It's All About Intentions

My good friend, Cleve Page, came by for a visit today and we talked for awhile and now I have some time before my evening meetings. So I thought I would share with you the sermon Kevin Clark, my pastor, shared this morning. I told you last week, I wasn't going to start a habit of this, but two times in a row does not make a habit...yet. It was a good sermon in an area of James where there is not a command to go and do.

Apparently James 2:14-26 has given scholars fits for a long time. I already knew that Martin Luther had a hard time with the book and as an ex-Catholic, James was our rallying cry when some "protester" told us Faith was a gift. The major issue, as I have come to see it is this... we as Christians read an awful lot of Paul's writings, (he wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament), so we tend to define words the way Paul defined words. The book of James only seems to contradict what we know as Christians to be true with regards to faith, works, and justification.

For example, we automatically define faith the way Paul did, "a complete commitment to the whole person of Christ." So, we read faith and think "conversion". James is talking to first century Jewish Christians and they have baggage! He is challenging them to prove their "faith" (defined as a supposed claimed faith...not backed up) is real. "Show me your works! You baggage heavy, faith claiming, prejudiced Christians.!" James says.

Paul defines works as those filthy rags that an unbeliever thinks will justify himself. So we as Christians do too.
Works bad :(
Faith Good :)
James, on the other hand, defines works as those acts that a believer would do naturally as an outpouring of their genuine faith. We, as Christians, read the word "works" and go to Paul's place automatically.

We are naturally familiar with the way Paul defines "justification" - that legal act where God declares one righteous on the basis of Christ's finished work and the believer's faith in Him.
James' use of the word justification can seem opposite but is simply used as the demonstration of what one says they believe by what they do.
We need to be careful as readers of the Bible. Words mean different things. As Cleve told me one time when we were discussing a different subject, "It is all about the intentions".

Kevin did a good job wrapping up the whole morning by exhorting us to:
1. Examine our faith
2. Examine our theology
3. Examine our witness
4. Get Busy.

Good stuff. By the way I have posted Kevin's sermons on my site too. Look over in the right margin. Have a good rest of the weekend.