Ruth 1:1-5 – “Playing with Numbers”

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

¹And it was in the days of judging one judging, it was a famine in the land and it was a man from Bethlehem Judah going to sojourn in the fields of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. ²And the name of the man [was] Elimelech and the name of his wife [was] Naomi and the name of his two sons [was] Mahlon and Chilion. [They were] Ephrathites from Bethlehem Judah and they went [to] the fields of Moab and they lived there.³And Elimelech the husband of Naomi died and she was left and the two of her sons. ⁴And they carried to themselves wives of Moabite women. The name of the one [was] Orpah and the name of the second [was] Ruth and they dwelt there about ten years. ⁵And also died both of them Mahlon and Chilion and the woman was left from the two of her children and from her husband.

As I have often related in my posts, I believe the basic logic of life is predominantly fractal, not linear. Our Western culture minds, for whatever reason, want to see everything linearly, like timelines and number lines and Roman Numeral outlines. We think everything is a “this then that, then this then that”. Years ago I realized there was something very strange about the logic of the Bible, that it utterly defied outlining. Then I had opportunity to study the mathematical concept of fractals, which are basically patterns which repeat themselves an infinite number of times on an infinite number of scales. I realized then that a repeating pattern is actually an entirely different but valid form of logic, and that was what I was seeing so prevalently throughout the Bible. With fractal logic, and so often in the Bible, what is important is not the order, but the pattern. Then I began to realize the world is full of fractal logic, and, in fact, that it is the very logic of life itself – the logic of repeating patterns.

While I’m at it, that is why we can speak of a “family tree.” Both trees and families are living things, and so they share this logic of repeating patterns. A tree repeats the pattern of branching (repeating its own pattern) and families do too. Not only that but trees produce trees that look the same, and so do families. That, you see, is the logic of life, and it is fractal, not necessarily linear.

Anyway, I need to get off my incorrigible fascination with math and get back to Ruth! Well, actually, … not completely. Math has everything to do with what I want to post today, just for the fun of it!

The most basic cycle in life is the week or 7 days. That being the case, 6 of anything is naturally incomplete, 7 is complete, and 8 is a new beginning. What absolutely fascinates me right off the bat is that the book of Ruth (like the rest of the Bible) is full of this same cycle.

As related in the text above, the book starts with 6 named persons: Elimelech, Naomi, Mahlon, Chilion, Ruth, and Orpah. The whole point of the book is that somehow these six are “not enough.” In spite of their efforts in various ways to survive and prosper, everything they do seems to fail. Of course. There are only six of them. Then enters the 7^th – the Kinsmen Redeemer, Boaz! All of this of course is typical of Jesus. The whole book of Ruth is, in a sense, a picture of the entire human race (which, by the way, measures time and space in multiples of 6 – both clocks and compasses use a senary (base-6) number system – our very essence of time and space is inherently incomplete). Everything we try to do to survive and prosper in the end fails. Our only real hope, that which will “complete” us, is the coming of the Kinsman-Redeemer Jesus. His coming into our lives today in a sense “fixes” us, and then His Coming will finally “fix” our universe.

It is also of note that Ruth is the 8^th book of the OT. It is highly significant that the book of Judges (the 7^th book) ends with two accounts mentioning Bethlehem (2, by the way, being the number of testimony – can’t get into that now). Bethlehem, we know, is the birthplace of the Savior, the Completer. Following Judges, the book of Ruth is the 3^rd (God’s number) account in a row mentioning Bethlehem and the 8^th book -- which should tell us to expect some kind of new beginning – which, in fact, it does. Ruth herself is all about a new beginning, but more than that, the book will finally reveal the coming of David, and through him ultimately, of course, the great Completer Jesus. So, in the “days of the judging ones judging,” with all its hopelessness and confusion, the book of Ruth reveals a new beginning – a beginning of hope.

