A Faith that Works Doesn't Discriminate (James 2.1-13)

Scripture: James 2.1-13

Translation: ^2.1My brothers, don’t hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with partialities. ²For if a man with gold fingers would come into your synagogue in shining-white clothes, but also a poor man would come in filthy clothes, ³And you would look on the one wearing the shining-white clothes and would say, “You, sit here in a good spot” and to the poor man you would say “You stand or sit there under my footrest.” ⁴Then aren’t you being discriminated among yourselves and haven’t you become judges of with wicked thought-processes? ⁵Listen up, my loved brothers, didn’t God pick for Himself the poor in/with regard to the world as rich in faith and inheritors of the kingdom, which He promised to those who love Him? ⁶But you yourselves dishonor the poor person! Aren’t the rich people exploiting you and aren’t they themselves dragging you into court? ⁷Aren’t they blaspheming the Good Name that was called on us? ⁸If, however, you fulfill royal law according to the Scripture: “You will love your neighbor as yourself,” you act in a good way. ⁹But if you act with partiality, you commit sin, being exposed by the Law as violators, ¹⁰because whoever would keep the whole law, but would trip up on one part, he is in a state of having become guilty of all of them! ¹¹For the one who says, “You will not commit adultery” also said “You will not murder.” And if you don’t commit adultery, but you do murder, you are in the state of having become a violator of the Law. ¹²So speak in this way and act in this way: as those who are about to be judged through the law of freedom! ¹³For the judgment was merciless against the one not showing mercy! Mercy boasts against judgment!

The Point I’m Stressing: We need to love absolutely everyone else so much that we don’t show favoritism to some and/or discriminate against others, if we truly have living faith that works!

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       Section One: NO Partialities/Discrimination (vv.1-4)

                                                              i.      Instruction: Don’t show partiality/discriminate

                                                            ii.      Example: giving the rich man a good seat and the poor man no seat

                                                          iii.      Implication: You’re discriminating and judging with wicked reasoning

b.      Section Two: Rhetorical Questions to Show the Foolishness of Partiality/Discrimination (vv.5-7)

                                                              i.      Question: God picked poor people to have faith and inheritance in the Kingdom

                                                            ii.      Exclamation: You dishonor the poor person

                                                          iii.      Question: The rich people are the ones cause you trouble?

                                                          iv.      Question: The rich people are the ones blaspheming the name given to us

c.       Section Three: Partiality/Discrimination in Light of Scripture, Answering the Objection “We don’t do the really bad stuff, or other bad stuff, just this, so it’s no big deal” (vv.8-13)

                                                              i.      Positive Statement of the Thesis: If you do what the Bible says, you do what’s good.

                                                            ii.      Negative Statement of the Thesis: If you don’t do what the Bible says, you’ve broken the Scriptural Law

                                                          iii.      Explanation: You can keep part of a law and say I’ve kept the law: the Law is a whole

                                                          iv.      Example: You can’t say “I keep the law, I don’t commit adultery,” if you’ve killed someone, because that’s part of the law too

                                                            v.      Resolution: Act like you are about to be judged by the Law of Freedom (that is, our new relationship to the Scriptural Law in Christ), i.e. quit discriminating

                                                          vi.      Motivation: You’ll get no mercy if you don’t give any, but mercy is better and beats judgment (so don’t fear judgment if God has shown you mercy, which means you will be showing mercy to others)

2.      Themes

a.       Partiality/Discrimination

                                                              i.      This is the main theme of the passage.

                                                            ii.      Key words

1.      προσωπολημψια = partiality, favoritism, (v.1)

2.      προσωπολψμπτεω = to play favorites, show partiality (v.9)

3.      διακρινω = to discriminate, make distinctions (v.4)

                                                          iii.      the issue here in showing partiality is treating one group of people or one person better than others, giving them especially better treatment, but often to the detriment of or at the expense of the other group(s).

                                                          iv.      this is something that can creep into our faith, and it is possible to be a Christian and slip into this, but we must seek not to let it creep in. in fact, we cannot hold on tightly to our faith and hold on to partiality, in part because that partiality is conferred most often out of a lack of faith in God. In the example James uses, the reason that one would suck up to the rich guy and give him extra respect is in part due to his likely high status in the society, but often also out of a fear of what he could do or a need of his financial support. Thus, at the heart, we would be pulled away from equality and love towards one another mainly because we don’t trust God to either protect or provide for us or give us what is best for us.

