James 1:21-25 – “Free to Be Doing”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²¹Wherefore, putting off all filthiness and excess of badness, receive in humility the engrafted Word, the one being able to save your soul; ²²and be doers of [the] Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves, ²³because, if someone is a hearer of [the] Word and not a doer, this one is like a man observing the face of his birth in a mirror; ²⁴for he saw himself and has gone away, and immediately forgot what he was; ²⁵but the one looking [intently] into the perfect law, the one of freedom, and continues [in it], not becoming a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in his doing.

As I related in my last post, I think a key to understanding this passage is seeing that the central issue is whether or not we truly value the Word. Superficially, the question will be whether we are doers of the Word or just hearers. But I would suggest those are not causes but rather effects. To be a doer of the Word one must first deliberately seek and ponder what it says. As Proverbs admonishes us, “My son, if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will find the knowledge of God.” The promise is “Seek and you will find,” but notice the finding only comes after the seeking.

So it is here in James, just from a different angle. I think this is all borne out by the contrast James presents. On the one hand there is the man who glances at his face in the mirror and hurries away unchanged. James contrasts that man to someone who “looks intently” into the “perfect law that gives freedom” and “continues in it.”

First of all, the word translated “looks intently” pictures someone stopping and actually stooping down to peer into something. It is used of the disciples peering into Jesus’ empty tomb. The word can be just another synonym for “looking” at something, like the man “looking” at his face in the mirror. However, James clearly chose to change from one word to the other and I believe the context supports the translation “looks intently.” I believe he did intend to convey the picture of stopping to stoop down and peer into something. That is his contrast with the hurried, glancing man.

Again, I would suggest being a doer of the Word is an effect, not the cause. We don’t just decide to be a doer. Instead we have to recognize the activities and choices we can make which will then result in being a doer. One of those choices or activities that will result in being a doer of the Word is the old children’s adage “Stop, look, and listen!” A doer of the Word will one way or another work into his schedule times when he stops everything else, pulls out his Bible, and takes the time to not only read but pause and ponder over its truth. The same thing happens when we’re hearing the Word in church. We can allow our minds to simply go on racing around all the issues of our lives or we can shout to our heart, “Stop, look, and listen!” Like the Bereans, we may even need to take some notes, then go home and “search the Scriptures to see whether these things are so.” At any opportunity we have to ingest the Word, whether we’re reading it, studying it, or listening to others teach it, the first step toward being a doer is this “Stop!”

The man looking in the mirror spent but a short second there and hurried on to whatever was pressing him. (Frankly, what most of us see in the mirror probably isn’t worth more than a glance anyway!) On the serious side, we simply cannot be like him when it comes to the mirror of the Word. We must at points take the time to stop and really ponder over its meaning.

Secondly, I would suggest then also that it is no arbitrary choice James calls it “the perfect law that gives freedom.” When we stop, when we stoop down to peer, what does our heart think we’re looking into? This question I believe is the second step on our way to being doers of the Word. People see the Word as many things, a “list of rules,” “facts and knowledge to make me smarter than everyone else,” “material to teach others and fill up an obligation to teach or preach,” “interesting history,” even “secret codes to discover and help me sell books.”

But the doer of the Word will be someone who has come to see it is a “perfect law that gives freedom.” It is perfect in every possible way, of course, but what comes to my mind is that it is perfect in the sense that it is completely true. Every other book I can read is at best someone’s perceptions of truth. The Bible alone is Truth itself. I can lay my heart open before it and never fear at all that I’ll find out later it wasn’t really completely true after all, like pretty much any other book. It is perfect too because, as James says, it is a perfect law that “gives freedom.” As I noted above, some people see it as a book of rules. I would suggest that person will likely never be a very good doer. Even as they’re peering into the Word, they’re actually assigning to it a sort of harsh, uncaring, “do it or else” sort of posture. Our natural bent will be to resist that sort of master.