Interesting too, that Naomi and Ruth arrive back in Bethlehem “as the barley harvest was just beginning” (1:22). Would anyone believe that, according to the ancient calendar, the barley harvest occurred in the 8^th month(!). Naomi and especially Ruth arrived in Bethlehem to make a new beginning, right at the beginning of the “8^th month,” a great time (mathematically) to make a new beginning! (PS – That the beginning of barley harvest (late April/early May) occurs in the “8^th month” is according to the Gezer Calendar – a calendar dated to about 1000 BC, a limestone plaque unearthed by archaeologists about 20 miles west of Bethlehem).

While I’m on the subject, we see the 8^th of anything being a new beginning throughout the Bible. Eight people stepped off the Ark to populate the new world. Jewish boys were circumcised on the 8^th day. Cleansed lepers presented themselves to the priests on the 8^th day (Lev 14:10,11) – a serious new beginning! And, of course, Jesus arose on the 1^st day of the week – the “8^th” day. Very serious new beginning! After the 70 weeks of Daniel and at the end of the 7 years of Tribulation, Jesus will return to initiate the Millennium – another serious “new beginning!”

All of this is absolutely fascinating to me, but, to bring it all back to planet earth, what it tells us is to see in the book of Ruth the whole concept of new beginnings. Throughout the book, I will try to keep that in mind as I try to understand the text and its application to my life.

I loooooourve numbers!

Ruth 1:1,2 – “The Days of Our Lives”

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

¹And it was in the days of judging one judging, it was a famine in the land and it was a man from Bethlehem Judah going to sojourn in the fields of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. ²And the name of the man [was] Elimelech and the name of his wife [was] Naomi and the name of his two sons [was] Mahlon and Chilion. [They were] Ephrathites from Bethlehem Judah and they went [to] the fields of Moab and they lived there.

I have been studying through the book of James and enjoying it immensely. However, I need to take a break and go back and do some OT study for a while, then come back. My mother suggested perhaps I could study in the book of Ruth, which I think is a great idea. I really enjoy this book and it would be a pleasure to slow down once and actually ponder over what is written.

Before I embark, I want to note something about how I study the Bible, for the benefit of anyone who might stumble across this blog. Of course I first of all believe it is the Word of God and as such it is no different than sitting at His feet and listening to Him teach and speak. Second of all I believe it is intended primarily as a book of discipleship. What  I mean is that I view it no differently than if I were actually present, not only listening to what is taught but also watching the people involved – how they act, how they interact, how they make good decisions, how they make bad decisions, etc., and trying to learn all I can from them.

As the Bible says in one place, “He who walks with wise men will be wise.” In another place it says, “Beat a fool and the simple learn wisdom.” On the one hand, there is great benefit to keeping company with wise people. You can not only learn from what they say but also from watching everything they do. It’s just good to be with them, to “walk with them.” On the other hand, it is good to note when other people are making foolish choices and then to see the consequences they suffer. It is a wise person who can learn from other people’s mistakes. Such is the Bible. Every single page is an opportunity for us to either walk with wise men or to observe fools and in the end to learn from both. Every page is an opportunity to let the Lord disciple us, to teach us, train us, prepare us to live our own lives.

All that being said, I have every intention of, on the one hand, trying to get at the exact point the Lord may be making, while on the other hand learning everything I can just from watching the people and what goes on. Someone once called the former “deductive” study but the latter “inductive.” They told me they’d never heard anyone doing inductive study. My response would be “That’s too bad. Discipleship is not just a point in time activity. It is an entire lifestyle of not only listening but also watching”.

The bottom-line of all of this is that someone out there might spend a great deal of time trying to find the “point” of the book of Ruth, then they may make the case that it is foolish to be coming up with practical observations from every verse. I heartily disagree with that position. There may very well be a “point” to the book of Ruth and I agree we should do our best to discern it. But we’ll have wasted a fabulous opportunity of discipleship if we don’t closely watch the people involved along the way and learn everything we can from them.

And so it begins. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there lived a man named Elimelech ...

