also be used to describe these books. This is a Greek word that means five books (or containers).

It is interesting how this word ‘law’ shows itself in this epistle. There are exactly ten uses of the word ‘law’. There are six occurrences in the first two chapters, and the first and last of these six occurrences both connect to the word ‘freedom’. And the last four occurrences happen in one verse near the end of the work.

What follows is a listing of these ten occurrences, along with a bit of the context (since sometimes another occurrence of the same word is close by), in a somewhat-literal translation [and the word ‘law’ will be in bold, and that will make it easier to find that word and to note the words around it; and there will also be some other ‘helps’ within the brackets]:

1:21-25 Wherefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of evil in meekness, receive the implanted word, the one being able to save your souls. And become doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves…. But the one having looked into law, a complete one, that of freedom, and remaining; this one, not becoming a hearer of forgetfulness, but on the contrary, a doer of work, this one will be blessed in his doing.

2:8       If indeed law you complete [or ‘finish’, ‘bring to an end’] a royal, according to the writing: “You will love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well.

2:9       But if you receive faces [show partiality], you work sin, being reproved by the law as transgressors.

2:10     For he was keeps all the law, but stumbles in one, has become guilty of all.

2:11     For the one saying, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ But if do not commit adultery, but you murder, you have become a transgressor of law.

2:12     Thus you speak and thus you do as through a law of freedom, being about to be judged.

4:11     Do not speak against one another, brothers, the one speaking against a brother or judging him speaks against law and judges law; but if you judge law, you are not a doer of law, but on the contrary, a judge.

Since the word law is connected to freedom at its first mention and last—if the instances in James 4:11 are not included—it might be good to investigate that connection more carefully. (A look into the connection between the law and the word ‘complete’ will be next week.) It seems that, with the perspective of Acts 15, the law is strongly connected to the idea of freedom.

Before James gets up to speak in Acts 15, Peter speaks out against laws, and he describes them as a ‘yoke’ (verse 10), something that a farmer would use to hold some of his animals in such a way that they would do some difficult work for him. And then Peter says something that sounds like something St. Paul would have said (somewhat literally):

‘But on the contrary, through the grace of the Lord Jesus, we believe to be saved, in the same way as those also [Acts 15:10].’

His use of grace is obviously significant, and its connection to the ‘Lord Jesus’ helps to make that point. And what that means certainly becomes clearer in other parts of the New Testament.

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September 4th, 2021

9/4/2021

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This week’s epistle starts us looking at a particularly interesting one, the Epistle of James; last week I suggested that we look at that text instead of the other ones. This Epistle has a lot of Old Testament connections, much like the Old Testament Reading and the Gospel Reading working together. The text for this Sunday, though, does not start us in chapter one of James; the text for this Sunday is from James 2[:1-10, 14-18].

The reason behind this is probably that the first chapter of James was given as the Epistle Reading for the First Sunday in Lent for this year, the ‘B’ series. The text for that Sunday was only verses twelve through eighteen. It might be good to have a better introduction to this special work, to start at the very beginning.

Beginnings of literary works are usually very special. And this epistle was extremely well-crafted. And the person who crafted it was also an important one. James was a leader in the early Church. And he was also a step-brother to Jesus. But you would not think that to be the case when he starts out this writing in this way (and what follows is a somewhat-literal translation of James 1:1):

James; of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, a slave; to the twelve the tribes in the dispersion. Greetings!

Perhaps the word ‘slave’ stands out to you. That word is a very negative term these days. And James does not even put that word out in front to start even the thought that he would brag about his extremely low position. He throws it in, right at the end, right before he describes the people to whom he is writing. And those people to whom he is writing could easily be putting themselves down; after all, they have been ‘dispersed’. But James does not go into great detail on that either. In both cases, he does not focus on the negative for very long. (In fact, the word for ‘Greetings’ is very similar to the word for ‘joy’!)

Because of that lack of detail when speaking of the ‘dispersion’, we are not sure when this letter was written. But, ultimately, the chronology of the letter is not that important. The theology, on the other hand, IS very important.

It is easy to see in this epistle a similarity to the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. Now this epistle certainly has a lot of good advice, and there are also a large number of commands in this book. But those commands are not all of the same level of importance.

In the Greek language, it is interesting that there are two types of commands. There are commands in the ‘second person’. This is a normal command, when you say to someone, ‘Do this!’ There are also commands in the ‘third person’, and this is a less important command. The latter MAY be translated in one of the following ways: ‘Let him or her do that’ or ‘have him or her do that.’

In the first section of James, right at the very beginning (verse 2), there is a clear, strong command in the second person. And this COULD be translated somewhat literally as ‘Lead all joy.’ The word literally means ‘lead’ or ‘rule’, and figuratively means ‘consider’ or ‘esteem’ [A Concise Lexicon to the Biblical Languages; Peabody, Massachusetts, USA: Hendrickson Publishers; Part 2, page 58]. And, at the very end of this section (verse 16), there is another clear command—with all the intervening commands being in the third person (and, therefore, secondary)—and this time the command is a prohibition. Again, quite literally, the text says, ‘Do not err,’ and one of the main ideas in this verb is to ‘mislead’ [A Concise Lexicon, Part 2, page 102]. These two verbs are quite appropriate for those who have been dispersed and are without a leader.

When it came to commands, the Jews had two different types of them. The Jews would consider commands to be either positive or negative—do this and do not do that. And this structure of a positive command at the beginning and a negative command at the end would certainly appeal to them.

In Acts 15, when James gets up after Peter, Paul, and Barnabas had spoken, he connects this word of gospel to an Old Testament passage in Amos, and he also gives, at the end of his speech, four prohibitions. But within that context, and in that situation as well, those prohibitions are not so negative, because he connects them, immediately after, with Moses being proclaimed.

This is a very positive description of Moses, since something that is proclaimed is usually good news. If you are interested, the word was used in this way before chapter 15: In Acts 8:5, Philip proclaimed the Christ. In 9:20, Jesus was proclaimed as the Son of God in the synagogues. In 10:37, John the Baptist proclaimed a baptism. And in 10:42, Jesus was proclaimed to the people that he was designated as the judge of the living and the dead. To have Moses proclaimed may, initially, seem like a negative thing. But the prohibitions do not have to stop at saying to someone ‘Do not do that.’ There is much more good news to be found, even within the Pentateuch.

The comforting message here in James is, admittedly, a bit subtle. When these people are getting dispersed, there is ultimately a better leader than anyone of them could ever be. James does not seem to be pointing them back to the place where they originally started. He seems to be pointing them literally upward. What follows are some excellent words of comfort after that prohibition that caught their attention near the end of the first chapter:

Every giving good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights, with whom he has no place change or of turning shadow. Having purposed, he brought forth us by a word of truth, that we should be a certain first fruit of the creatures of him [a somewhat-literal translation of James 1:17-19].

What does this mean? Much could be said! But what follows will be brief.

The perspective certainly is a much broader one. One could think of Jesus when he mentions ‘coming down from the Father’. But it seems that the writer is taking us back to the very beginning, at the time of creation. On the first day, he created light, but he did not have to do that; he could have saved that for the fourth day. And, on the fourth day, when he created the greater and lesser lights, he gave them authority.

Ultimately the writer is referring us to every day. Good gifts come every day. Perfect gifts—like the forgiveness of sins and eternal life—may come every day as well. And they all come from above, from the Father. And this is the Father who had the Son who called himself the Light of the world (John 8:12).

It may be helpful, during these times when those in authority are put down and mocked, that God gives authority that no one can do without. Whether one has been scattered or not, God is still God. And do not forget that the designation of ‘Father’ is certainly significant.

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