Transgressors of the Law

James 2:10-11    Santiago 2:10-11
    “Porque el que cumple con toda la ley pero falla en un solo punto ya es culpable de haberla quebrantado toda. Pues el que dijo: «No cometas adulterio», también dijo: «No mates.» Si no cometes adulterio, pero matas, ya has violado la ley.” NVI
    “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.” NKJV

    I just finished reading Leviticus today. The law is extensive and very precise. In theory it seems doable but the more I read the more I knew no one would be able to hold up to that standard for long. That was where the sacrifices came in.
    Now, the true sacrifice has been made and the law was fulfilled. You would think it would be easier now to obey the law the gives liberty. But at least in my life, I’ve found it impossible to obey it for long as well. We’re freed from the almost ritualistic and overbearing part of the law and given two simple commands--Love God, and Love your Neighbor--and yet we still cannot live up to that standard.
    Long biblical story short, we are all sinners in need of redemption. I wish to bring glory to the name which saved my life. For now the most practical way I can think to do that is to write another newsletter of the work being done here--one that is long overdue.

The Royal Law

James 2:8    Santiago 2:8
    “Hacen muy bien si de veras cumplen la ley suprema de la Escritura: «Ana a tu prójimo como ti mismo»;” NVI
    “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well;” NKJV

    The thing that strikes me most about this verse is that James calls this the Royal law--the law in authority over all others. When you think of it. If you can get this one law right, then all the other laws pretty much don’t matter. I mean, you’re not going to steal from yourself, covet your own things, have someone cheat on your wife, etc. Even Jesus raised this commandment as only second to “love the Lord your God.”
    The irony is that I already had the application to this verse given to me this morning in prayer and the other day in exhortation. To love someone you have to get to know them, and that is what I need to do. I must love myself a lot because I seem to talk to myself a lot. Therefore, if I’m to love people as I love myself, I have to talk to them too--imagine that.
    My application is to reach out to people more, to the best of my ability.

I do not understand what I do

James 2:6-7    Santiago 2:6-7
    “¡Pero ustedes han menospreciado al pobre! ¿No son los ricos quienes los explotan a ustedes y los arrastran ante los tribunales? ¿No son ellos los que blasfeman el buen nombre de aquel a quien ustedes pertenecen?” NVI
    “But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?” NKJV

    This verse again reminds me of the illogic of sin sometimes. We reject those who are pure of heart because of our prejudice and open our arms to that which will cause us misery. But isn’t that the struggle of the Christian walk? I myself try to reject that word which I know logically to be true and for reasons I cannot comprehend do that which I know will cause me suffering. Why? Why do I, when I know the consequences already, continue to sin like a child with no foresight?
    Paul had the same dilemma. Romans 7:15 says “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
Also verses 19 and 20
    “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (NIV)

    This application may seem a little off topic but it makes sense in my mind. I need to get out of bed in the morning as soon as my alarm goes off and not wait even another five minutes, so that I can get straight into God’s word in the morning.

Culture vs Truth

James 2:5    Santiago 2:5
    “Escuchen, mis queridos hermanos: ¿No ha escogido Dios a los que son pobres según el mundo para que sean ricos in la fe y hereden el reino que prometió a quienes lo aman?
    “Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?”

    Materialism is the most synchronized part of American Christianity. I remember reflecting back a few months ago and being appalled that our church invited Dave Ramsey to speak one night. Dave Ramsey is a powerful speaker on getting out of debt financially--which is a biblical principle. However, his methods of doing so are, unfortunately not biblical. There’s nothing inherently wrong about his methods, but his strategy is to build up treasures on Earth. For the secular would his teachings are wise, the debt in the United States is debilitating and everyone should be striving to avoid it and free themselves from it.
    However, Matthew 6:19 states plainly, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth….” The poor of this world very well could be the ones being obedient to God. Those are the ones who will be rich in the next life--who are we to judge them?
    I need to be more careful of syncretism in my life. I need to make sure that my beliefs are based in the Word and not in the culture I grew up in.

****Update****
Okay, so I do hear, now, that Dave Ramsey does also talk a lot about giving to the Kingdom. That’s not something I had heard from him before, and now I must take back some of what I said and/or implied about his ministry. However I decided not to rewrite this because the application is still something I want to practice.