What is interesting to me, even in the first few verses, is that, on the one hand, practically every phrase is significant, while on the other hand, it is all so common and simple. On the significant side, the book opens in the “days when the judges ruled.” That is the time when “There was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” The events of this book occur during that chaotic, tumultuous period when the people of Israel seemed bent on self-destruction. Under the leadership of Moses, then Joshua, the nation had done fairly well. In spite of gross failures, overall, their good leadership kept the Lord in His rightful place over them. After that, the book of Judges reads like a horror story. The constant cycle of sin and judgment will only end with the ministry of Samuel, which prepared them for the rule of David. This book, occurring in that period of confusion, is clearly intended to record for us how we got from the horrific “days of the judges” to the marvelous kingdom of David.

Also, it is obviously not surprising to us that it centers in Bethlehem. Interestingly, if you consider Ruth a continuation of the book of Judges, this is the third story in a row that concerns Bethlehem. In Judges 17&18, we read of the Levite from Bethlehem whom Micah hired to be his private priest. Then in 19-21, we read the sickening story of the Levite who took a concubine from Bethlehem, then the horrific tale of her cruel murder and the events that followed.

As Ruth opens, once again we find ourselves in Bethlehem. I suspect, in their day, the fact this is the third story in a row centering in Bethlehem was intended that they would notice, “Hmmmm. There is something significant about Bethlehem.” Again, for us who read these words this side of Jesus’ first coming, we “know” why this is all so important. Bethlehem isn’t just an obscure little village to us. It is the birthplace of Jesus, the birthplace of the Messiah. We know too it also will be the home of a boy named David who we know will rise to be king and lead the nation of Israel to the very zenith of their human history. So we know it is important.

All of this leads to my “on the other hand …” pretty much no one knew any of this. Elimelech was just a man with a wife and two sons who lived in a little village. And into this commonplace world of theirs trouble entered. A famine.

Is not all of this true of us too? In a sense we all live in a pretty much vanilla world. We’re nobody special, living nowhere special. And every time we turn around we get clobbered by some difficult situation. One way or another we deal with it. And it would seem like, who cares? What difference does it really make in the end? And yet, just like Elimelech, we probably cannot even imagine what God is up to. Elimelech could have never imagined that the very events that occurred would make him a great-great grandfather to King David, and ultimately to the Messiah Himself. Who knows what God is up to in the humdrum and the seeming miseries of our lives? I will bet that in Heaven we’ll find out our story was no less sensational than Elimelech’s. Like him, we just can’t see it now.

Was it right for him to take his family to Moab? Part of me wants to say no, that Israelites shouldn’t leave Israel. That line of thinking leads to – maybe that’s why he and the boys died there, etc., etc. Another part of me wants to feel the whole matter is painfully familiar and say, “I don’t know.” As we face our own personal troubles, we deal with them as it makes sense to us at the time. We might even think we’re praying, we’re really seeking the Lord’s will, and yet, years later, in retrospect, I find myself saying, “That was a really bad choice.” So … I don’t know.

Right off the bat, I find the book of Ruth to be a dead ringer for my own life. We just live and the Lord is up to something!

James 1:26,27 – “Like Jesus - 2”

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

²⁶If someone seems to be religious, not bridling his tongue but deceiving his heart, the religion of this one [is] useless. ²⁷Religion pure and uncontaminated before God and the Father is this: To visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

As I related in my previous post, these two little verses are absolute bombshells. I thought a lot about v26, where I learned if we don’t let grace change our mouths, our religion ends up useless, since our natural bent is to be accusers and liars, like the devil. Grace would remake us in the image of Him whose lips dripped grace and truth.

Then, in the first half of v27, James told us our “religion” is only real before God if it moves us to care about the people around us. The Pharisees were “very religious” yet they hated the man who healed the sick and gave sight to the blind. They not only did not love, but when someone crossed their agenda they plotted to kill him! And so in the end they crucified the very Messiah Himself. James would have us ask, “What about my “religion”? Does it move me to actually love others? Does it move me to watch for people’s needs and do what I can to help? Yes or no?

Then in the second half James adds this other quality to look for in my “religion” – do I keep myself “unspotted from the world?”

