Month: October 2022

Attention All Shepherds (and Sheep)

1 Peter 5

Tuesday, October, 11, 2022

Chapter 4 ends with verse 19: Therefore, let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good (ESV).

The suffering in the New Testament is related to living a life set apart from worldliness, which is opposed to God’s will. It is not God’s will that we should suffer, but when we follow in the ways that he has prescribed for us we will undoubtedly face opposition and ultimately suffer for the sake of the Gospel. We need to trust that our creator will ultimately use that suffering for good. There’s a popular song that we sing at my church that has the line “you take what the enemy meant for evil, and you turn it for good” (drawing on Genesis 50 for inspiration).

Chapter 5 then begins with Peter addressing the leaders of the church, specifically calling to mind the sufferings of Christ. Pastors/elders are to function in the role of shepherds for the congregations that have been entrusted to them in leadership. The verb that is translated as “shepherd” also can be translated as “feed” – does this directive remind you of any instructions that Peter himself received from Jesus?

In John 21 three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him (notice a correlation between Peter’s three denials of Jesus and the three affirmations that Jesus receives from him?) and three times tells him to feed his sheep (this is a different Greek word in John, but it means essentially the same thing). As the primary leader of the church Peter was to feed Jesus’ sheep, meaning Christians. The impetus for this spiritual leadership is not to be out of self-importance or in Peter’s case even that Jesus chose him to lead, but out of love for his master and savior (and friend!). When we see Peter lead, he is following in obedience to the one who called him out of the boat and invested in him and entrusted him to feed his sheep. Peter certainly was not doing this for gain or for an easy life, I imagine his life would have been much easier had he simply decided to go back to fishing full time, but he faced many trials and much opposition in his preaching the word and leading the church.

In the same way, those of us who are called to be pastors and elders (who are specifically addressed here, but anyone who holds an office in the church should take heed of this) should be using their love of Jesus as their motivation for leading. Presumably most church leaders start off this way, but it can easily go to one’s head. There are many public instances of pastors who have become controlling, power hungry, and abusive (quite often we see this in large churches with lucrative opportunities for pastors) – but even in small churches the desire to control can infiltrate the hearts of those who are called to lead or “run” the church. Elders (I’ll include pastors in this title from here on out) are to be willing and eager to carry out the work that they have been called to. With a calling to leadership comes responsibility – a significant thing to note is that we who are in authority (and who teach) are held to a higher level of accountability (James 3:1). Those who are in authority are to be an example to those who they oversee spiritually, and humility is one way in which we should be an example. Jesus stated that he was gentle and humble (Matthew 11:29), and we see in Philippians 2 that humility was essential in Jesus salvific work as God’s anointed one.

As Jesus was humble and as we who are elders (overseers) are to be humble (following Christ’s example), so then are the members of the body to exercise humility and submit to those who are in authority over them. If leaders are humble and operating as Jesus would expect them to, then humble Christians submitting to the godly authority that has been placed over them will thrive in their submission. We’re never going to agree on everything and that is why the decisions of local congregations are to be subject to the elders and not left up to the democratic will of a large collective. Elders absolutely can delegate responsibilities and set up clear roles for the body (Acts 6), but the authority over the church should lie with them.

We just added two new elders at my church yesterday. The process was not a short one… Myself and our other elders had many discussions on who we thought would be a good fit to assume these offices and eventually recommended that these two individuals be confirmed as elders. We don’t accept nominations for elders, but rather we look for men who meet the requirements of elders as listed in Titus 1, and then we have a confirmation vote. Other churches do things differently and may have boards structured in different ways or may be more egalitarian in the way that they define elders, I don’t condemn that, but we need to take seriously the guidelines that are listed in scripture and not be too quick to structure things in a way that is more reflective of the nation/society we live in than how the early church did things. Regardless of our views on church leadership one thing we need to be able to do is disagree with grace and love.

We need to make sure that whatever disagreements we have are dealt with in love and we need to not let them distract from what God would have us do and we need to make sure that we keep our minds clear (5:8, reaffirming 4:7), be on the lookout, and refrain from being anxious (cast those anxieties on God, see also Matthew 6), because the enemy prowls like a lion looking for someone to devour. When we allow conflict to take root or we allow anxiety to be prevalent in our churches, bad things will happen. We may often think about the enemy being on the prowl for individuals, but he’d also love to devour a local church and render it ineffective at making disciples or worse, cause it to die out (is that really worse?). I bet we could all think of examples of things we can (or do) divide over, one such argument could be what Peter means by “our enemy the devil”, but we need to take seriously the words of the author of Hebrews when he/she says: “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;” (Hebrews 12:14–15 ESV).