                                                            v.      At the heart of discrimination, is judging one person or group to be different or distinct from the others, even more it is judging one person or group or class of people as better than others, and thus also one group as worse or unimportant

                                                          vi.      So while partiality focuses on the increased status and honor given to one group, discrimination looks more at how the groups are treated differently, but really they are talking about the same thing

                                                        vii.      The author calls partiality/discrimination sin that violates the command to love our neighbor like we love ourselves, so really at the heart of partiality and discrimination is not just a lack of faith, but a lack of love, a failure to love others as much as we love ourselves. And since that principle applies to every other person equally, we can’t be extra loving to one guy and unloving to another guy

b.      Rich vs. poor

                                                              i.      This is a theme that runs through the book, it was introduced in chapter 1, and here it pops back up as the main area in which the partiality and discrimination was taking place, people in the churches James is writing to seem to have been favoring the rich people and dishonoring the poor people.

                                                            ii.      This may have been just in how they were treating them when gathering for worship, but it also may have been happening when they were gathering to adjudicate disputes (it seems that there is a lot of evidence on both sides, but in both cases it would be a gathering of the church, which I think is the core issue: how are Christians treating each other when they gather)

                                                          iii.      The author explains that God has picked the poor to be rich in faith but poor as far as the world is concerned. But He picked them not just to be rich in faith (which seems to mean that He picked them to be the people who would be forced to, or more practiced at, or more given to trusting Him more and more, so that they would be the people who have LOTS of faith), but to be rich in the future, which is the implication of inheritors of the kingdom, because inheriting the kingdom will mean inheriting eternal life, but also all the riches that come with that kingdom, and those riches will never end. The end result is that the poor are actually the people who are the most rich, because they are rich now in faith, and will be rich later in the kingdom.

                                                          iv.      The characterization of the wicked however is that they are exploitive, litigious, and blasphemous. Whether the rich in view are Christians or not is debatable, but perhaps not, it may be that the churches who were so poor were trying to suck up to the rich people, so they might convert and the Christians be better off, but it may also be that they are rich Christians that they are trying to convince to finance something, and they may be doing this by the way they are treating them in these adjudication meetings

c.       Wisdom

                                                              i.      While the word wisdom is not used here, the argumentation style in vv.5-7, especially 6-7, is very similar to something you would see in the Book of Proverbs or other wisdom books. The point is that it is not very wise to favor the rich and dishonor the poor, because God actually favors the poor, and the rich often dishonor the poor and God, because God values and chose the poor

                                                            ii.      Also, favoring the rich doesn’t make much sense, especially at adjudication meetings, because it is the rich who are the ones usually making trouble for people and Christians, it is usually the rich who exploit people, not the poor, and it is usually the rich who drag people to court, not the poor, and it is usually the rich who mock Christ and Christians

                                                          iii.      It’s just stupid to favor the rich people if they are usually the source of your problems

d.      Law

                                                              i.      James says the heart of the problem of partiality/discrimination is that it violates the command to love our neighbors as ourselves.

                                                            ii.      James also makes the point that it is not valid to defend one’s violation of the Law of Moses by saying that you’ve kept another part. He really argues on the basis that the Law in the Old Testament (Genesis through Deuteronomy) is a whole. His argument only works if all the sections are connected. So if you break one part, you’ve become guilty of breaking the whole thing. it’s like if you break link on the bike chain, you’ve broke the bike chain as a whole, not just one link. Since you’ve violated the thing as a whole, it’s almost like you violated all of the commands

e.       Judging

                                                              i.      The idea comes in key words διακρινω (v.4), κριτηρια (v.6), κρινω (v.12), and κρισις (v.13[2x])

                                                            ii.      Discrimination is one form of judging, and it may be form of withholding mercy from people

                                                          iii.      And it may be in the judicial realm that some of the discriminating judging takes place.

                                                          iv.      The judging will also come at the end of time when God will evaluate our actions

                                                            v.      judging is powerful, but it is not as good as mercy

                                                          vi.      judging in the sense of evaluating the true nature of things also seems to occur now, we are right now able to be evaluated by the Scripture, and the rest of chapter two indicates that we can be evaluated now on how alive our faith is bases on how full it is with the works that Scripture requires

f.       Actions

                                                              i.      Faith and actions go hand in hand

                                                            ii.      This theme is sort like the glue that holds a lot of this section together, or more accurately the understanding that what we do actually matters is the foundation that a lot of this is built off of

                                                          iii.      How we treat people matters

                                                          iv.      We will be evaluated one day based off what we do and have done and what we don’t do and haven’t done

                                                            v.      We can also evaluate ourselves based off how we are acting and what our actions are saying, and these can give us an indication of how alive our faith really is.