Tie and Chain

James 2:2-4    Santiago2:2-4
    “Supongamos que en el lugar donde se reúnen entra un hombre con anillo de oro y ropa elegante, y entra también un pobre desharrapado. Si atienden bien al que lleva ropa elegante y le dicen: <<Siéntese usted aquí, en este lugar cómodo>>, pero al pobre le dicen: <<Quédate ahí de pie>> o <<Siéntate en el suelo, a mis pies>>, ¿acaso no hacen discriminación entre ustedes, juzgando con malas intenciones?”
    “For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ and say to the poor man, ‘You stand there,’ or, ‘Sit here at my footstool,’ have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?”

    It is hard for me to imagine this specific scenario happening in a church today. For one thing the poor and the rich are not as easily determined by clothes anymore. Wealth is more often shown in things like cars and the size of a house. And even if social class could be determined that easily, I still can’t imagine the church body responding that way. But what about if one man was dressed neatly with a tie, and another comes in with torn black clothes and gothic make up? Already, I could see the congregation judging him--myself counted among them.
    I need to be careful of all my preconceived notions about people based on how they choose to dress.

Defiled Religion

James 2:1    Santiago 2:1
    “Hermanos míos, la fe que tienen en nuestro glorioso Señor Jesucristo no debe dar lugar a favoritismos.” NVI
    “My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.” NKJV

    In the last verses James was talking about visiting widows and orphans--the outcasts of society. He said by doing this, you are showing pure and undefiled religion, not a religion that is useless. Now he is telling us to avoid partiality in the church, and the context implies in the manner of money. Evidently the church was giving good seats to the rich while degrading the spot of the poor. Perhaps this is the example of a defiled religion. We are to love all of God’s children, and how can we do that if we are blinded by the prejudice of an outcast society?
        Application:
    I need to be more careful of my prejudices. I think the way to start is by practicing the ‘Hope for the Best’ method Pastor G and Margret taught us, not only for people I know but for people that I meet as well.

To Visit Widows and Orphans

James 1:27    Santiago 1:27

    “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

    To visit orphans and widows. This is interesting to me. It doesn’t say to feed the hungry, to give the orphans shelters and the widows a place to lay their head. It mentions nothing of providing for the physical needs of those in trouble. So what does it mean to visit?
    The literal English definition--since I don‘t speak Greek--for the word is this: to go to see and spend time with somebody, especially as an act of affection or friendship. The importance here seems to be way more on relationship and empathy than on getting all of them food and shelter. The command here is to generally care, and to not be afraid of getting your hands dirty by reaching out personally to the outcasts.

    Something else to note about this verse is that you don’t need a lot of money to follow this command. In fact, you don’t need any. The tool of trade is instead a loving heart and a willingness to obey.

    It is interesting to me that in the New King James version of this verse the word “and” is italicized meaning it was not part of the original text; it was added for clarification. But if you take this word out it almost sounds causational.
    “To visit orphans and widows in their trouble to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”
    By genuinely caring for those who are hurting, we, in a way, keep ourselves from being spotted by the world and it’s unhealthy assumptions and ambitions. By relating to and loving our less fortunate brethren we are more easily able to avoid useless materialism and keep ourselves purely focused on what truly matters--Jesus Christ.

    Application:
    I don’t know any widows, but we visit orphans almost every day here. I need to spend more time reaching out to them and loving them even though I only have a very poor grasp of their language.

The Gap

James 1:26    Santiago 1:26
    “Si alguien se cree religioso pero no le pone freno a su lengua, se engaña a sí mismo, y su religión no sirve para nada.” NVI
    “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.” NKJV