-J.J. Fletcher

Reflection Questions:

1. For those of you in authority: do you do it willingly? Eagerly? Without being domineering? Sometimes we do have to be forceful and make unpopular decisions, but that can still be done in a graceful and kind way. Do you need to be humbler, or do you think you have that well under control? Do you have an individual in mind that has authority problems with whom you can practice extra grace?

2. For those of you under authority: Do you respect those who have been placed in authority over you? Do you easily submit to that authority? Do you gossip about the leaders of your church and cause problems that way? Do you stop attending church when changes occur, or decisions are made that you disagree with? Do you go church hopping and just stick around till someone ticks you off and move on to the next place (which might just be going back to a former church until the vicious cycle starts over again?

Podcast Recommendation: The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill (from Christianity Today). It can be difficult to listen at times, but it has lots of examples on how to do leadership wrong, which we can benefit from.

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The Same Way of Thinking – as Jesus

1 Peter 4

Monday, October 10, 2022


At the beginning of chapter four Peter says to “arm yourself with the same way of thinking” aligning this directive with Jesus suffering in the flesh. While Jesus’ suffering was likely to exceed what these Christians endured, they were still facing a culture that might ostracize, if not outright persecute or kill them.


Peter points out distinctions in how the gentiles live according to the flesh (perverting many things that God intended for good), and how we as believers are to pursue the will of God – this means among other things giving up things that might feel good or make us feel like we belong.


We’ll home in on what Peter writes in verses 7-11:


“The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 4:7–11 ESV)


Considering the coming kingdom (which is immanent, but we don’t know when it will come): Exert Self-Control! Many times, we see this attribute called for in the life of believers (at least 18 times in the ESV). Looking in the letter of James (which I preached from yesterday), lack of self-control can lead to self-deception. When we allow our thoughts to be clouded by worldly things or self-centered behaviors, we are going to miss what God would have us do. By being sober (or clear) minded we can think critically, and we need to think clearly so that we can be effective in our prayers. Jesus gave us a model by which to structure our prayers, but our prayers are not meant to be mindless or rote… We need to be looking at things through the lens of God’s spirit, which allows us to see things that our physical eyes cannot see. Think back to 1 Peter 3 where it says a man should live with his wife in an understanding way as not to have his prayers hindered – the way that we think, live, and act has a direct impact on how we pray and the effectiveness of our prayers.


We’re instructed to love one another earnestly, because love covers a multitude of sins. (Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13). “…in the face of extreme social hostility, love will be necessary for spiritual survival. For Peter the primacy of love is accompanied by a qualification, and this qualification is a partial citation of Proverbs 10:12 similar to James 5:20—’love covers over a multitude of sins,’ rather than magnifying the faults of others. After all, love is patient and doesn’t keep a record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:4, 5)” (J. Daryl Charles, “1 Peter,” in Hebrews–Revelation, vol. 13 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary Revised Edition).

How does the Church expect to thrive if we let piddly little things (or even larger disagreements) get in the way of caring for each other? How are we to expect to overcome the world through Jesus if we don’t exercise with others the grace that we have been shown (we all kind of stink at times, to put it mildly)?

We need to show hospitality in a world that that is oft inhospitable to Jesus’ way of living. If we’re inhospitable to other believers, they might find hospitality in places that will draw them away from the grace of God. We shouldn’t grumble when we have an opportunity to be hospitable, but rather see it as an opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus (Genesis 12 says Abraham was blessed to be a blessing, and through grace and mercy we’ve also been blessed to be a blessing as well).


In everything we do we need to do so viewing ourselves as representatives of God, as ambassadors of the kingdom, and imitators of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:3-8).

-JJ Fletcher


Reflection Questions

  1. How does my life look like the life of Jesus and how does it look different?
  2. How does hospitality with fellow believers prime me to be hospitable to those who I disagree with?
  3. Am I doing well at being self-controlled? What are my biggest obstacles to living in this way? Who can I ask for help or be accountable to help me in this endeavor?
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A Hot Topic

1 Peter 3

Sunday, October 9, 2022

Gender is a hot topic these days. We live in a society where there is much flexibility in how someone chooses to live their life, irrespective of cultural norms or the directives of our creator (let’s stick to what Peter writes about in his letter). Misogyny and radical feminism are two ways in which humans have messed up what was designed to be a tremendous blessing from God.

