Today, I am reading and commenting on  James 1-5.

I love the Book of James, but there is so much in it that I always struggle deciding what I want to write about.  I want to write about all of it, but I don’t have the time to do that.  I am going to start writing about what James says about temptation at the beginning of this letter and quarrels later because I think he intends them to be two parts of the same message.  First, he tells us that temptation occurs when our evil desires drag us away and entice us.  I like that imagery of our evil desires dragging us to someplace we don’t want to go, but I also like the implication he makes that we often don’t resist being dragged there as much as we like to pretend.  Then we come to what James says about the cause of fights and quarrels.  He tells us that they also come from our desires.  We desire and covet things, but are unable to get them, so we behave with hostility.  Further, James tells us that we do not have the things we desire because we do not ask God for them.  Or, if we do ask for them, we ask for them in order to satisfy our sinful desires (see what he says earlier about temptation).  Unspoken is that God does not give us those things we only ask for in order to satisfy our earthly desires is because it would be bad for us to receive them).  Or, perhaps not so unspoken, since James goes on to write that being friendly with the world means being hostile to God.  So, let us flee from evil, let us resist being dragged into temptation, then evil will flee from us and we will become ever closer to God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  James 1-5.

James tells us that God does not tempt us.  In fact, he says that the Devil does not tempt us either.  Rather, temptation is a result of our evil desires.  Our own evil desires entice us to do wrong.  All too often, instead of thrusting these desires away from us, we entertain these desires until we take action on them, which is sin.  James makes the point that we should not attempt to lay blame for being tempted and the subsequent sin outside of ourselves.  We need to take responsibility for our own actions and recognize that our sins result from the choices we make.

James then gives some practical advice on how to live holy lives.  He tells us that we should put extra effort into listening and understanding, while keeping a tight rein on what we say.  Additionally, and just as importantly, we should resist getting angry, because human anger does not produce righteousness.  James tells us to get rid of the moral filth within us, which generates the temptations we face, and the evil that goes along with it.  Instead, we should accept and act upon the word which God has given us.  He repeats the need to control our tongues and take action to care for those in need.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  James 1-5.

The letter which James wrote is full of many things which I would like to write about today, but I will only get to a few of them.  He writes that we should be quick to listen and slow to speak, and slow to anger.  I find it interesting that he seems to link speech and anger here by telling us that we should be slow to both while being quick to listen.  James also writes that we should not only listen to the word of God, but do what it says.  So, we should be quick to listen to God’s word, and then do what it says.  A little later James explains the importance of being slow to speak (and perhaps to a degree how that relates to being slow to anger).  He writes that if we can learn to regulate our tongue, regulate what we say, we will be able to control everything else we do with our bodies.  I believe that when James writes this he means that we should control both our outside and inside voices.  However, the first step to controlling ourselves is learning to not say out loud those things which do not bring glory to God.  As we do that we can gradually teach ourselves not to think things which do not bring glory to God (or perhaps I should say that we can be gradually taught by the Holy Spirit to not think anything which does not bring glory to God).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  James 1-5.

James begins his letter by writing that if anyone lacks wisdom they should ask God for it, and God will give it to them generously.  However, when we ask we must believe and not doubt.  Later in today’s passage James writes that fights and arguments among believers occur because we desire and do not have.  He goes on to tell us that we do not have because we do not ask.  Finally, James writes that even when we ask we do not receive because we ask in order to please ourselves rather than in order to please God.  James makes it clear that we should allow godly wisdom to guide us in asking God to give us things.  At the beginning of the letter, he tells us that we should ask God for wisdom, following that up by telling us that God gives generously to all.  Then later James writes about distinguishing between true wisdom, the wisdom of God, and the wisdom of this world.  The latter contains envy and selfish ambition.  The wisdom of this world is about promoting oneself either to fame or to wealth (or to both).  On the other hand, true wisdom leads one to humbly do good deeds peaceably, with purity, and impartiality.  So, James tells us to request wisdom from God, and then to pray for whatever that wisdom leads us to desire.  If we have faith that God will answer our prayers offered with His wisdom, He will grant us our requests.  And how do we know that we have the faith needed to obtain that which we desire?  Because we act on the basis of that faith.  Or as I have written from time to time about Jesus’ statement that if we have faith no larger than a mustard seed if we tell a mountain to move into the sea it will move.  If we genuinely have faith that what God desires will come about by a mountain moving into the sea, we will pray for it to move and then grab a shovel and start moving it.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on James 1-5.

I love the Book of James.  It contains so many lessons for us.   James starts off by telling us that we should take joy in whatever troubles come our way, because troubles test our faith.  The testing of our faith gives us the opportunity to grow our faith and as our faithful endurance improves we become better people. From there James segues into a topic which he comes back to later in this letter: if we lack anything, we should ask God for it.  In this case, James tells us that if we need more wisdom, God will provide it to us if we ask Him for it.  Later, James tells us that quarrels and fights happen among us because we want what we do not have, and we do not have it because we do not ask God for it.  Even when we do ask, we ask in order to please ourselves rather than to please God and others.

In the beginning when James speaks of asking God for wisdom he warns against seeking wisdom other than God’s.  Then when he later speaks of asking God for what we want he warns against seeking the pleasures of this world.  I cannot emphasize enough the connection between these two things.  The world considers wisdom to be those things which will show us how to obtain the pleasures of this world.  God’s wisdom shows us how to serve others in faithful obedience to God.  The foundational principles of godly wisdom teach us to do those things which are necessary to accumulating material possessions, which often misleads people into thinking that wisdom leads to the acquisition of wealth.  Thus, if we put our focus on the material instead of on God, we can be misled into following the wisdom of the world rather than the deeper principles of true wisdom.

I feel like I have failed to completely explain my title, please read the Book of James to see how he explains it.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.  

Today, I am reading and commenting on James 1-5

Every time I read the Book of James some part of it speaks to me.  Everyone knows that James puts an emphasis on the fact that faith will result in action.  You will act according to what you truly believe.  However, we spend less time seeing the connection James makes between what we say and what we do.  James tells us that we should control what we say.  He links speech we should avoid with anger when he tells us to be quick to listen but slow to speak and to anger.  He does not limit controlling our tongue to when we are angry, but he makes it clear that that is when we are most likely to say things which we should not say.  As important, we often justify saying things we should not say by claiming that we are saying it but would not do it.  However, the more we express angry thoughts, or other thoughts of negative things, the more likely we are to act on those thoughts.