                                                          vi.      This theme of actions is related to faith in 2.14-26

3.      Doctrines

a.       The Final Judgment: One Day God will evaluate us on what we have done and not done to determine the amount of rewards we will get if we have trusted in Christ

b.      Salvation by Faith alone, but faith that flows out to the appropriate actions, trying to hold faith in Christ Jesus together with ungodly actions should be done and doesn’t work

c.       The Church is not a place of favoritism/partiality or discrimination, but of genuine love for absolutely everyone, and a love for everyone that even goes beyond other Christians to other people in general

d.      God Absolutely Sovereign, in total control of absolutely everything, including how much faith people have and how they get that faith and the general circumstances of our lives

e.       The Law is One Complete Entity, it is not divisible, so it must be obeyed in full, but our relationship to the Law is one of freedom, where Jesus has done all the Law wants for us and has empowered us by His Holy Spirit to naturally and more easily live out the core message of the Law, so that it can be for us not a Law of slavery to rules, but a Law of Freedom to live for God

4.      Notes

a.       How can God be the God of Antidiscrimination/Favoritism and save by Grace, which is at the core of things, Him favoring some people and not others?

                                                              i.      God doesn’t discriminate or show favoritism, which is actually why Jesus had to die for our sins, because otherwise God would have to give us what we deserve,

                                                            ii.      but He also shows that He is not the God of Discrimination or favoritism in that the access we have to Him in Christ by the Holy Spirit is not by means of any superior value in us or what we do, but by faith in Christ by the Spirit according to His Will.

                                                          iii.      Of course, the irony is that God doesn’t play favorites based on our works or discrepancy of value, precisely so that He can play favorites for the people He loves without Discrimination, the people He loves because He loves them and not because they are better than others or can do more for God than others.

                                                          iv.      How direct is His Grace! He loved us because He loved us

                                                            v.      because He created us, each person could be whatever He wanted them to be, He chose our destinies, so there can be no discrimination, only Grace, only pure and loving favoritism (because God made some people to love and some to not love as much, but the decision was made by Him and His Love, not on any distinction in persons, because we didn’t yet exist, and He could make each person for whatever purpose He wanted)

                                                          vi.      also, note when God plays favorites it is different from when we do it. We do it based on outside criteria, and what people can do to us or for us. We think this person is better or worse, but God says, “This person isn’t better than another, but I do love him/her!”

                                                        vii.      also, if God had discriminated against us, He wouldn’t have sent His son, because none of us would have been good enough to deserve to have Jesus die for us!

Applications

1.      Bluntly stated the main point of the passage is that for us who truly trust in Christ for eternal life, there must be no discrimination:

a.       No Ethnic/Racial Discrimination

b.      No Cultural Discrimination

c.       No Generational Discrimination

d.      No Lingual Discrimination

e.       No Intellectual Discrimination

f.       No Discrimination based on the kinds of sins people struggle with

g.      No Socio-Economic Discrimination

2.      Often times the people we favor are the ones who cause us the most trouble, not the people we devalue, disfavor, or dislike

3.      The end point is that we truly and fully love people

a.       This means that we can’t be arrogant or selfish with the Gospel, because keeping it to ourselves is actually a way of saying, they are not important enough to give it, they aren’t worth suffering for.

b.      This includes how we treat our parents, spouses, children, etc.

                                                              i.      We can discriminate against our parents by not showing love to our parents, which is in the same vein as discriminating against the poor, only worse because they are our parents

4.      The tendency in our personal relationships is to discriminate against the person, to say like that we are better than them with our actions. This is especially true with people we don’t know well, but also with our friends and family, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, but this often happens in ways that aren’t obvious

5.      Do we give justice to people?

a.       When there is an issue between people, do we side with the one we want to like us or the people that can help us do something?

b.      Are we fair to each other in general?

6.      Sometimes we discriminate inadvertently, no because we have the wrong attitude or aren’t pursuing to integrate people into our community and love people, but because we don't know ourselves well enough, and so we are blind to certain areas and impressions and barriers that could be there that we can’t see. So we must too at ourselves and know the impression we would give off and compensate, which doesn’t always mean changing those features (sometimes they can’t be changed), but it does mean working against their effects when necessary.

a.       For example, I know a church that is full of very smart people, who are loving and seek to integrate people in general, but what if someone came to that church who hadn’t finished high school. That person might feel very uncomfortable when surrounded by all those people who are in college or finished with college. The church wouldn’t mean to discriminate that person who didn’t finish high school, but they might do so in effect, because all the members will assume the person finished high school and they may not know what to talk about with that person. If they talk about all that they are learning or achieving academically, how do you think that will make that visitor feel? 