There is a lot to unpack here as Peter begins by addressing wives. In reading the text and then looking at commentaries it appears that foremost in Peter’s mind is a woman who has come to a saving faith in Jesus but is married to a man who does not share that faith (though we can gain something from this even if we’re not in that demographic).

The way that societies functioned, specifically the society that Peter would be writing to, did not offer much in the way of opportunity for a woman to exert influence over her husband. Her options may be quite limited in what her husband allowed her to do or permitted her to go. Where a husband and father who came to faith would be expected (even simply allowed) to bring his family along with him to religious functions, the same could not be said for the wife.

So how is a woman to minister to her unbelieving husband? How does she influence him intentionally in a way to bring him into the body of Christ? Nagging is probably not the most effective way to do this, in fact it might have the opposite effect; rather, the solution that Peter proposes is to allow the gospel of Jesus (i.e., the gospel of the Kingdom) to radically influence your way of living. Being salt and light (Matthew 5:13-14) is not just something that you are to be for people whom you may be unfamiliar with, even more importantly it is something you are to be with those who you are most intimate with. Living a life that bears the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22) and exemplifies Jesus’ beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-11; Luke 6:20-26) will make you a more desirable (and influential) person.

Obviously, there is no way to guarantee that an unbelieving spouse will come to faith, but by being holistically attractive (not just externally, but internally as well) you will have a far better chance to influence them than if you were to try to get by on physical attraction (I don’t even know how that would really work) but be ugly on the inside.  

Peter addresses the ladies in verses 1-6, but he shifts gears in verse 7 and speaks to husbands. He says to “live with your wives in an understanding way” (ESV), literally living with her “according to knowledge” as opposed to living with her in “sheer thoughtlessness” as the Expositor’s Bible Commentary puts it. I can speak from experience, it is very easy to do what I want and expect my wife to pick up the slack, but that is not the way that Peter instructs husbands to operate. Instead of living in a way that could breed resentment and other problems (infidelity?), husbands are commanded to live in a thoughtful way.

Husbands are instructed to honor their wives as “the weaker vessel.” Huh? What does that mean? There are different ways to look at this… Societally women were weaker (we’ve already considered the lack of influence), typically women are weaker in physical strength (I can think of a few ladies that could probably wipe the floor with their husbands in a fight), and sometimes women are more emotionally fragile (have a wider range of feelings?) than men. The word for weaker (ἀσθενεστέρῳ) can be translated with lots of nuance, but one big take away from this is that women are not inferior to men. Whatever Peter is getting at with the idea of the wife being a weaker vessel, something is very clear: we are co-heirs of all the benefits that come with accepting Jesus and believing in the kingdom message. As objects of God’s salvation there is no distinction between male and female, just as there is no distinction between Jew or Greek. While husbands and wives may be called to different roles in their relationship and even in their roles in the church, this is not because of a lack of capability, this is the function that God has laid out. Husbands and wives are to minister to one another and to minister to others. We can use our marriages as an example and an opportunity in ministry. Authentic Christianity has done more to liberate women from misogyny and oppression than any other organization ever has; that being said, it has not changed the fact that men and women are different. We have equality in standing before God, we have equality in salvation, we ought to have equality in rights, but we are still different and that is a blessing. As the church is a body with many parts, the one flesh that we become in marriage takes into account our uniqueness as individuals and the differences in our physiology. We are to be reliant on one another (do not read as co-dependency), and we are responsible to one another to meet the needs that we have as image bearers of God and the uniqueness that we have as men and women.

-J.J. Fletcher

Action/Reflection:

To those of us who are married: We should evaluate where we are at in living as Peter instructs. Hopefully you are married to a fellow believer who you can discuss this passage with and commit to one another to implement these tactics in your union. If married to a non-believer, behave in a way that is intentional in living the gospel out to them.

To those of you who are engaged or hope to be married one day: Look for a spouse who takes scripture seriously and is willing to change their behavior to conform to what scripture dictates, both in their life as an individual and the way that they approach relationships.

For those of you who are called to a life of singleness (or just end up that way) or those of you who know someone who fits that description: I believe that the behaviors that the relational and internal things that Peter speaks of here will be beneficial in building authentic relationships that help navigate the potential challenges that a life of singleness may bring.