This verse is something I’ve always found “easy” on the one hand and discomforting on the other. I have come to realize both of those things were true because I completely misunderstood what it means to be “unspotted by the world.” We’ll ponder these same questions when James later challenges us that “friendship with the world is enmity with God.”

Like too many people, I immaturely thought of “the world” as being contemporary music and dress styles, consumption of alcohol as a beverage, dancing, “going to parties,” and the like. On the one hand, that made this standard “easy.” I could say, well, I don’t do those things, so therefore I’m “unspotted by the world.” I’m “safe.” I think that is a huge reason why people buy legalism. It makes their religion “easy.” It’s the old familiar, “I don’t smoke and I don’t chew and I don’t run with girls who do,” so that means I’m “separated.” “I’m keeping myself ‘unspotted from the world.’” “Obviously I’m a very spiritual person!”

But that is also where I always found it discomforting. Something down deep inside me knew there was something ominously shallow about all of this. Something deep down inside me told me I was “making up the rules.” I knew somehow that these standards I was setting up to define “worldly” were not coming from the Bible. I and the people who agreed with me were making them up. We told ourselves, these are “principles” and “applications” and salved our conscience when we couldn’t find a single rightly divided verse of Scripture that actually taught them. “The Bible is our only rule of faith and practice!" – unless it doesn’t happen to say what we want it to – then we’re more than happy to canonize our rules and congratulate ourselves for it.

At some point I started wondering what the Lord Himself thinks it means to be “worldly." Once I started looking, I found it means something much bigger and deeper than a few external rules that make it easy to “look spiritual.” I think, like the Pharisees, I had been “straining on gnats and swallowing camels.” I was “cleaning the outside of the cup” and “whitewashing tombs.”

Listen to what God has to say:

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (I John 2:15-17).

“Do not love the world”. Notice what it says, “For all that is in the world – all their music and dancing and those clothes they wear …” Oh, whoops, I guess that isn’t what it says. It says, “For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life …” Uh oh. God is going for something way deeper than some convenient external rules. The Pharisees were the ultimate “rule keepers” but Jesus called them a “wicked and adulterous generation,” a people who “love money,” and people who “love the place of honor at banquets” and “everything they do is done for men to see.” For all their “rule-keeping” they utterly failed at conquering the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Their religion was not real. Jesus had one word to describe them: hypocrites.

The fact is, they “loved the world.” They were guilty of the very thing they thought their rules so gloriously accomplished. It was their boast that they were “separated” from the world, and “kept themselves pure.” They would have quickly claimed to be the very people who “kept themselves unspotted by the world.”

But that is only true if you let them define for themselves what it means. The second we go back to the Bible to find out what God says it means, we find the very reason they failed. Their “rules” kept them satisfied they’d already “arrived.” They never looked any deeper to find out God has something entirely different to say. Their religion was not, as they deceived themselves into believing, “pure and undefiled before God and the Father.”

Once again, that was them and we are us. The question is “How shall we then live?” Right off the bat, whatever it all means, when the smoke clears and the dust settles, I want to be like Jesus, not them. I want to be like Jesus, not like whatever church culture today tells me I should be like (which is usually just a modern version of the Pharisees).

What I mean is, I would suggest again we need to look no further than Jesus Himself. The reason the Pharisees hated Him was because He didn’t “keep” their rules. He wasn’t a very good “rule-keeper.” “He consorts with tax collectors and prostitutes!” “He goes to wedding feasts where there is wine – and even miraculously provides more for them when it runs out!” “Scandalous!”

The fact is, He’s too busy doing one thing they weren’t – loving people. If we’re going to love people, then we have to “visit” them, we have to be with them, we have to live in their world. We cannot, like the Pharisees, isolate ourselves from them. But I think that is where the second half of verse 27 comes in.

While we’re there, while we’re in their world, love would remind us the very reason why their hearts are broken, the reason why their lives in the long run don’t work, why their marriages crumble and relationships never “work,” why they always seem to end up lonely and disappointed. It is because what drives them is “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” They love “the world, and the lust of it.” “The love of the Father is not in them.” The key here is that, while we love them, we can’t love what they love. Grace has conquered my heart. I want to “do the will of my Father.”