Instead, we should see its truths as liberating. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free!” In one sense, this is the very thing that has driven me to the Word my whole life. I want to be free. I don’t want to be who I was. I don’t want to be enslaved to my own stupid ideas and misperceptions of reality. I don’t want to be enslaved to the endless barrage of church traditions about who God is and what a Christian “should do.” I don’t want to be enslaved to other peoples’ approval and trying to live up to whatever they think I’m supposed to be and do.

The wonderful thing about the Bible is that it liberates me from all of that. It shows me clearly who God really is. It shows me clearly what is really true and what isn’t. And it shows me what is really important and what is not. Just learning the simple truth that it all comes down to “love God, love people” is so liberating, words fail me to express my wonder and gratitude.

Here is another place where, I would suggest, legalism hurts us, our families, and our churches far more than we realize. Until we repent of our legalism, we’ll always think of the Bible as being about rules. We think it says, “Do this and live.” That sounds good but it is fundamentally legalistic. Grace says to us, “Live and do this.” It is not a law of bondage but a law of freedom. To know God’s Word is not a matter of finding more rules to live by, it is about the freedom to genuinely understand God, to understand what really matters, to see the world through His eyes, and hence, because I see the world differently, I now want to live differently. I want to do it His way. But I want to. That is freedom. I guess my point is that, if all our children see in the Bible is a lot of rules, they’ll likely never fall in love with its Author, they’ll likely never be drawn to stop and stoop and ponder what this book of freedom has to say to them. And the result will be they’ll likely never know the blessing of being doers of the Word.

Once again, in this admonition to be doers, I think this second important ingredient James presents is this question of how we (and our children) see the Word to begin with. Is it or is it not to you fundamentally a book of freedom? Is the “law” that you find in it a path to real joy? If it is (back to grace!), you will naturally stop to ponder it. When my girls were little someone once told me “She’s so pretty, I can’t stop looking at her.” Her doting father agreed, but you see the case in point -- when we truly see the beauty of the Word, this perfect law that gives freedom, we will find that we “can’t stop looking at it.” We’ll want to stop and stoop down and ponder it.

Finally (for this post), notice he adds, “and continues in it.” Once again, we are travelling further and further away from the man and his mirror. We’re getting further and further away from his hurried glance. We’re not only stopping to ponder, we’re in some sense “continuing in it.”

For me, it seems almost weekly that the Lord shows me truths that literally rock my world. As I sit and ponder over the Word, it’s like He sets off bombs that demolish my misperceptions of life and show me the truth that really does set me free. But then I find it is still a challenge to be remembering those things. I have to make a deliberate effort to be recalling those truths throughout my day and it is easy not to. On the one hand, it is true that simply having seen the truth, I am changed. I can never be the same. But on the other hand, I also struggle forgetting what I’ve learned.

That is actually one reason why I post my foolish ramblings in this blog. Having studied the Word myself, I find I need to do this in some fashion. I need to “pull it all together” and “write it down” somewhere. It helps me to digest it to begin with, helps me toward remembering it throughout my day, and it also allows me to go back and read what I learned. It helps me not to forget.

Whatever you do, however you do it, there must be some deliberate effort to help you remember what you’ve learned, to have it available throughout your days as you deal with life. It is not some kind of legalistic thing, “Oh, great, just what I need, another self-discipline rule!” That’s not it at all. I think again it is a matter of freedom. I want to remember the liberating truths I’ve learned. It’s just that, on my way to being a doer of the Word, I realize it isn’t enough to have learned liberating truth, I must remember it as I face my day, whatever that takes for me.

I have some thoughts about this forgetfulness/remembering thing I want to record, but I think I’d better end this post today and save those for next time.

To sum up, I would say again, I don’t think we actually decide to be doers. Instead, as James presents, and working backwards, we want to live a life of freedom and joy, we realize that very freedom and joy is to be found only in the liberating truths of the Bible, and so we often make those times in our life when we stop to look intently into the truth of the Word and ponder over its meaning. My contention is, and I believe it is what James is teaching is that, if we in fact live these things, we’ll find ourselves being doers, free to be doing!