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Stone Collector

1 Peter 2

Saturday, October 8, 2022

Let’s pretend I’m going to build a house with stones. 

First, I’d need a bunch of stones dumped in my yard. Then I would need to expertly stack them, making sure to pick the right stones that fit together and that don’t fall over in the breeze. I’d also need some kind of mortar or clay to hold them together. I can imagine some of the stones would be a bit too big to be lifting and moving around, so I’d need a tractor with a bucket, or even better, a crane. There’s a lot that would go into this. 

Now let’s pretend I actually completed my stone house. I still have a giant pile of rocks that I didn’t use. Some are just weird shapes, or cracked, or plain ugly. There is one stone in particular that was my least favorite because I kept tripping over it. I don’t want anything to do with these stones anymore.

Now I throw a little stone house-warming party, and my neighbor comes over. He says, “Hey, I want to build a stone house, too. Can I use the stones you didn’t want? I’ve got just the spot for each of them, especially that one you kept tripping over.”

“Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:4-5 NRSV)

Now that we’ve heard and accepted the good news (remember yesterday’s reading?), we’ve become “living stones” to God. The world will look at us and scoff because we’re weirdly shaped and of no use to them, but God has a special use for all of us. He especially chose each of us for his project.

God is building us together into what Peter calls a “spiritual house” to be a “royal priesthood” to “offer spiritual sacrifices.” Peter is using this imagery to prompt us to imagine ourselves as the temple of God. The temple is a sacred space where the divine lives, just as we are to be sacred spaces where God’s spirit dwells. 

The priests are like mediators between the divine realm and the world, helping to make connections between the two. For us to be a royal priesthood means that we have access to God that we are to share with others. We are to connect God and people. We are to bring people into the experience of who God is.

The last part of that is that we are to make “spiritual sacrifices.” Naturally, when we think of sacrifices in the context of a temple, images of bloody animals appear in our head. If not, then I just made you think of bloody animals, and you’re welcome. Peter’s not suggesting that we do the kind of sacrifice that requires killing animals, but the kind that requires doing the right thing even if (or especially if) it costs us something.

The perfect example we have of this, of course, is Jesus. In the face of suffering and rejection, he chose to do the right thing and offer his life on our behalf. Doing the right thing didn’t just cost him something—it cost him everything. God notices and responds to our sacrifices. In Jesus’ case, he was resurrected and exalted to God’s right hand. He was rejected by the world but made into the stone holding the whole house together.

We’re to follow Jesus’ example and be willing to put ourselves in God’s hands as we do the right things, knowing we could very well lose something in the process. Just as God saw Jesus’ sacrifices, he will acknowledge and respond to ours. That doesn’t mean that we should do good things expecting a reward, but that God is just, and will remember the trouble we went through while pursuing His purposes.

We know the world is going to be skeptical of our stone house. One hope is that through being God’s servants and living blamelessly (doing the right thing), the world may look at us and see honor in what we do. We are witnesses and priests to them, representing God to them as Christ did to us. We can hope that the fruit of our sacrifice is that God can gather even more living stones to make the stone house bigger and stronger.

Thanks for coming along with me this week on our journey through the book of James and the beginning of 1 Peter.

-Jay Laurent

Internal Inquiries

1. How does it make you feel knowing that God chose you to be one of his living stones?

2. What kinds of spiritual sacrifices have you made? What did it cost you?

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Things that Fade, and Things that Don’t

1 Peter 1

Friday, October 7, 2022

Everything is dying. Your phone’s battery is draining and will need to be recharged. Your phone itself will someday give out or become so slow or outdated that you’ll need a new and shiny one. But that one will die too. Your car will get you places…until it doesn’t. Your body itself will eventually lose its ability to sustain the delicate balance known as life, and will stop functioning altogether. This will happen to you, everyone you know, and everyone you don’t know.

The human race and life on earth are in deep trouble if the wrong supervolcano decides to erupt or if a very large random rock hurtling through space collides with earth. Our existence is a very delicate thing.

Even the sun as we know it is dying. It’s said that in somewhere around 4 to 5 billion years, our sun will eventually begin to die as its hydrogen fuel runs out. It will swell to a red giant and swallow at least Mercury, Venus, and our own planet before becoming a white dwarf.