What makes this so dangerous, of course, is that the old me, though dead, is still quite alive. I see what they see. My flesh wants it just as much as they do. I’m just as capable of giving in to sexual sin, to drinking in excess, to greed, to coarse talk. Like Jude says, “Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear – hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (vv. 22,23). As Jesus said, we’ve got to be “in the world, but not of it.”

I guess you could say, while I’m sincerely trying to love people, while I’m with them, I must guard my heart that I am not allured by the lust of my flesh or the lust of my eyes or my love of applause. While I love them, I must still love my Father.

Can I draw this to a conclusion by asking, isn’t that what made Jesus different? He really did love people, but He never stopped loving His Father. Even while He was with us, surrounded by our temptations, He remained free because He loved something bigger than this world. He could live grace and still walk in truth.

I suppose this has been too long a post, but I deeply regret how long it took me to learn this. It is not a “fine” line. It is the difference between, on the one hand, shipwrecking our faith on a shallow legalistic Pharisaical religion that is worthless and patently NOT “pure and undefiled before God and our Father;” or, on the other hand, genuinely being like Jesus, able to live in this world, to be very much a part of it, to actively, openly love the people here, but to keep our own hearts above its lusts and to live in the freedom of loving our Father and sincerely striving to “do His will.”

God help us. Make us like Jesus.

James 1:26,27 – “Like Jesus - 1”

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

²⁶If someone seems to be religious, not bridling his tongue but deceiving his heart, the religion of this one [is] useless. ²⁷Religion pure and uncontaminated before God and the Father is this: To visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

These two little verses are absolute bombshells. I feel I should take off my shoes and read them on my knees before God. In a sense it doesn’t say anything the rest of the Bible doesn’t say; it’s just that it says it so succinctly, so pointedly.

The two things which I think should awe our hearts are 1) we have here in a nutshell the question of whether or not our “religion” is real, and 2) the question is considered “before God and the Father.” It matters not one iota what we or anyone else thinks. What does God think?

In a sense, we have before us an opportunity to stand in judgment before God right now, here and now, and not have to wait for the Great Day. As v26 warns and I pondered in my last post, we are capable of self-deception on this very point. These two simple verses could have saved the people who said, “Lord, Lord” and were told “I never knew you.”  If only they had stopped to honestly ponder these two simple verses (or the many others like them throughout the Bible) and asked the simple question, “What does God think of my ‘religion,’ there and then they could have realized there was something seriously deficient and saved their very eternal souls.

But that was them and we are us. “How then shall we live?”

Verse 26, in a sense, states the case negatively. Someone may “seem” to be religious but if they do not bridle their tongue, God says that “religion” is worthless. Wow. A serious consideration of that one little verse would this week put entire churches on their knees. “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.”

The two great commands are “Love God/Love people.” I think it safe to say one of the main ways we impact the people around us is by talking. Certainly there are others ways we either do or do not express love – whether or not we do the things for which they depend on us, whether or not our touches are affectionate or hurtful, and so on. But, once again, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Someone said, “He who delights to injure his neighbor in vain pretends to love God” and that certainly applies to our words.

James will go on in chapter 3 to highlight the potential evil of the tongue (“It is set on fire by hell!”). What verse 26 here would have us know is that, if our religion doesn’t significantly conquer that evil, it will in the end prove to have been useless. We learn elsewhere that Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44) and that he is “the accuser of the brethren” (Rev 12:10). Apart from real grace, we are his children and “the lusts of our father we will do.” No wonder so many people, both in churches and out, are so unbelievably dishonest and mean-mouthed! They’re simply being like their father the devil!

But “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (I John 3:3). The grace of Jesus, when it truly enters the heart, very specifically is intended to transform our mouths. His lips were anointed with grace and truth (John 1:14; Psalm 45:2), not accusations and lies! If we would be like the Lamb of God, grace must conquer our mouths and wipe away our natural likeness to the devil. The question is, has it or not?