James 1:21-25 – “Seeing the Value”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²¹Wherefore, putting off all filthiness and excess of badness, receive in humility the engrafted Word, the one being able to save your soul; ²²and be doers of [the] Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves, ²³because, if someone is a hearer of [the] Word and not a doer, this one is like a man observing the face of his birth in a mirror; ²⁴for he saw himself and has gone away, and immediately forgot what he was; ²⁵but the one looking [intently] into the perfect law, the one of freedom, and continues [in it], not becoming a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in his doing.

There is so much in these verses, but it all comes down to the question of whether God’s Word actually changes me or not.

I think in the past, as I have read these verses, there has been a sort of underlying discontent in my heart. Of course I want to be a doer and not just a hearer; but I think I’ve always sensed it isn’t enough to simply be determined, “I’m going to be a doer.” I would want to be a doer, not just a hearer, but then I would go away not really sure what I need to do to make it happen.

I think now, having studied the text, it is just that there is so much more going on than meets the casually glancing eye. As I hope I can explain, it is the casual glance which in the end is part of the problem. Yes, we should all be doers and not just hearers, but the very admonition should cause us to stop and ponder and sincerely search out what it is that moves a person from a hearer to a doer. The passage before us actually provides some answers to this question, but I think it particularly teaches us to consider deeply what it is we desire, what it is we actually value.

Here’s what I mean: Obviously, following the text, there is a need to put off our natural rottenness, all our “filthiness and excess of badness!” I suspect this is a starting point – how do we see ourselves? If we flatter ourselves, highlight our good and minimize our bad, we won’t really see the need of the Word. On the other hand, “filthiness and excess of badness?” Those are not flattering words! Grace would reveal to us “Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness – only wounds and welts and open sores” (Isaiah 1:5,6). “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Jesus admonished the Laodiceans, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.” (Rev 3:17,18).

“Buy from me,” says Jesus. But we’ll only “buy” to the extent we really believe we need Him. There in Rev 3, they didn’t see they were “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” so they didn’t see the need of Jesus’ help. In our text, if I don’t see the need, if I’m not desperate for Him, I’ll hear but I won’t value what I hear. When it comes to the Word, to not value it guarantees it won’t change me. Here’s another place to see it is so important to understand that desire is the gatekeeper of our hearts.

That is why, I think, He says “… receive in humility the engrafted Word, the one being able to save your soul.” As I Peter 5:5 tells us, “God resists the proud; He gives His grace to the humble.” It is an “engrafted Word.” The truth is something which must be engrafted into our hearts. We do not possess it naturally. It must be received in the humility of realizing we don’t have it but need it, like Jesus’ “gold refined in the fire” and “white clothes to wear” and “salve for our eyes.” And it isn’t just any word, it is “the one being able to save your souls.” The issues in which it would barter are our eternal welfare.

If we would be doers of the Word, it must be a Word we desperately need, one which dwells naturally nowhere within us but must be received, must be engrafted into us, and one which we understand has the power to transform our very existence. Again, it is a question of value. We’ll only receive it if our heart’s gatekeeper sees its value and truly desires it. Back to verse 14, desire allured by sin will get us killed. But, in verse 16, desire can also be sanctified if our hearts would see that “every good and perfect gift is from above.” It’s a question of what we want, what we see as valuable.

This passage has more to say but I think it all centers around this question of value. I want to record more of these thoughts but I’ll stop here and continue in the next post.

God help us all to truly value the Word, to “hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Only then will we find the blessing of being doers of the Word.

James 1:19-20 – “Pearls of Wisdom”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁹My beloved brothers, know [this], let every man be swift into the hearing, slow into the speaking, slow into anger, ²⁰for the anger of man is not producing [the] righteousness of God.

“Swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to get angry.” What an ideal objective to take with us every day!

One of the issues commentators deliberate is whether v19 applies in general to life or specifically to the hearing of the Word. As they point out, just before this, in v18, “He gave us life through the word of truth” then immediately following, in v21 we’re admonished to receive the engrafted Word, then follows the discussion of being doers of the Word and “not hearers only.”