It’s predicted that eventually the universe itself will expand hopelessly into a cold and dark nothingness of no usable energy. It’s called “heat death” and is a lot like winter, but much worse.

That’s a lot to take in all at once. The realization that everything we know is fading away can lead us to a dark place. It may remind you of Nietzsche’s caution that “if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” What gives? Is there anything that lasts?

“For ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ That word is the good news that was announced to you.” (1 Peter 1:24-25 NRSV)

Not everything dies and fades away. Peter is telling us that the good news you were given—the word of God—endures forever. To us, the phrase “word of God” can often mean the Bible, but the way the Bible uses it is so much more broad and rich. I tend to think of it as something like God’s life-giving wisdom, through which he created everything. In John 1 we can read about how Jesus, through his life and ministry, became the perfect embodiment of that word among us, carrying on another chapter of something that was always there.

That chapter seemed to come to a close when Jesus was executed. To his followers, it must have felt like all hope was lost. But we know how that story ends up! We are shown there is more to come when Jesus is resurrected. It’s another chapter of this everlasting word. 

As there was more to come for Jesus, there will be more to come for us. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we are given hope and an inheritance that won’t fade away. Jesus is said to be the “firstfruits” of the resurrection, meaning his was the first resurrection, and we’re given confidence ours will be yet to come.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that through resurrection, the dead are “sown” perishable, but raised imperishable. Resurrection transforms things that have perished (or would perish) into things that can’t perish. It transforms the dust of the ground into something new and alive and beautiful. Remembering that Jesus was transformed from a dead man into some kind of mysterious, eternal, resurrected being, we embrace the living hope that someday we’ll experience the same transformation.

As we reflect on how resurrection will transform us, there are hopeful rumblings that it will transform all of creation into a new heaven and a new earth. How mind-blowing is it to think of an entire universe raised imperishable? What does that even look like? That’s such an amazing mystery to think about!

There’s no way for me to know how long I’m going to live, or how long there will be an earth or sun or universe. I do, however, know that God outlives all of those things! If God is around, there is always more to come. There is always another chapter of the word.

So let’s not grasp at the things that are going to die and fade away. Instead, let’s keep our hope in what will last forever—what Peter calls “the living and enduring word of God.”

-Jay Laurent

Questions to ponder

1. What might Peter say our response should be now that we’ve heard the good news (hint: verses 13-16 might offer a good start)?

2. What other things besides the word of God do you think are “imperishable”?

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Formula

James 5

Wednesday, October 6, 2022

The last section of James 5 contains some wisdom about prayer and healing. Like most everything else we’ve encountered in James, it is simple, but not easy.

“Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.” (James 5:14-16 NRSV)

God does heal, and when he does, we rejoice. We proclaim the wonders of how our good and faithful God answers prayer. But what about when the healing doesn’t come? In those times, there doesn’t seem to be much to rejoice about, and it isn’t as easy to truly believe that God is good or that he answers prayer.

When there is no healing, we want to know why. Did we mess something up? Did we not pray hard enough or with enough faith? Should we have gotten the elders to pray and anoint us with oil? Have our unconfessed sins gotten in the way? Were we not righteous enough for our prayers to be effective? Did we do everything right, but forces of evil sabotaged our prayers? Was it just not God’s will to heal? Is it not God’s timing to heal now?

There is no end to the questions we could ask about this, and to make things worse, there is a severe shortage of good answers. But, like in the book of Job, you can find lots of bad answers from people who mean well. I would just add to the bad but well-meaning category if I were to offer my own explanations.

Let’s get out of that rabbit hole for now and try to grasp James’ practical advice. We could zoom out and summarize it in two main pieces: Do your part, and ask God to do his. 

Doing your part might actually mean seeking out the elders to pray over you and anoint you with oil. It could mean confessing your sins and asking for forgiveness. It could mean going to see a doctor and following their advice. Your formula may not look exactly like James’, but the important part may be that you do something, or whatever it is that you are able to.

While we are doing our part, it is important that we ask God to do his part also (remember the importance of asking from James 4?). We’re not going to be able to do everything ourselves, so asking God initiates our cooperation with him. By asking, we’re acknowledging that God has real power in our lives and that we’re receptive to it. It’s not a we-do-everything or a God-does-everything scenario. It’s a cooperation that requires both sides. It is a James kind of faith that is coupled with action.

After doing your part and asking God for his, the way forward may be to wait, or to keep doing and asking, all while hoping for the best.

