26 Do any of you think you are religious? If you do not control your tongue, your religion is worthless and you deceive yourself.
27 What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world. (GNB)
James discusses the practice of your faith with a couple of examples.
This is how you live out your faith.
Vs. 26 - “ Do any of you think you are religious? If you do not control your tongue, your religion is worthless and you deceive yourself.” - Right now, I am sitting in a Starbucks, and two young men are here dressed as women. One is a barista, the other is a customer. Here is where the “rubber meets the road” for me - how do I react to this situation? Do I get upset and say something? Do I sit here drinking my coffee and pretending I am not seeing this? Is there any gain if I make a comment? (No. There is no gain.) I don’t know these people, so I don’t see any benefit if I tell them they are making a mistake. I can’t pretend I don’t see them. So, I will hold my tongue (‘bridle’ it…). But I will say a prayer for them. The New American Standard Bible (NASB) puts it: “If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile.”
Do I think I am ‘religious’? Yes, I do. (Not religious in the sense that I think I am superior to anyone, and can count their offenses to chalk up why they need the gospel.) I have faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; He died because of my sin; He was raised from the dead to eternal life. My faith, my religion, is Him and Him alone. I can do nothing that will make me acceptable to God.
There is very little I can control in my life. Definitely there is nothing outside my body or mind (those are things that happen around me and to me) on which I have control. I should be able to control my thoughts, my speech, my actions. But in reality due to my sin nature, control of even these functions are difficult. Thank the Lord for the gift of the Holy Spirit. (See, for example: Prov 18:21; 21:23: 6:2;12:6; 17:27; 19:27)
I am not saying that Christians should never speak up when encountering sin. There is no place in the Scripture where adultery is approved by the Lord. The same can be noted for abortion (killing a baby in the womb), or prostitution, or thievery and robbery, or disbelieving in the Lord. The Lord never forced anyone to obey his laws, commands, and precepts. Of course, people were allowed to disobey, but not with impunity. You make the choice, you must accept the consequences - for your good or your ill.
That being said, I am not sure this verse is about speaking up in the face of evil. It is about how is your faith, the way you live your faith (your religion) demonstrated. James is saying the way you talk with others, about others will show whether you have Jesus in your heart or not. What you say comes from the control center of your mind. The Bible commonly refers to this as your heart. Pure and genuine faith will be demonstrated in how you talk, in what you say.
See the following examples of this:
“The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, But the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.” (Pro 15:28)
“You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” (Mat 12:34 )
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.“ (Mat 15:19)
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,” (Mar 7:21)
“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.” (Luk 6:45)
James continues his discussion of demonstrating your faith by the way you live:
Vs. 27 - “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” - Wowsers - pure and undefiled religion! . It would be interesting to find out how religious leaders in our day define religion, especially “pure and undefiled” religion. I suspect that the definitions would coalesce around doctrine and religious practices. Salvation does not come through a religion.
Salvation is from Jesus Christ alone, and belief in Him. It is not practices or deeds. It is faith in Jesus Christ. James is not focused on whether or not you have done the things necessary to be counted as saved - that is, have you done the religious things expected of you.
James is writing about evidences of being saved. What demonstrates that Jesus is living in you; that you have the Holy Spirit empowering you? I think James is writing to help the reader to assess themselves. You say you are saved; but does your life show you have been changed?
This letter is like a New Testament book of Proverbs. This is how you show you are a believer. Just doing these things does not save you - you cannot work your way to heaven. “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3:4-7)
Remember that old song, “They’ll know we are Christians by our Love, by our Love”? I often felt it was about how Christians treated Christians. We loved and cared for each other. As I look back, I see I missed some of the meaning because I did not see that applying “Christian-to-Non-Christian”. But it is true; Christians should demonstrate Jesus’ love for all people - especially for the non-saved. We should not get into the mindset that puts unbelievers in the non-lovable category. The unsaved care and love for others - this is not private territory for Christians. So then, if the unsaved love people and care for the needy, and Christians care for and love the needy - what is the difference? Are our acts righteous, and the unbelievers simply acts? That kind of thinking leads to ‘holier than thou” attitudes.
“keep oneself unstained by the world.” - That is one of the keys to a ‘difference’. In one interaction with Jesus, a woman was accused of sinning. Jesus challenged the accusers to be executioners if they themselves had never sinned. No one took Him up on that, and he asked her who had stepped up to condemn her. “She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.’” (emphasis is mine) - (John 8:11)
This can be taken to extremes. Think of hermit monks or nuns - they may not be stained by the world because they are not in the world. Jesus did not call us to leave the world behind, but to spread the gospel in the world. There is no reason I should to listen to you if your lifestyle is no different than the unsaved. There is no reason to hear the gospel if you are a butthead and so self-righteous people are turned off.
Stay in the world, but not part of the world. Demonstrate Jesus’ love for us in the way you live. “ ‘He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.’ Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, ‘Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.” (John 14:21-24)
Also, “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ They answered Him, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, “You will become free?”’Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.’ ” (John 8:31-36 ).
If Christ is in your heart, in your life, you will control what you say. Additionally, the Holy Spirit, can and will empower you to do so. God will not force.you to live and speak in certain ways, but will provide the power to do so.
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end of chapter
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