Verse 27 then in a sense proposes the interrogation positively. If our religion is real, if in fact grace has claimed our hearts, what will it look like? James picks two particular evidences for us to once again ponder. I would like to consider the first in this post and then come back to look at the second.

At this point, before looking at verse 27, it would probably be well for each of us to stop and ask, “What do I think ‘proves’ my relationship with God? What is it in my life that I think should convince everyone around me that I am really a born-again Christian? What positive evidence can I present to say I am a committed Christian?”

“Visiting orphans and widows in their distress.”  Hmmmm. That probably wouldn’t be at the top of any of our lists. But it just hit the top of God’s list! Once again, “if we would judge ourselves…” What is He saying? He’s very pointedly asking the question of whether we really love people. In their culture, two things were true of orphans and widows: 1) they really were absolutely destitute, and 2) they would likely never be able to repay us in any way. They could literally starve to death and, in all likelihood, they will never rise to any kind of place where one could expect to be recompensed in any way.

I’m not so sure in our culture things are quite the same. With all the government aid available, it is probably not quite as true that such people are destitute in a financial sense. They’re not likely to starve. But it is still true that they are bereaved of supports which the rest of us take for granted. And what is key here, I think, is to realize we are surrounded by people lacking for “supports” without which life becomes painful to them. The question to ask myself is, “Am I caring enough to see those things and can I honestly say I’ve done anything to help?”

I would suggest too that “visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction” is intended as simply a sampling of the whole matter of caring about others. What James is saying in a nutshell is simply that real “religion” evidences itself by a genuine and active love for the people around us. Being obligate legalists, humans automatically think “religion” is a matter of regular rituals. “I go to church four times a week, carry my Bible, have my devotions, give my tithes, etc.” There may be a time and place for those things, but any unregenerate person can attend to such rituals. What is at issue before us is true religion. What will set apart a person genuinely changed by grace? And the answer before us is that such a person will care about the people around them in very real and practical ways.

Isaiah said the same thing in 58:5-7:  

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
    only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
    and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
    a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Likewise, Jesus said in Matthew 25:34-36:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Jesus was “a man ordained of God who went about doing good” (Acts 10:38). It is said in Psalm 84:6 of true believers that “passing through the Valley of Bacah, they make it a place of springs.” Everywhere true Christians go, it should be true they leave things “better.”

I would suggest what is supposed to be different is that, for a true believer, someone who has personally received and known and embraced the grace and love and forgiveness of Jesus, love itself has become an act of worship. I certainly enjoy attending church services, reading my Bible, taking communion, giving my tithes, and all of that. But my heart could never be content to stop there. “The love of Christ compels us.” We were created to love and a born-again heart finds its greatest joy in the sharing of love – and again, not just because it is pleasant – for us way down deep in our hearts we know it is an act of worship. Loving others is somehow all wrapped up in our love for God.

The writer of Hebrews says the same thing in 13:15,16:

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

Clearly, the measure of “true” religion is whether we care about the people around us. One last thing I’d like to add is that I think, even if we “get” this, we too easily reduce it to “church” activities. I’ve heard entire messages on exactly these truths where the final application was “Which of our church ministries should you volunteer for?” As I have often lamented, the busiest of church members probably spends no more than ten hours a week doing “church.” But there are 168 hours in a week! What about the other 158??? We need to see this love as something we wake up with, carry to work with us, to the grocery store and our doctor appointments, to our kids’ soccer games, to mowing our grass – to every minute of our lives. Manton said, “This is the difference between a Christian and others, he can make commerce worship.” Love can make commerce worship.

What it all comes down to, of course, is simply being like Jesus. He wasn’t very good at “keeping the rules” but He sure loved people. He “went about doing good.”

Real religion is simply being like Him!

Next post I want to consider James’ other positive evidence, “Keeping oneself unspotted by the world” – what that means and what it doesn’t.

James 1:26 – “Deceived”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this verse:

²⁶If someone seems to be religious, not bridling his tongue but deceiving his heart, the religion of this one [is] useless.”