Faith that Works Works Like This (James 1)

Scripture: James 1.1-27

Translation: ^1.1Jacob/James, God’s and the Lord Jesus Christ’s slave

To the twelve tribes, the ones in the Diaspora

Hello.

²Consider [it] total happiness, my brothers, whenever you stumble upon different kinds of testings, ³because you know that the testing-designed-to-prove-the-authenticity*** of your faith produces endurance. ⁴And the endurance had better have its complete work, so that you can be complete and whole, lacking in nothing. ⁵But if one of you lacks wisdom, he had better ask from the God Who gives to all generously and Who doesn’t mock, and it will be given to him. ⁶But he had better ask in faith, doubting nothing, because the person who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is blown and thrown around. ⁷Indeed, that human had better not expect that he will get anything from the Lord, ⁸a man doubting and unstable in all his ways.

⁹And the lowly brother had better brag about his high position. ¹⁰And the rich one in his lowly position, because like a flower of grass he passes away. ¹¹For the sun rises with the heat and dries up the grass and its flower falls off and the beauty of its face is destroyed, so too the rich [brother] fades during his travels.

¹²Blessed is the man who endures testing, because after he has become proven-authentic-by-testing he will receive the crown of life, which He promised to those who love Him! ¹³No one who is being tested had better say that “by God I’m being tempted!” because God is untemptable by evil things, and He tempts no one. ¹⁴Rather each person is tempted by their own desire, being dragged away and lured. ¹⁵Then the desire gives having conceived gives birth to sin, and the sin when brought to completion gives birth to death.

¹⁶Don’t be tricked, my loved brothers! ¹⁷every good giving and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of lights, concerning Whom there is no variation or shadow of change. ¹⁸Because He decided to, He gave birth to us by the message of truth, so that we would be a firstfruits, one of His created things.

¹⁹Know [this] my loved brothers, and every man had better be fast when it comes to listening, slow when it comes to speaking, slow when it comes to anger, ²⁰because anger from a man does not accomplish God’s righteousness. ²¹So, because you’ve put off all dirtiness and an abundance of badness in humility, take the implanted message, the one able to save your lives!

²²And become doers of the message and not only hearers, thereby deceiving yourselves, ²³because if someone is a hearer of the message and not a doer, this person is like a man who studies the face of his existence in a mirror, ²⁴because he studies himself and goes out and immediately forgets what he’s like. ²⁵But the person who looks into the perfect law, the one of freedom and who continues, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but an action taker—this one will be blessed in his doing. ²⁶If someone seems to be worshipful who doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, the worship of this guy is empty. ²⁷Worship that is clean and undefiled before the God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their suffering, to keep oneself untainted by the world.

The Point I’m Stressing: James discusses three main two-part areas where a faith that works has an impact: 1) our response to trials, difficult times, and pain and our response to temptation; 2) How we Interact with God in Prayer (do we pray with faith) and His Word (do we do it); and 3) How do we think about our socio-economic status, and how do we act towards those with low socio-economic status who need help. But James also weaves in the wisdom thread into those three main points, which asks us do we seek to live wisely?

  

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       Epistolary Opening (i.e. who wrote to who and greetings)

b.      Proper Attitude Towards Testing

c.       Proper Attitude Towards Prayer for Wisdom

d.      Proper Attitude Towards Social/Financial Ranking as it Relates to the Christian Community

e.       Proper Attitude Towards Temptation

f.       Proper Attitude Towards The Message which contains instruction for Wisdom

g.      Proper Attitude Towards the underprivileged and practiced wisdom

2.      Themes

a.       Testing/Temptation

                                                              i.      Testing (πειρασμος)

1.      This element of theme opens the book, v.2, it focuses on the part of the idea (testing and temptation are two sides of the same coin, depending on the perspective under consideration. This side of the coin view the event of testing as something that people experience that proves the quality of their faith and that produces greater maturity, while the opposite side of the coin is the pull by an experience towards sin, and it can be the same experience that is designed to prove the quality of our faith and generate greater maturity)

2.      It then appears at the second cycle in v.12 and is connected with the theme of life and endurance again

                                                            ii.      Temptation (πειραζω, απειραστος)