Certainly being “swift to hear, slow to speak” applies directly to the hearing of the Word and it (the Word) is front and center in this passage. Just this last Sunday I found this verse helpful as I found our pastor teaching a message that I “didn’t like.” The Lord kept reminding me, “Swift to hear, slow to speak …” I can say first hand it definitely applies to the hearing of the Word!

All of that being said, though, I don’t necessarily buy that James is specifically wanting us to apply v19 to only the hearing of Bible truth. I guess I’m just not sure you can compartmentalize life that neatly. What I mean is, I doubt anyone will do well listening to the Word when they don’t listen well to anyone or anything else. Good listening, if it’s real, involves realizing I have a lot to learn, sincerely valuing the thoughts of others, of realizing that a huge expression of love is to deliberately listen to what others wish to say.

My contention would be the person who hasn’t learned these things in their everyday life isn’t going to suddenly become humble and teachable just because he’s sitting on a pew. I think it is a lifestyle decision. The fool who “finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions” (Prov 18:2) is the same fool in church or out. When the Lord warns us, “He who answers before listening – that is his folly and shame” (Prov 18:13), He certainly never intended us to think that applies only to the hearing of the Word, as important and applicable as that may be. As I have often contended, our world is fractal, not just linear. Even though time passes linearly, our lives consist of patterns more so than a series of events. This business of being like Jesus and practicing a humble spirit is a pattern we pursue, not just a choice we make as we sit in church (though, as I was reminded on Sunday, that certainly is part of it!).

I guess I just want to make the point (since this is my blog and, being a fool, I’m airing my own opinions!) that “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” is a motto we should all take with us all day every day everywhere we go.

For whatever it’s worth, I have to say too, while we’re on the subject, that “listening” is not an activity that many excel in. It is shocking to me how much we all talk and how little we communicate. For myself, it is a rare experience to want to “tell someone something” and ever find anyone who actually listens. It is really quite frustrating until I’m reminded that I don’t do so well myself. I walked away from a conversation a week or so ago with the Lord making me realize that I very specifically was not listening. It makes me sick, to think someone was trying to tell me something and I was too full of myself to just stop and actually listen. They deserved better than that. “Swift to hear, slow to speak.” I’m quite sure when people spoke to Jesus He gave them His undivided attention. We all know that look on someone’s face when they really do care, when they really are listening, when they really do value us and whatever on earth it is we’re trying to say. That is a Jesus look. I hope and pray I’ll be more of that to other people and less and less of the self-engrossed buffoon I naturally am.

And “slow to anger” – what a blessing that has been to learn as I’ve tried to follow Jesus. Anger makes so much sense at the time, the words we want to say, the way we think we should treat people. Then there’s the “afterward.” “A fool shows his annoyance at once … his heart blurts out folly …” but “The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways.” Seems like the older I get the more shocked I am at what an impatient buffoon I am. I get angry at the least little displeasure. Here I am sincerely wanting to live a life of love and yet finding myself all in a fluff over the most trivial stupid things. God help me. I guess the good news is that He has. Even though I am a ridiculously impatient buffoon, at least I know I’m not as bad as I was. I’m not as bad as I could be. And that is because the Lord has taught me so much about this emotion of anger. I think the best thing He taught me is basically just to keep my mouth shut! Once in a while there are things I really should have said, but most of the time I am really, really glad I didn’t!

The Word of God is certainly a string of pearls but this one is one of the brightest: “Swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” May He help me keep it in the very front of my heart. What a jewel of truth!

James 1:19-20 – “Gnomic”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁹My beloved brothers, know [this], let every man be swift into the hearing, slow into the speaking, slow into anger, ²⁰for the anger of man is not producing [the] righteousness of God.

As seems to be the case with James, I have to note again there are many, many great commentaries already out there which address these verses. There is so much to learn here, so many supporting verses about good listening, about being slow to speak, about the dangers of anger, and, on the other hand, verses indicating those few instances where anger may be a good thing. For the most part, what needs to be said already has been. That being the case, I intend to simply jot down a teacupful of my own personal thoughts and leave the ocean of truth as available as it is to anyone interested enough to consult any of so many good commentaries.

