A geek looks at James 1:12-27

The crown of life. The victor's wreath. This would be a poignant visual image to Jews who were living under Roman rule. Greece was also under Roman rule and the Olympics (which were held from around 770 BC to 330 AD) were at their height. These olympics were a series of athletic endeavors between the Greek city-states and were open to any greek speaking men. First prize was the laurel, the wreath of branches, placed on the head of the victor. What James is telling us in Chapter 1, verse 12 is that the person who perserveres under trial, the person who doesn't give up seeking God, the person who keeps their gaze on Christ and doesn't give in to temptation, will receive the winner's crown of Life. An interesting note is that it is only with humility that one is able to perservere in order to win the olympics. If my thinking is that I am so good, I won't need to practice. It takes significant humility to keep focused on the goal and not on myself in order to succeed. This crown of life reference could even possibly be taken a step further to say that since Jesus described himself as THE Life (I am the way, the truth and the life...), and we will receive the crown of life, what this represents is the crown of Christ.
After this encouragement, James carries on to give us some basic advice. The first thing it does, in fact, is point us back to the basics of who God is and what we can expect from Him. God is perfect, and cannot be tempted by evil, and does not use evil to tempt people. Reinforcing this knowledge serves as a stepping stone to identifying the source of our temptations: our own lust. The word lust used here is the greek epithumia, which means "passionate longing" and also is translated into english as concupiscence, which (according to a definition in Wikipedia) means "...an ardent, usually sensuous, longing; a strong sexual desire; lust." This obviously denotes an overwhelming desire. So James is telling us that the beginning of temptation is this desire: "I wish...", "I want...", "If I could only...". When we entertain these little thoughts (dragged away and enticed) they will grow into the full blown sin, which leads to death which is seperation from God. By showing us that the root of temptation lies in our desires he shows us that if we control our desires we can stem the temptation we experience. And since desire originates in our thinking, the surest way to avoid temptation is to take our thoughts captive (as Paul tells us in 2 Cor 10:15, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ) and dismiss them.
At the end of this chapter James tells us what God defines as "good" religion, and the second half of that is to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world. Which means?? Again he wants us to control our thoughts. Remember that Jesus said it is not what goes into our mouths that pollutes us, but what comes out of our hearts. And by our hearts he means our inner selves, which is our minds. So to keep from being polluted by the world, we must control out minds, our thoughts. Again, this means starving our thoughts of anything impure, anything which distracts us from God. This can be an extremely tough prospect. I mean, should I throw out my copy of Forrest Gump just because of a little bit of sexual innuendo? Should I dispose of Arthur shows for my daughter because it promotes self reliance and sibling rivalry? These, and other questions, are questions I need to evaluate in every area of my life. How much sex am I going to allow on my TV? How much "rely on yourself" am I going to cram into my mind? How much "I need in order to be happy" am I going to entertain? Where do I say "a little bit of this isn't too bad"? That is the same place I say "this part of the bible isn't too important". Anytime we need to rationalize to ourselves any activity we have, we are in the wrong. Anytime we are involved in anything we wouldn't want our children to see, we need to evaluate it. Anytime we are saying something we wouldn't say with our mother in the room (ok, with my mother in the room...) we should take a close look at and ask "is this somthing God would approve of in my life?" and if we ever get a "no" (or even a maybe) as a response, we need to remove that activity. This is brutal evisceration of the way we live, in exchange for a better. The way God wants us to live. Are we willing to live this way? To make a focused, determined decision to give up every little bit of worldliness for the sake of the gospel? This is take our thoughts captive in obedience to Jesus.
Further towards the end of the chapter James touches briefly on our speech. As Jesus said that our speech flows from our minds I thought this would be a good point to touch on it. He tells us that if we claim to be religious yet do not keep control of your tongue we are deceiving ourselves and have a worthless religion. Ouch. Those are harsh words. I don't think this is talking so much about what words we use (foul language etc) but rather how we use our words. Do we gossip? Are we sarcarstic to cut others down? Do our words build others up? Do we say things with the intention of hurting people? Like our thoughts, our words really need to be examined before they leave our mouth, and held back if Jesus would not approve of them. Our speech flows directly from our thoughts so this further reinforces the necessity of good thinking and controlling our minds. How can we do this effectively?
In the book "Every Man's Battle" there is a wonderful game plan for how to take our thoughts captive. First, don't give them any fuel through the eyes, ears or voice. That means that, to start with, if we have a problem with desiring say nice cars, we need to avoid watching tV shows with nice cars, we need to learn to look away from nice cars when they drive by etc. The next step is that when the mind is being starved of these images we need to, as Joyce Meyer puts it in Battlefield of the Mind, think about what we are thinking about. When we start to daydream about nice cars we need to turn that focus to God, intentionally letting go of the daydreams and thoughts that distract us from God and intentionally think about a bible verse we have memorized or sing a hymn to ourselves, or recite a psalm. Keep in mind that there is nothing inherently sinful about nice cars. The sin comes into play when we dwell on what we don't have, then we start to plan on how to get what we don't have, and somewhere in the mix we lose sight of the fact that God supplies all our needs, and that the more we give to Him the more he gives back to us. "To him who has much, more will be given" can be interpreted as "To him who uses what he has for the glory of God will be given more to use for the glory of God". James gives us further information on controlling our desires in the next section by warning us to not be deceived (by our lusts), and to keep our focus on God, who is the source of every good and perfect gift. God who is the originator of everything (...father of the heavenly lights means the creator of the sun, the moon and the stars). God who chose us to be born again in Christ, the word of truth, to be the first fruits of his creation. In the old testament law, the first fruits of the harvest were those offered to God. So God has chosen us to be his, offered to him from out of this world, to be used for his purposes. In the same way that the sacrifices of the old testament were used to serve God through supporting the priesthood and Levites, we have been chosen to serve as God sees fit, where He wants us. This would have been plainly obvious to the Jews whom James was writing to at the time: We are sacrificed out of this world to serve God. To sum this up, it appears that James is telling us that we must perservere, and will be rewarded if we do, and that we must control our thinking and desires by focusing on God because we have been chosen to serve Him. As a side note, it occurs to me that if I was chosen, that means that, unless God changes, I cannot be unchosen. What a relief!