I’m not sure there is always any logical connection between one verse and the next in James. I think he is teaching in the same style that Jesus used where He just seemed to say whatever came to His mind next, with no intention of presenting any kind of logical progression. For whatever it’s worth, I suspect that was a normal teaching style in the first century, since I think I see the same thing in I John. At any rate, if there is any logical connection between the preceding verses and 26/27, it would seem to be this: Verse 25 left us pondering the matter of being “doers” of the Word. The danger perhaps was that someone could be very “busy” with “religious” duties and thus conclude they were “doers.”

Certainly the Pharisees would have been case-in-point, tithing of mint and cumin, making long their phylacteries, longing for the most important seats in the synagogue, searching the Scriptures, and “doing” so much. Certainly the same is part and parcel of today’s “church-ianity,” where people can be heavily involved in all sorts of church activity, and thus read James 1:22-25 and immediately congratulate themselves on being “doers” of the Word. Perhaps the logical connection is that James wants to interject the question of what is real doing, what is true religion? There may be a great deal of “doing” that impresses others and even oneself, but is it or is it not what God accepts?

Before I get into the verse itself, I want to observe this warning that the person “deceives himself.” Here is a person who actually “seems” religious – implying that they are in fact including in their life elements of religious activity which may be admirable. That certainly is better than someone who cares nothing for God and it is something in which such a person is, in fact, deliberately investing time, energy, and perhaps money. Jesus warned there would be people who will plead with Him, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?” (Matt 7:22). I’ve always thought it enormously interesting that Jesus’ answer to them is not, “No you didn’t.” It is simply, “I never knew you.” He didn’t deny they did all that work, all that “religious” activity. The problem was, in some way, it was not “true religion.” What a tragedy. Very busy, “religious” people will drop right off the pew and into hell … and then wish they’d looked more closely at verses like the one before us.

What I notice in particular is that this is the third time in just the 1^st chapter that James has brought up the subject of deception. In v.16, he said, “Don’t be deceived, every good and perfect gift is from above …” Then in v22, he said, “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves.” Now we have the verse before us where someone thinks they’re religious but deceives themself.

The next thing I noticed is that James uses three completely different Greek words for “deception.” In v16, he used the word “planao” which means “to lead astray.” Perhaps there, he meant, don’t let sinful desire and temptation lead you astray, lead you into the error of thinking they can give you good gifts. In v22, he used the word “paralogidzomai” which means to deceive by false reasoning. Perhaps there the point is not to convince yourself you’re OK, just because you heard the Word. That would be false reasoning. Finally here in v26, he uses the word “apatao” which means to cheat, to trick, or to outwit. In this case, a person seems to be religious but at the same time they are not bridling their tongue and in fact “tricking” their own heart.

All of this is very, very ugly and scary to me. The problem with being deceived is that you don’t know you are. I know, I know. Everyone wants to say, “If I was being deceived, I’d know it!” … Excuse me? The point of being deceived is that you’re deceived! The fact is you don’t know it! Here is a place where we need an enormous dose of humility to cry out to God and beg Him for light. If there is any chance that I am deceived in any of these ways, God help me see it! Without You it is true, I am poor, blind, and naked. In Your light we see light. Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things from Your Word.

What an utterly terrifying thought – to not only be deceived, but self-deceived. Surely only grace could ever rescue us from such a self-imposed peril. This is precisely another reason why I study the Bible. I try, God help me, to genuinely understand exactly what it says, and what it does not, to actually let God speak without any pre-disposed angles, then let Him pass my life through that grid. One of the very things I hope and pray He’ll do is expose the places where I have deceived myself, where I have for whatever reason come to believe something that simply is not true.

I believe that is exactly what He wants to do. Satan and sin are liars and unfortunately my sin nature loves to believe their lies. Someone once said, “People do not believe lies because they’re believable but because they’re delicious.” To some extent, no doubt all of our lives are ruined because we spend them believing lies. To me this is the negative side of Jesus’ promise, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” The positive side is the freedom He gives. The negative side is that, in order to do so, He must expose the lies we’ve been believing and help us see the Truth. Only then can He “set us free.”

