Scripture: James 4.13-5.6
Translation: 13Come on, now,
those of you who say “Today or tomorrow we’ll go into such and such a city and
we’ll work there for a year and make business deals and profit,” 14you
who don’t know what [will come] of tomorrow, what kind of thing your life is,
because you’re a vapor, the one that appears for a little while, then also
disappears. 15Instead of what you said, [say] “If the Lord would
want, we’ll both live and do this or that.” 16But now you’re
bragging with your arrogant-boasts! All of that kind of bragging is evil! 17So,
for the person who knows to do what’s good and doesn’t do [it], it is sin for
him!
5.1Come on now, you rich people, sob, crying
out because of your miseries that are coming upon [you]! 2Your
riches are in a state of decaying and your clothes are in a state of becoming
eaten-by-moths! 3Your gold and silver has become tarnished and their
corrosion will be a testimony against you! And it will eat your fleshes like
fire! You store up in the last days! 4Look, the paycheck of the
workers who mow your fields, the person being robbed [or perhaps ‘waiting to
get paid’] by you cries out, and the shouts of those who harvest are in a state
of speaking into the ears of the Lord of Armies! 5You lived for
pleasure on the earth and you lived it up, you fed your hearts on a day of
slaughter, 6you found guilty, you murdered the righteous person, he
didn’t position himself against you!
The Point I’m Stressing: We need
to acknowledge that God controls our destinies, not us, and that the same
temptations that pull on rich people to exploit others to satisfy our own
desires and give ourselves the illusion of control are found in our own hearts.
Also, God knows and cares when you have been exploited by others. He will give
you justice if you will ask Him for it. It is a good prayer to pray when we
have experience injustice to ask God to help us to forgive and heal from the
injustice, but also to give us justice and pay our abusers back for their
injustice against us.
Interpretation
1.
Structure
a.
A Call on the Business
Class to Humility
i.
Identification and
Characterization of the addressees: people who act like they know the future
ii.
Identification and
Characterization of the Addressees: people who don’t know the future or the
fragility of their life
1.
Stated bluntly in two
implied questions
2.
Explained with the metaphor
of a vapor or mist that appears and disappears
iii.
Application of the Nature
of Human Life: Humility and Wisdom: If the Lord wants it to happen, it will
happen
iv.
Declaration of the
Addressees current state: Arrogant and Sinful
1.
Identification of their
actions: arrogant boasting
2.
Identification of arrogant
boasting as sin
v.
Conclusion: Blowing of what
was said is sin
b.
A Call on the Rich Class to
Repentance
i.
A call to rich people to
cry about what is happening: Their Stuff is Corroding
1.
Call to cry (perhaps
sarcastic or unsympathetic)
2.
Declaration of the stat of
their wealth
a.
Summary: Their wealth is
decaying
b.
Their clothes are
moth-eaten
c.
Their gold and silver is
tarnished
3.
Explanation of the
corrosion future/current purpose
a.
The Corrosion will be legal
testimony against them
b.
The corrosion will eat
their bodies like fire
ii.
Indictment against Rich
People for Hoarding Wealth
1.
The rich are hoarding
wealth at the when Jesus is soon to return
2.
They are getting their
wealth by financial abuse
a.
The unpaid field workers
are crying out to God against the rich
b.
The unpaid harvest workers
are shouting to God of Armies for help
3.
They are using their wealth
in self-indulgent, unwise ways
a.
They are living a
grotesquely selfish and lavish and wildly-indulgent lifestyle
b.
they are living it up,
glutting themselves at an unwise time: day of slaughter
4.
They are using their riches
or rich status to legally abuse and kill people, who have not done anything to
instigate it
2.
Themes
a.
Humble, Wise Faith showed
in actions
i.
This theme is again the
backdrop of the whole passage
ii.
However, this theme also
appears in 4.17, where James now explains that it is not just what you do that
counts, but what you don’t do too
iii.
The point is it is not just
sin to do bad things, it is sin to not do the good things you know you should
do—doing nothing still counts as doing something, but now that something is not
good
iv.