James now takes a more focused look at our actions, giving us real steps to strive towards. As believers many of us fall short here, and while we have to avoid legalism ("do this to get to heaven") we do still need to follow directions (do this because we represent heaven). The steps in vs. 19 are exceptional advice for anyone: Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. How can we be quick to listen? I think that if we consider it, being quick to listen means being willing and able to admit that we need to learn. We must have the basic humility to admit that anyone speaking to us will have profound instruction for us, since God uses people to speak to us. Next we need to be slow to speak. Why? Because it is impossible to listen to others while we are speaking. It is also incredibly difficult to listen to what someone else is saying if we are busy planning what we are going to say. Being slow to speak means being humble enough to wait until they are done before we plan where we will start. Finally being slow to become angry is again a sign of humility. Man's anger typically arises because our pride has been offended: They made me look bad or they did something I cannot control.
James goes on to tell us that our anger, anger born of our pride, doesn't lead to righteousness. Basically this passage is some incredibly simple steps on how to exhibit the humility we as believers should have. In verse 21 James uses that amazing new testament word "therefore" to link being quick to listen and slow to speak and anger with the next section: Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in us, which can save us. So using therefore as a connector, we can easily draw the connection that our pride grows from the moral filth and evil that is in us, and that our best prevention against this is to accept the Word (Christ) and the word (scripture) which can save us, and to accept them in humility, knowing that we are unable to save ourselves.
Finally James comes to the key part of this chapter. Everything we have read up until this point directs us to this. Obedience. We perservere through trials and learn endurance to enable us to obey. We control our thoughts to enable us to obey. We strive for and practice humility so that we recognize the need for obedience. James says that we should not just read the bible and walk away. We shouldn't just listen to the word and believe that we are becoming better people. In order to receive any benefit from it, we must obey it. This is a tough call on us, since there are so many little points we would happily put aside. But we can't. If it is in the Bible, we are clearly told with no ambiguity to obey it. Further, James points out that if we do not obey it, it is like looking in a mirror then forgetting what we look like. In other words, reading the bible without obedience is useless, worthless, a waste of time. This is contrasted to the man who reads the bible and does what it says who will be blessed.
James finishes the chapter off with what God would approve of: Looking after orphans and widows and keeping ourselves pure. Let's look a little more closely at this, as it seems important. Which demographic did orphans and widows occupy? I think they were really those who were unable to look after themselves. Today, that demographic is occupied in part by the homeless, by the unemployed and unemployable, by the mentally challenged. By the orphans as well. Widows don't really cut it these days because they are able to work and own property in their own right, as opposed to first centrury widows. So James here is telling us to take care of the poor, the homeless, those who for whatever reason are unable to earn an income. This is a hard challenge becase it is so easy for us to think (thoughts again) "Awww, they could get jobs if they wanted them" or "they're just lazy" or any of a number of other derogatory thoughts. But nowhere here is James telling us to judge them or decide if they are able. Instead, he is telling us to take care of them. Which means being always ready to buy them a meal. To give them a blanket. To provide a care bag of shaving gear, toothbrush & toothpase, comb, deodorant, and some sandwiches etc. To care for them. Ouch. I would really rather just criticize them. It's easier. We covered keeping ourselves pure a little above so let's look at the entire chapter 1. James talks about humbly enduring trials which we will face, about seeking wisdom from outside ourselves, from the only source of wisdom, about seeking with confidence that we will receive what we ask for because we have been promised, about taking pride and joy in our humble circumstances, about perservering, about our own desires and controlling our thoughts, about being chosen by God to be his tool, about humbly receiving the Word implanted in our lives, about obedience, about controlling our tongue (our thoughts) and about looking after others.
Each of these points, from taking joy when we face trials to looking after the poor and needy all seem to revolve around the central theme of humility and different aspects of it. This chapter is an outline of how a believer lives, and the core seems to lie in humility: Taking joy in trials is a humble reponse, while fighting them is a proud response. Asking God for wisdom is a humble response. Acting without wisdom is the proud response. Controlling our thoughts by focusing on God is a humble response. Controlling our thoughts by willpower is a proud response. We can see this same trend throughout the entire chapter. I believe one the best verses on humility is Phillipians 2:3 - "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves". James teaches us how to go about doing this in chapter one, and encourages us with visions of what we are working towards.
Lord, you have given us so much of your word to read, to learn and to obey. Help us to lean on you, to focus on you, to perservere when faced with trials and temptations, to examine our hearts and minds for the moral filth and evil inside to remove it, to take our every though captive for obedience to you. Lord, we want that crown of life which you have promised us when we perservere. Lord, our desires lead us astray and we want to soak our minds in your word to be cleansed. Everything we are comes from you, Father, and everything we are is dedicated to obeying you. I pray that we can control the tongue you have given us. With your word, fill us with humility and patience. Let us learn to be slow to speak while we are quick to listen. Lord, help our anger be righteous anger and not selfish anger. Enable us to give up our selfish harmless sins, our criticism of others, our greed, our impure hobbies. Lord, we are the firstfruits of your creation, offered up to you as living sacrifices. We want to live for you in all areas of our lives, not just most. Fill our hearts with a hunger and a thirst for you please, Lord, and teach us as we study this word to be humble as you want us to be. Amen.