-Jay Laurent

Questions

1. What does your “formula” for healing look like? Is it anything like James’ formula?

2. How can you do your part for your own healing or for the healing of others?

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The Right Friendship

James 4

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Conflicts and violence are problems we humans have always dealt with. If only there were some insights in the book of James to help us understand why, and how we might be able to help the situation.

“Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.” (James 4:1-3 NRSV)

James says the source of conflict is the cravings at war within us. We covet things that we don’t have, and perceive that there isn’t enough to go around, leading us to take what we want by force, many times at the expense of others. We’re wired so deeply for survival that the fear of scarcity often drives us to get what we need in whatever way we can. It’s both a blessing and a curse. 

The passage goes a level deeper into the investigation and explores why we don’t have what we need: It’s because we don’t ask. That’s something I’m not good at. I often feel uncomfortable asking someone else for something, because I think it’s my own responsibility to take care of it. By not asking, I’m underutilizing one of the biggest strengths of being part of family and community. There is more than enough to go around if asking and sharing happen freely.

There’s another layer to this. Sometimes when we ask, we don’t receive because we ask with wrong or selfish motives. By chasing after the wrong things, we are fueling the fire of conflict. James is prompting us to take inventory of our desires and motives. It’s not wrong to need or want things, but the challenge is to seek the right things with a pure heart.

James continues his train of thought by contrasting “friendship with the world” and friendship with God. When we seek things with the wrong motives, we make ourselves friends of the world, and therefore enemies of God. Instead, make yourself a friend of God by humbling yourself and submitting to the leading of his spirit that lives within us. Set aside your selfish desires, as painful as that may be, and ask for truly good things.

James is offering us an antidote to conflicts and violence, advocating for a more peaceful way—partner with God (“draw near” to him) by properly aligning your desires. Seek after and ask for the right things, and have enough as you share in God’s abundance and grace.

-Jay Laurent

Questions to consider:

1. What are some things you need or want, but don’t have?

2. Do you think these needs/wants are because of selfish desires, or are they good things to seek after?

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Wildfire

James 3

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

It can be a challenge to control what we say. James describes the tongue like a poisonous and evil beast we can’t tame. He says that it’s a fire that sets the whole cycle of nature ablaze. That’s a lot of power to ascribe to one small part of the body. How can it be so powerful?

James gives us two potent analogies for how this works. You can put a small bit in a horse’s mouth and be able to steer them wherever you want, and you can steer a large ship with a small rudder. It’s the same with the tongue. It’s a small part of the body, but it has great “steering power.”

Have you ever met someone who is just always a positive thinker? It’s equal parts encouraging and annoying how they can always manage to put a positive spin on things. On one side, it seems like they’re not acknowledging the reality of the situation, but on the other, they might have a deeper handle on reality. There is something I can learn from this kind of person. Thinking and saying positive things is like a small investment in those truths. It signals that we are aligned with them and committed to them, and when that is the case, we’ve paved the road for positive actions.

The same could be true for negative thoughts, words, and actions. If you’re putting your chips down on your dismal predictions, you want to be right. Sometimes we want to be right more than we want things to be right, so we can say, “See, I told you so.”

The influence of your tongue goes far beyond just yourself. Imagine you are having a conversation with someone you care about. Somewhere along the line, you start interpreting each other incorrectly (which happens all the time), and one or both of you gets triggered by what the other says. In such a moment, especially when you are angry, it is like all control of the tongue goes out the window. You are suddenly saying hurtful things that you are wishing you didn’t say—even before you finish saying them. The tongue takes over and starts steering the conversation into a fiery disagreement. This is real. You know it’s real because you’ve experienced it. This is the wildfire James is talking about.

For moments like those, it is appropriate to remember to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry (James 1:19). When my pastor, Michael Hoffman, talks about this verse, he says that is why God gave us two ears and only one mouth. If only this was something I could remember more in the moments that count. When you really put effort into hearing people, you take some of the destructive ammunition away from the tongue.

These days, we have quicker and easier ways to cause wildfire than James could ever imagine. I’m pointing at social media. The internet is an amazing innovation and it’s hard to imagine my life without it, but we were clearly not ready for it as a species. Now we are dealing with a beast more ferocious than just the tongue. Now anger, polarization, fear, disillusionment, disinformation, and pure stupidity can be spread across the world in just a short moment with a comment, tweet, post, video, or what-have-you. Those who see or hear it will likely not react or filter themselves as if they are interacting with a real human, and their response will reflect that. It’s a terrible feedback loop. To make it worse, there are algorithms lurking in the background making sure you see the things that are most likely to trigger you. If the tongue is a wildfire, social media is uncontrolled nuclear fission.