1.      Vv.13-14 really talk about how we are pulled towards sin, and this is a test of our character,

2.      V.13b indicates that the tempting side of a given event or opportunity or situation is not something that God is subject to, and does not try to get people sin, because His nature is violently opposed to that, so He does not try to ingrain into our nature a susceptibility to temptation, but the opposite. Remember for us the inverse of temptation is the testing, God is seeking to authenticate our faith, not trying to pull us into sin, and while in one sense it does come from God, the problem is with us, so we should not try to put God on the hook for our sin, moreover it is only someone who has a view of God’s absolute sovereignty that can accuse God of being the reason we sin,

                                                          iii.      Authentication testing (δοκιμιον, δοκιμος)

1.      This is the clear aim and goal of the testing/temptation: authenticating our faith and giving us an authenticated nature, proven character, which has the end result of affirming that we really have real faith, which proves us qualified in Christ for eternal life

2.      That this is a good and perfect gift from God is made clear by the way it is talked about in v.2-4 and what it means for the person who has in v.12 and by the fact that the inverse to seeing temptation as God’s fault and something really evil is recognizing that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift (so temptation is not from Him, but testing and all that it is meant to produce is) and that it is strongly thereby connected to the message of truth (vv.16-18).

b.      Faith

                                                              i.      The word pops up in v.3 indicating that testing is for the sake our faith

                                                            ii.      In v.6 where the word faith is found, we see that it is the way we need to be asking for things from God, and this theme is reinforced by the antithesis to it, doubt. Doubt is the opposite of faith and indeed this also indicates that testing is designed to prove that our faith is firm

                                                          iii.      In v.12, it is found implicitly by the mention that God has promised life to the person who’s faith is proven by testing, and interestingly it is connected powerfully to love, a tested faith is intimately connected to loving God, the things reinforce each other, and in some ways are different ways of talking about the same thing.

                                                          iv.      Also our faith in God via the message is credited to God as His action, which suggests to us that faith is a gift from God, the message was the way God made us His children,

                                                            v.      In v.21 it is the means by which we take the message that has the power to save our lives

                                                          vi.      In v.22ff it is worked out by what we do

                                                        vii.      Implicitly, it is what comes with our worship in vv.26-27 that is worked out

c.       The Needy

                                                              i.      They appear as the poor people in contrast to the rich in vv.9-11, where they are given respect by God when not given respect by others

                                                            ii.      In v.27, they appear again as the orphans and widows who suffer and need the support and care of Christians, which constitutes a core part of our worship to God

                                                          iii.      This will be a major theme in the book

d.      The message

                                                              i.      It pops up in vv.18, 21, 22, 23, 25(implicitly by means of law)

                                                            ii.      It is qualified as truth and as powerful to save our lives and as something that must be practiced and not just heard, and of course it is appropriated and lived out by faith

e.       Wisdom

                                                              i.      This is what is needed and requested in v.5, but the “slow to speak and get angry, and quick to listen” constitute some common wisdom ideas and are phrased that way to some degree. The trifecta will be developed more fully later

                                                            ii.      To some extent most of the instruction in this passage has shades of the wisdom genre, from the discussion of rich vs. poor, temptation and how to live out the faith in worship that works

f.       Actions/living out our faith

                                                              i.      As in ch.2 two, actions, living out the faith is critical, it is the basis of the need for the instruction. It is the context of testing/temptation, it is at work in prayer, it is at work in how we see ourselves, it is connected to moral actions in our own person and towards others, and is the blunt focus of vv.22-25, and in vv.26-27 we have it at the core of what worship is

                                                            ii.      It is achieved in how we act in the above areas, in our attitudes and actions, towards God, ourselves, and others

g.      Life

                                                              i.      Threaded through out is the recognition that faith is connected to life, or more specifically the reception of the message in faith and the proving of our faith—proving our faith shows that we are qualified to receive the crown of life, that is eternal life with God, and receiving the message in faith is what saves our lives. Thus, salvation is by faith in God according to the message He has revealed, and received when by enduring into death in faith we prove that we had faith and are given the life that comes with it

                                                            ii.      The theme is also highlighted by its inverse death, which is the end result of a sin and is what rich men face as well (no security is conferred by riches)

                                                          iii.      Also the mention of first fruits implies life, and the birthing metaphors imply it as well

                                                          iv.      Lastly it is also suggest by the concern that we have for the lives of others, for their suffering.

h.      Worship

                                                              i.      This is what we are all about in a lot of ways

                                                            ii.      It is shown here has not merely words said, or things believed, but as things done

                                                          iii.      In fact, the reality of worship is only proven in us when we have the other actions to back it up, just being in church or doing Christiany things doesn’t prove it,