The backdrop is especially
prevalent also in 5.1-6, where James gives a warning of coming judgment to rich
people who have been doing evil, their actions are not really showing that they
have genuine faith, because they are violating some fundament Christian
outlooks and lifestyles: they don’t act like Jesus will return soon, they steal
from people, they hoard wealth, they are in the party scene, they violate
justice and perhaps even kill people for profit
b.
Arrogance
i.
This is the main issue in
both sections, it is perhaps clearer in the first where the arrogance is
displayed in how the business people are thinking about their lives, like they
are in control of the future, but really God is, so that is some serious pride.
They forget that really they are dependent on God to be successful, not their
own plans, which is not to say that they should be making plans, they should,
but the attitude is one of arrogance and boasting, their actions serve to
aggrandize their own egos and actions, and not the grace of God
ii.
In the second section the
arrogance is not stated explicitly, buy implicitly, because there the rich
people are acting as if Jesus is not coming back soon and as if there is no one
who will ever hold them accountable for their actions, they are so
self-obsessed that they think it is ok for them to abuse people to get they
want, which assumes in their thinking that they are more important or better in
some way, which is why they can and do abuse people, also their use of wealth
indicates that they do not see wealth as a resource to be used to bless others
but solely used for their own selfish indulgences
c.
Fragility of life
i.
The fragility of life,
could be filed under decay or the transience of material things, but it is a
strong theme in the first section, it is this understanding that life is
fragile and its destiny does not lie in our total control
ii.
The fragility of life is
also found in the second section, where the rich have also forgotten that their
lives are fragile, or perhaps deeply know they are and seek to protect
themselves from that fragility with wealth, they also kill and abuse, which
indicates that the human life is fragile even to the actions of other humans.
The prayers of the abused assume an understanding that they are fragile and
dependant on God for their lives and for justice
d.
Humility
i.
The nature of the human
life should bring us to humility before God, where we understand our complete
and total dependence on him
ii.
However, humility should
also bring us to care for others, because with humility in our hearts we can
see that all people are important, not just ourselves. This is the failure
especially of the rich. Humility means that we don’t see people as tools for our
own exploitation, success, or profit
e.
Wisdom
i.
Wisdom appears in the call
on the business class to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and the fragility of
life and the lack of control we have over the future, as well as realizing that
the soon coming of Christ has implications for how we live. Wisdom sees the
implications of our actions and what needs to happen to achieve certain ends,
but it also sees that the things that we see protection in from destruction are
themselves in the process of destruction, wisdom sees that the only place for a
human to hide for safety from death, destruction, corrosion, and sin is in God
ii.
Wisdom also calls us to
change our lifestyles to conform them to God’s desired lifestyle
f.
Wealth
i.
Wealth is the aim of both
sections, in the first section the problem is simply the presumption that we
can control whether we attain it or not
ii.
The second sections problem
is the misuse of wealth and a misunderstanding about the nature of wealth, it
is the attempt to control whether one gets rich or not taken to the extreme
iii.
Wealth is transient, it is
passing away, just like human life, in all its forms it is fragile and subject
to corruption
g.
Decay/Transience of the
Present World
i.
All things decay: human
life and human stuff. The first section is all about how human life passes
away, it decays into nothing,
ii.
The second section is all
about how all the things that humans can own or possess or even use or cling to
will pass away, even the use of the justice system in the present world by the
rich will pass away at the return of Christ, that is, it will no longer be
possible to have false justice or injustice, which is good news for the
oppressed and bad news for the rich, who are using justice for injustice. The
killing of the unantagonistic shows that human life is fragile and that the
future is not sure for anyone
h.
Abuse
i.
The rich people found in
the second section are abusers of people, they exploit people for their own
gain, they steal land from people for their gain, they rob people of justice
for their own gain, and they even take away people’s lives. They also abuse
time and wealth by hoarding and blowing it all on their own addictions and
pleasures
i.
Judgment/justice
i.
Judgment is coming
ii.
That is the implication of
calling a failure to act sin (sin implies coming judgment)
iii.