One thing, for whatever it’s worth, I keep noticing in James. In Koine Greek their default tense was the aorist. In English ours is the present. In other words, if we don’t particularly intend to make any point about time, past, present or future, we use the present. Like in the familiar old title, “Everybody loves Raymond,” the point isn’t that it is happening in the present or past or future. It’s just true. Grammarians refer to this as a “gnomic” use of the present. It has been my personal observation after studying in Biblical Greek for years that they used their aorist in the same way. What is unusual to me is that I think James actually uses the present as a gnomic.

You see this in my translation of his proverbial statement: “…the anger of man is not producing the righteousness of God.” I translated it in a definite present tense form, “is not producing” only because I’m being literal (to remind myself later there is a present tense going on). My point is that probably a better translation of James’ thought would be, “… for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” That is a gnomic expression – something that simply is true all the time, everywhere.

I’m belaboring this point simply to say (in case anyone else is interested in the details of the text) that I have already seen James do this a number of times in just the first 20 verses of the very first chapter. Obviously that is how Greek “worked” in his head. Of course Greek was not his native tongue. I have a suspicion Paul probably grew up bilingual, growing up in Antioch, well away from Judea proper. But I’ll bet James did not, growing up apparently right in Jerusalem. Aramaic would have been his native tongue and if he was bilingual it probably would have included their traditional Hebrew, not Greek.

Thus I offer the observation that James is probably writing Aramaic/Hebrew in Greek. In other words, not being fluent in Greek, he is actually thinking in Aramaic/Hebrew, then (perhaps somewhat clumsily) recording those thoughts in Greek. The conclusion of it all, for anyone doing careful exegesis or wanting to translate James, is not to be too emphatic about occurrences of the present.

An example of this occurred back in v16. The opening command “Be not deceived,” is a present. That being the case, someone suggested it should be translated “Stop being deceived.” I think that would be true in almost any other book of the New Testament. The Greek man shouting at his dog, “Stop barking!” used the present tense. But, once again, it has been my observation so far in this book that James is using the present as his default tense, as the tense to express gnomic truth. That being the case, even though, “Stop being deceived,” would in fact be a technically correct translation, I don’t think it to be the case in James.

This example also demonstrates why I’m making all this fuss. Once again, the first job of the serious exegete is to determine exactly, in any given text, what God says and what He does not -- to rightly divide the Word of Truth. It is a different sense whether, in v16, James is saying, “Be not deceived” (gnomic sense) or “Stop being deceived” (a command to stop an action already in progress). Someone insisting on normal, technically precise Koine Greek could certainly make a case for the latter. But, once again, having already seen James using the present way more often than normal and in what I perceive to be a gnomic sense, I rather think we should understand his meaning as the former. Interesting that is the traditional translation. Men (who were far greater scholars than I’ll ever be) also thought a gnomic sense the proper understanding of the actual text.

And, finally, back to our text, the phrase should be properly translated, “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (gnomic sense), rather than “The anger of man is not producing the righteousness of God” – something happening in the present. The latter translation leaves open the question, “Oh really? Did it used to produce the righteousness of God and right now, for some reason it is not?” or “Really? So if we work real hard, we could fix it and someday it would?” The gnomic sense leaves neither of these doors open and establishes the truth for all time, past, present, and future, that man’s anger does not (ever) produce the righteousness of God.

All of this is not to dismiss the existence of “righteous anger” which Jesus demonstrated is possible. What it does establish is that such anger, to actually be righteous, is something that simply does not originate from us. The “anger of man” is something godless and hopelessly sinister. Anger, like wealth, is something we should only use with the greatest of humility and fear of ourselves, prayerfully and very carefully keeping our gaze fixed on Jesus, lest it (so easily) devolve into “the anger of man.”

I think I still want to record some more practical thoughts on this text, so I’ll close here and address those in another post.