3.      Doctrines

a.       Trusting God

b.      Living out the faith

c.       Total Depravity of Man (we are completely corrupted by sin)

d.      Perseverance of the Saints: faith must last and it must work, but if it does it means we have eternal life by grace from God

e.       The message of the Gospel contained in God’s Word is the means by which God saves souls

f.       Moral purity is core to the Christian lifestyle

g.      Concern for others is a core to the Christian lifestyle

h.      How we speak is a core feature of living out our faith

i.        Prayer must be done in faith

j.        Immutability of God

k.      God as Untemptable by Evil and the Source of All Good and Gifts

Applications

1.      There is always a choice set in front of us when it comes to difficult event, or opportunity for a course of action in our lives, if we approach the event from one perspective we see it as something to endure or resist that by doing so will prove our faith authentic and develop greater Godliness and Christian maturity in us, or if we see it as something to be indulged because of our desires, something that we don’t want to resist, as something that is really hard not to do because our own interests or feelings or desires wants/needs, then we see that difficult event or opportunity as temptation. When we are in that opportunity to either endure or give in, we have two paths. One path will lead to greater Christian maturity and eternal life. That is the road of endurance, of refusing to give in to what we would want but would be sinful to do or not do. The other path in front of us when we have an opportunity to sin will to indulge our desires, which will lead to sin, which will lead to death (that is hell). One area that is especially true of is our desires for sexual expression or arousal, what is commonly called “lust” in Christian circles. Now, many have the false impression that “lust” is a guys only problem, but I don’t think that’s true. Rather it is a guys and girls problem, for you it is especially a problem because your hormones are going crazy and your desires are primed and for much of your life before puberty they were mostly dormant, but now sexual desires have been awakened in you, all of you guys and girls. And in fact, all of us have gone through that. And in the right context, sexual desires are a good thing, a gift from God, but in the improper context and directed at inappropriate people and times, sexual desires are sin, heinous sin, still forgivable, but not minor in any way. And the truth is all of us here face those desires to one degree or another, and just because those desires don’t always take the same form or manifest themselves in the same ways, does not mean that the choice to either indulge them or refuse them until the we are in the proper time and directing them at the proper person is not in front of all of us. Guys say and think different kinds of things than girls do sometimes, but that doesn’t make girls lust not lust or guys lust not lust. We are not supposed to say “my lust looks different from other people’s, so it is not really lust” rather we need to be honest and say “my lust is lust and its evil, Lord, forgive me and empower me to resist, I want the blessing of maturity and closer relationship with you that comes when I endure testing, authenticate my faith, and deny the tempting desires their gratification!” and to be honest, although guys sometimes lie to themselves about whether they were really lusting or not, my experience has been that it is the girls who say “what I was doing was not lusting”

Faith Without Works Doesn't Work (James 2.14-26)

Scripture: James 2.14-26

Translation: ¹⁴What is the benefit/what good does it do, my brothers, if someone would say he had faith, but wouldn’t have actions? That kind of faith can’t save him, can it? ¹⁵If a brother or sister really were naked and in need of their daily food, ¹⁶but anyone of you would say to them, “Go peace, warm yourselves up and feed yourselves until you’re full,” but you all wouldn’t give them the things the body needs, what good is it? ¹⁷So too the faith, if he wouldn’t have actions, is dead by definition.

¹⁸But someone will say you have faith, and I have actions. Prove to me your faith without actions, and I will prove to you the faith from my actions! ¹⁹You believe that God is One, good job, even the demons believe [that] and so they shake in fear! ²⁰But do you want to know, o empty man, that the faith without actions is useless/inactive/doesn’t work! ²¹Wasn’t Abraham our father proved righteous by actions by offering up Isaac his son on the altar? ²²You see that the faith acts together with his actions and by the actions the faith was made complete. ²³And the scripture was fulfilled that says “And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness and he was called God’s friend. ²⁴See that by actions a man proved righteous and by faith alone! ²⁵But also in the same way wasn’t Rahab the prostitute by actions proved righteous by welcoming the messenger as guests and sending them out on another road? ²⁶For just as the body without a spirit is dead, so too the faith without actions is dead!

The Point I’m Stressing: A faith that doesn’t work doesn’t work. Real faith takes actions that prove their faith in God, fake faith thinks that someone can believe in God, but not live for God!