Would to God that every human being would look up and cry out to God to show them the truth. Sadly, most of the human race never will. But you and I can be different.

God help us. Don’t let us be deceived. Show us the truth.

And set us free.

James 1:21-25 – “Remembering”

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 two posts, this passage superficially calls us to be doers of the Word and not just hearers. However, my contention is that those are effects, not causes. What I mean is that I don’t think we simply choose to be a doer and therefore we will be. Instead, if we do exactly what the passage teaches and “look intently” into its message, we find it actually has everything to do with our attitude toward the Word. Before we’ll ever be the doers we should be, there must be times in our life where we choose to stop everything else and look into its Truth, we must be sure we see it as a law of liberty, and then we must in some way choose to be mindful of its truth as we go on with life.

It is this last element I want to record some thoughts about today. James says, “…and continues in it, not becoming a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, …”   As I also related earlier, I find that, even after I did take the time to “look intently” into the Bible and even though I clearly see its truth as wonderfully liberating, yet still I seem to forget it quickly. It seems to take an extra effort to remember what I’ve learned, to remember to apply it as I face life.

Actually, I noticed studying II Peter that this business of “not forgetting” and “remembering” is a significant theme in the Bible. Peter warns there if we don’t apply the Word to our lives, we become spiritually “near-sighted and blind, and have forgotten that we have been cleansed from our sins … so I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them … I think it is right to refresh your memory … and I will make every effort to see that you will always be able to remember these things” (1:9-15).

In Mark 8:18, Jesus reproved His disciples, “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?”

It says of Peter, “When he remembered … he wept bitterly” (Luke 22:61,62).

The writer of Hebrew admonishes us, “And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons …”

Thomas Manton said, “A bad memory is the cause of a great deal of mischief in the soul.”

And, once again, James specifically calls us to not be “forgetful hearers.”

So remembering and not forgetting are common themes in the Bible. Obviously there is something in our nature that makes us easily forget spiritual truth. When it comes to living out faith, we have an overactive “forgetter.”

That certainly describes my personal experience! What then amazes me is to see that this battle is being waged on a much higher level than just my simple mind. There is a war going on between satan himself and the Holy Spirit over this very matter! Jesus warned in the Parable of the Sower, “Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts” (Luke 8:12). Did you catch that? “Takes away the word!” It is startling to me to realize that satan is actually a minister of forgetfulness. If he can’t stop a person from hearing truth, his next strategy is to steal it from them, to make them forget! On the other hand, Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, “He will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26).

I suspect that my own heart is so wicked, I really don’t need a personal devil encouraging me to be worse. But the fact is there is one. Therefore I need the Holy Spirit all the more if there’s any hope at all I’ll navigate this life with any measure of success. In the case before us, no doubt I would have a problem with forgetting and remembering with or without satan’s machinations. But this explains all the more why it is such a problem. Our enemy, the devil, like a roaring lion, is roaming the earth, moving us to forget! No wonder it’s so easy to “forget.”

But if we’d be “Blessed in the doing” we must somehow not be “forgetful hearers.” We must somehow deliberately avail ourselves of the Holy Spirit’s help. He is our personal minister of remembering!

I guess what it comes down to is like Paul said of satan, “We are not ignorant of his devices …” If we would continue to grow, we need to know our enemy. And this is a point I don’t think I’ve ever pondered deeply myself – this matter that the devil is actually a personal minister of forgetfulness, and that I specifically need the Holy Spirit to be my personal minister of remembering. Satan will do his work regardless of what I want, but, I know that, to some extent, the Holy Spirit will only help me if I want Him to.

For myself, I really do want to be a doer of the Word. I want to be “blessed in the doing.” God help me to stop life and look intently into Your Word. Help me always to see it as my “perfect law of liberty.” And help me to “continue in it.” But today, particularly, help me be aware of this spiritual battle going on in my memory. May I invite, welcome, and embrace the Spirit’s help to not forget, to remember the liberating truth You’ve shown me, and may I “with unveiled face reflect the Lord’s glory, being transformed into His image, from glory to glory, which comes from the Lord, Who is the Spirit.”