More clearly, in the second
section, justice is sought by the abused from God,
iv.
However, the theme of
justice and judgment is also implied by the abuse of justice by the rich, they
use judgment and justice systems to exploit and kill people legally
v.
the judgment and justice that will come with
the Return of Christ is revealed by the phrase “in the last days” of 5.3, and
in the phrase “will be a testimony against you” and “eat your fleshes/bodies
like fire” and the threat of “Lord of Armies” and the phrase “on a day of
slaughter” The point is Jesus is coming back to judge and bring punishment
j.
The Soon Return of Christ
i.
The phrase “last days”
implies that the Jesus is coming soon, so the time we are living in are the
last days of the earth.
ii.
All the threats of judgment
against the rich are also assumed implicitly to be coming with the return of
the Messiah, which is strengthen by the greek translation “Lord of Armies” for
the Hebrew “Yahweh of Armies” in the OT, a phrase that is associated with the
Yahweh’s Judgment Day, when He comes to settle the score for his people, for
all those who seek Him for justice and trust in Him, but also for those who are
merely human. Yahweh promises to settle the score between even pagan nations
who don’t even worship Him who have abused or been abused by other nations.
iii.
The “day of slaughter” is
also a clear reference to the Day when Yahweh comes to judge people with a
sword, i.e. kill the bad people and give out true justice
k.
Sovereignty of God
i.
The Whole first section is
dealing with the issue of people who are acting as if it is not God Who is
truly in control of all that happens
ii.
The second section deals
with people who think that God does not really have the power to either provide
what is needed or to judge the wicked, with people who are trying by whatever
means necessary to be in control of their own lives, while truly only God has
that kind of control
l.
Prayer
i.
The theme of prayer has
percolated in the book of James a few times, in the opening where we are instructed
to ask God for wisdom without doubting He will give it, in ch.3 where blessings
are said to come from our tongue to God, and in 4.2-3 where James indicts us
for not asking from God and asking from Him for evil and selfish reasons
ii.
Here in 5.4 prayer is shown
to be legitimate for asking God for Justice, it is surely in our self interest
to have justice, but that desire is good, God doesn’t answer prayers that we
pray so that we can have stuff to blow and enjoy an ungodly lifestyle, but He
does answer self focused prayers that come out of our needs and pains
iii.
God will answer prayers for
justice, that is what all of 5.4-6 is predicated upon. James writes with the
assumption that God will hear the prayers of the people being abused and
exploited by the rich, which serves to threaten the rich with punishment if
they don’t repent, but also serves to encourage those who are abused and
exploited that God will soon give them justice and relief from oppression
3.
Doctrines
a.
Real Faith Proves Itself By
What We Do
b.
Wisdom is a key part of the
Christian Life
c.
Humility is a Key part of
the Christian Life
d.
Jesus is Coming Back Soon
e.
Judgment is Coming for
Unrepentant Sinners
f.
Earthly Things are
Temporary
g.
Being Rich is Not Wrong,
but Getting and Using Riches in an Ungodly Way Is
h.
God is Absolutely Sovereign
Applications
1.
The temptation to think we
are in control of our own lives is an illusion, actually God is in control, so
we need to have a humble attitude about our plans and entrust God make what He
wants to have happen happen regardless of our plans
2.
We need to recognize that
our own hearts want us to use temporary stuff to protect us from being out of
control, but the truth is those things are just as temporary as we are, so they
cannot help us stay in control, that is God’s prerogative.
3.
Pray and ask God for
forgiveness for the times that you have used people as tools to satisfy your
own wants and protect your sense of control
4.
Pray and ask God to avenge
you, to give you justice for the times that people have abused you, used you,
or treated you in a way that didn’t give you the respect and honor you were
given by God. People may have verbally abused you, physically abused you,
sexually abused, manipulated you, made fun of you, lied about you, lied to you,
or other injustices and God wants to give you justice for all those things, so
just ask Him for justice and He will give it. But don’t take justice into your
own hands and try to make that person/people pay for what they did, or refuse to
forgive them, instead forgive them and trust God to settle the score.
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