    The majority of this passage stems from speaking. In verses 19 and 20 James informs us to be swift to listen, slow to speak, and slow to wrath, and in verse 21 commands us to put aside this wrath and filthiness and receive the implanted word. He then goes on to inform us how to receive that word--by doing it, not only hearing. Now again he returns to his point of concern--our tongues.
    He says that if we think we are religious, and yet do not bridle our tongues, we are not only deceiving ourselves but our religion is useless. He said earlier that we deceive ourselves when we hear the word but do not put it into practice. Right now, the word we are to hear is to be rulers of our tongues.
    I have never agreed with the cliché “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” In my experience this is very far from the truth. The damage caused by words is damaging to a person’s spirit, and is far more harmful than anything that can be done to the physical body. Not only that, but this kind of attack is far more frequent.
    Words are a dangerous and beautiful thing. A teacher of mine once told me of the difficulties of public speaking. He told us that unlike writing, when you speak aloud, your words are ephemeral. They are there for a moment and then they are gone. For that reason we were taught not only to use clear and concise language but to restate and repeat our main points several times so that we would not be misunderstood. I found this hard because I am more of a writer than of a speaker, and I thought for sure I would sound redundant to death--for on paper it was redundant to death. But after listening to my fellow classmates I found that the ones who had taken his advice and repeated themselves several times were the ones that actually made sense to me, while the others mostly did not.
    This is all a very long way of explaining how I learned about the gap. The gap is the space between my lips and your ears--or vice versa. We learned at Potter’s Field that this is present when talking to people of different cultures. Different life assumptions on either end make the gap bigger and more of your meaning is lost. But there was something else that I learned at Potter’s Field that wasn’t in the classroom. This gap--between my assumptions and your assumptions, my thoughts and your thoughts--is the very place the devil likes to slip in the most.
    It is amazing to me that one person can speak something simple to a friend in a joking way in his mind, while that friend is broken down by those same words, taking them as daggers to his heart.
    These gaps have been severely manipulated here in El Salvador. This is the area the devil has attacked us most so far. This is also where Matthew 18:15-17 comes in handy. The more gaps an initial message is passed through (gossip) the further from the truth the devil will bring the final message. That is why the Matthew 18 style of problem solving is so important, and gossip is so detrimental.
    All this is to say that I need to be very careful of my words and speak nothing rashly. I need to be very aware of the gap between my lips and my friend’s ears because the gap between my own mind and my own lips is unusually large. I need to be slow to speak, so that when I do speak, my message is clear and can reach the other side uncorrupted.

Hypocrisy

James 1:22    Santiago 1:22
    “No se contenten sólo con escuchar la palabra, pues así se engañan ustedes mismos.  Llévenla a la práctica.” NVI
    “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” NKJV

    This passage is very convicting and practical as well. The last verse talked about putting off all filthiness and wickedness and instead receiving in meekness the word of God--the thing which can save your soul. But a mere book or word from God cannot save a man’s soul, but it is the act of obedience that brings fourth a relationship. For what relationship is there without trust or respect? Jesus said: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (John 14:15) Furthermore he told the Jews “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.” (John 8:31)
    When James is talking about the implanted word here, I believe he means more than only the fancy book you see Christians carrying around from time to time. But more specifically I believe he’s talking about God’s personal commands for us. Now, where do we generally find these commands? In the God-breathed book we hold to. But it is those personal convictions that it is so important to, after finding out what to do, carry out in the fullest extent--and to do so honestly and with a good heart. This verse is especially convicting for me because I often fail to do my applications for these blogs to the extent that I should. I often look at them as a chore or something that I can check off my list of a million things to get done in order to be a good Christian.
    These are life changing verses, but only if I allow them to change my life. I need to practice more in my obedience in these applications. And I need to be careful to make applications that will actually benefit me. My first step is to redo some of the applications that I know I have failed to complete in honesty.

The Implanted Word of God

James 1:21    Santiago 1:21
    “Por eso, despójense de toda inmundicia y de la maldad que tanto abunda, para que puedan recibir con humildad la palabra sembrada en ustedes, la cual tiene poder para salvarles la vida.” NVI
    “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” NKJV

    It astounds me how logical our faith is sometimes. When you think about a lot of things with a simple mind they just make sense. This verse, for example. We’re commanded to rid ourselves of filth and wickedness and leave our hearts open to receive to word of God. But sometimes those filthy and wicked things seem like a good idea. Sometimes they seem like they will bring fulfillment. Sometimes our flesh just sees sin as so much more attractive than a several hundred year old document.
    But then James ends with undisputable logic. This document (which is so much more than that in reality--nothing less than the living word of God) is the thing which can save our souls. Sin, obviously, cannot.
    Next time I am tempted I will either start reading my bible if I am able, or bow my head in prayer, though my flesh may want to do otherwise.