Interpretation

1.      Structure

a.       Hypothetical statements/Statement of the Thesis

                                                              i.      Thesis: It doesn't do any good to believe the right stuff if it doesn’t lead to you doing the right stuff

                                                            ii.      Analogy (perhaps related to how James wants their faith to work itself out): It doesn’t do any good if someone is starving and cold, and you just say eat something and feel better but don’t actually give them some clothes or food; concern for others results in actions, if it doesn’t it is not real concern

                                                          iii.      Thesis Reasserted: Faith without Actions is dead by definition!

b.      Answering Objections by Appealing to Scripture

                                                              i.      Answering the first objection:

1.      Objection: I just need to believe the right things

2.      Answer: There’s no proof of your faith without actions, even demons know what the truth is and respond in fear, but that doesn’t count as saving faith

                                                            ii.      Answering the second objection

1.      Objection: I do I know that faith without is useless

2.      Answer: 1) When Abraham sacrificed his son on the altar, he was proven righteous, which was a fulfillment of when he was considered righteous by faith; 2) Rahab was proven righteous when she offered hospitality to the spies and sent them away safely; 3) faith and works is like a body and a soul, if you don’t have a soul, you’re body is dead.

                                                          iii.      Thesis Reasserted: Thus, faith without actions is dead

2.      Themes

a.       Faith [πιστις] (vv.14[2x], 17, 18[3x], 19[2x πιστευειν], 20, 22[2x], 23[πιστευειν], 24, 26)

                                                              i.      This is part 1 of the main theme of the passage. In all but 2 of the instances (v.14 and v.23), faith is collocated in the same clause or sentence with actions.

                                                            ii.      The author is really stressing that you can’t have faith without actions coming with it, it always results in a person doing something because of what they believe. However, the author is not saying that faith in unimportant or unnecessary. No, he sees it as absolutely vital, and that is why he is so concerned that it results in actions, because that is how one knows if the faith is real or not

b.      Actions [εργα] (vv.14, 17, 18[3x], 19[ποιεις], 20, 21, 22[2x], 24, 25, 26)

                                                              i.      This is part 2 of the main theme of the passage. In all but 2 of the instances (v.21 and v.25), it is used with faith being mentioned in the same clause or sentence.

                                                            ii.      The author is really focusing on the need of a person to act out their faith in their actions. Actions are vital to real faith, if they are missing then the faith is likely not genuine

c.       Dead/Inactive

                                                              i.      Dead (νεκρος) occurs 3 times at key junctures (vv.17, 26[2x]), which is used in the formula: something – something is dead

                                                            ii.      Inactive/not-working occurs only once, but in the middle of the passage and in the same collocation used for dead (v.20), thus, it explains the key feature of death that is important to understand, namely that faith without works like a body without a soul doesn’t do anything, its inactive, and as a concept doesn’t work,

                                                          iii.      but the point of dead is that in the same way that a dead body does not any longer constitute a person, so too faith without works does not constitute faith

                                                          iv.      one needs to remember that the common New Testament understanding is that faith is integrally connected to having eternal life, so saying that the faith that doesn’t do anything is dead is saying that it is not the faith that the New Testament is talking about, it is the kind of faith that will not result in the life of the person who has it, but the eternal death of that person, which is what the open verse suggests “can that kind of faith save him?” NO, is the implied answer, and so the sense in which faith is dead is that it is not real faith that leads to real life, rather it is a faith that doesn’t work and doesn’t count as real faith, and so it results in the death of the person who has that, which is why James is so concerned

d.      Saying

                                                              i.      Much of the passage is structured or moves via dialogue or speaking, which foreshadows where the author will go in the verses following after the present passage

                                                            ii.      It appears in v.14, 16, and 18

e.       Examples/Analogies

                                                              i.      The author uses examples and analogies to argue his case

                                                            ii.      Analogy to Christian who sees another Christian in need and does nothing as an analogy of a faith that lacks the needed actions, and as an analogous example of a something that does not result in the kind of actions that it should, such that however much that something may be claimed by someone, it clearly doesn’t mean anything or count as anything:

                                                          iii.      Analogy/example of a group that believes the right stuff, but clearly are opposed to God and won’t be saved, even though they may have some appropriate fear of God (which may be implicitly saying that James’ readers don’t even have that much, i.e. they are not as good as demons in their actions in response to what they believe)

                                                          iv.      Example of Abraham who trusted God and proved that trust and the righteousness that comes with it by what he did

                                                            v.      Example of Rahab who trusted God and proved that trust and the righteousness that comes with it by what she did

                                                          vi.      Analogy to a body without a soul as an example of something that is dead without a critical component, which is analogy to faith that doesn’t have its critical component, actions.

f.       Argument with Hypothetical Dissenter

                                                              i.      This is part of the structuring of the passage

                                                            ii.      Two times this occurs is in v.18ff and v.20ff, such that James seeks to answer the objections, however, it should be noted that it is very difficult to see where the quote of the objector in v.18 ends, it could run all the way through v.19, or it could only include the “you have faith and I have works” line, or it could end at the end of v.18, but I have decided after a lot of praying and thinking that James is answering the objection from his own perspective, so that the “you have faith” actually is what the dissenter is saying, so that from his perspective the statement is “I have faith, and you have works”

g.      Proof

                                                              i.      This is the underlying theme of the passage, because the examples and analogies relate to whether there is really proof of something being in someone’s life, so in the example of a Christian who doesn’t care for other hungry and naked Christians, there is no proof that the Christian really cares about his fellow Christians, and Abraham and Rahab both relate to people who proved their faith/righteousness-by-faith by means of their actions

                                                            ii.      However, James also uses the word for proving twice in v.18, where he challenges the person who thinks they can have faith without actions to prove their faith without actions (which he rightly understands they will try to do by saying what they believe, but he rightly counters that such knowledge or conviction won’t save demons), but says that he will use actions to prove it, such that actions are almost more telling that right doctrine, but that does not mean believing the right things is not important, but that it is not enough proof on its own

h.      Righteousness

                                                              i.      The section of vv.20-26 interweaves the concepts of righteousness and faith, such that the author actually assumes an understanding of justification by faith alone, so that faith in God = the status of righteousness, but that that status and the faith that is tied to it is proven by what the person does

                                                            ii.      So tight is this assumption that James does not mention the faith of Rahab, but says she was proven to be in that state of righteousness that comes from faith

                                                          iii.      Hence the same faith that results in a righteous status before God, results also in right actions before God and mankind.

3.      Key Doctrines

a.       Justification by Faith Alone

b.      Proof/Assurance of Justification by faith/true Faith by Actions

c.       True Faith Results in Actions

d.      Unity of God: There is One God/God is One

4.      Notes

a.       In v.20, note how James defines the kind of faith that is without actions as useless/inaction/not doing anything: η πιστις χωρις των εργων αργη εστιν. Useless actually is a contraction of α + εργος = not active, but the word clearly means more than just that it doesn’t work, but that it doesn’t work, as in the idea doesn’t work, it’s logic is flawed, it may sound good on paper but it doesn’t work in practice

Applications

1.      We need to check ourselves: does our faith have actions that go with it? This does not mean that we live it out perfectly, per se, but that we do actually live out our faith consistently and even when it could cost us a lot

2.      Faith is not just about knowing or believing the right things, but being impacted by those things to such a degree that it changes our live. The question we need to ask is, “has our faith in Jesus changed us?” has it made us look like Jesus?

3.      However, sometimes we are tempted to say, well then I will just work like crazy and that will make me a Christian, but that is not what James wants us to do. He wants us to trust in God to save us, but to have that faith in God change us!

4.      A faith that changes us implies that it more than just mere knowledge, just like you may know a lot about another person, most of the things you know are good, they are not ugly or rude or selfish generally speaking, but you can know all those things and just be friends, but it is different if you know all those things they make you start to crush on that person, which makes you act a certain way around them and even when you’re not around them; or maybe it’s like when someone has a crush on you, you can know that and care or know that an not care, if you care you’ll either be happy because you have a crush on them or unhappy because you don’t want them to like you, but if you don’t care, then that knowledge doesn’t mean anything. in the same way, what you know and believe about God will either just be something that you know or believe, but doesn’t change how you feel and act, or it will, and if doesn’t effect how you feel or act, you should be concerned, because that kind of faith is not really saving faith.

5.      But let’s say that we all really do believe in Jesus to save us and give us eternal life, but we look at how much impact that has on what we do, and while we see it having some impact it doesn’t have very much impact, which makes us a little bit nervous about whether our faith is living or dead, or if it is dying, then we should start living out our faith more passionately. Instead of staying the way we are, if we have real faith then it will start taking actions! We need to start living out our faith more!

6.      Ok, but how do we really live out our faith more, what do we do, where do we start? That’s a good question, and perhaps next week we will answer that in greater detail, but for today, I can say read the whole book of James this week and you will find out, because James really is writing about a lot of different ways that our faith in Jesus can work itself out in different actions. But for a little bit of direction we can look at the part of chapter 2 that comes right before this, where James tells them to treat other people the way you would treat yourself. More specifically, he says not to treat rich Christians or rich people better than poor people, which also means don’t treat one social group better than another social group, which means that you shouldn’t treat one ethnic group like their better than everyone else, like you should treat white people like they are better than people from Japan, or like Hispanic people are worse than people from India, or like Koreans are better than black people—or vice versa for all those groups.