Somewhere around 10 years ago now, I realized that social media was not a healthy thing for me, for various reasons. I imagined what would happen if I just quit using it. So one day I quit, and I’ve never missed it. I’m not saying you should do the same, but if you ever find yourself burdened or distracted by it more than you know is healthy, consider it.

The things we say really do affect us. They ripple out and affect our families and friends. They touch our communities and influence our world in ways we don’t even comprehend. This is the reality that James recognizes and wants to warn us about. And given how fast and wide technology allows our communication to spread, that means we have an even higher level of responsibility for what we say.

-Jay Laurent

Questions:

1. When was the last time you started a wildfire with your words?

2. Are there any strategies you could use to help tame the beast that is your tongue?

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The Faith/Works Dilemma

James 2

Monday, October 3, 2022

In the second chapter of his letter, James continues with his onslaught of practical but difficult advice.

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.” (James 2:14-19 NRSV)

It would seem from this section that just believing things is no good. If my interpretation of James is correct, that means it’s not enough to go around quoting John 3:16 and telling people they only need to believe in Jesus and they will be saved. There is no checklist of beliefs where you can just tick all the boxes and receive salvation. No single belief will save you, and neither will any magical combination of beliefs.

James is asserting that action must accompany faith in order for it to be the real thing. Doing good works is the evidence of your faith. Faith and good works don’t live isolated lives, but are coupled together. To decouple faith and works is to reveal an inconsistency.

Imagine that someone claims to believe in the value of human life as the image of God, yet they go around hurting or killing people. Or maybe they just neglect to help someone else they know is in need. You would notice the inconsistency in that. They must not truly believe in the value of human life since their actions show they don’t value it. James is telling us that actions are louder than words. He cuts right through the nonsense and says, “Hey, don’t just tell me what you believe. Show me.”

When we talk about this passage, it’s likely that we’ll also think of a passage from Ephesians that seems to be in tension with it.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” (Ephesians 2:8-10 NRSV)

Paul here is saying that works can’t save you; it’s a gift you accept through faith. James is saying faith alone doesn’t save or justify you; you need works too. Is there a conflict between what James and Paul are saying?

Part of the beauty of this collection of writings we call the Bible is that different authors often have different perspectives on things. We have four different gospel accounts, each with their own angle and emphasis. The general story and message are the same, but some of the finer details differ. This is exactly what you would expect if you asked four different people to describe something they witnessed years ago. This is not a problem at all for the gospels, and in actuality, bolsters the case for their authenticity. It shows that four people didn’t get together in a room for a weekend and collude to produce the exact same fairy tale. Four real people wanted to pass on what they witnessed, and they did so under the inspiration of God.

We see the world with two eyes, each from a slightly different angle. This allows us to perceive depth, in other words, to see things in 3-D. Your brain does some kind of trigonometry with the signals from your eyes to give you an idea of how far away something is. If you had only one eye, it would be much harder to judge depth.

We can regard James and Paul as two eyes looking at the topic of salvation from two different angles, and the result is seeing it in 3-D. It’s the same core truth with different emphases. James sees something Paul doesn’t see, and Paul sees something James doesn’t see. At great risk of oversimplification, I’ll try to bring their viewpoints together. They would agree that faith and works go hand-in-hand. James is saying faith alone is not enough, and Paul is saying works alone are not enough. Neither would say that you can earn salvation by works, but would agree that the works are evidence of a saving faith. Well, I took a stab at it. My only hope is that they can get together sometime to discuss this topic and release it as a long-form podcast.

-Jay Laurent

Question Time

1. Why do you think it is so hard to really live out what you believe?

2. What small steps could you take this week to put your faith in action?

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The Long Game

James 1

Sunday, October 2, 2022

The letter of James has some of the most immediately practical wisdom you can find in the Bible. Some have called it the “Proverbs of the New Testament.” If you are looking for guidelines about how a Christian should live, James is a great place to start.

The only problem is that some of James’ advice is hard to take: 

“My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4 NRSV)

I don’t know about you, but when I’m going through difficult things in life, I’m not feeling joy. Isn’t joy supposed to be reserved for things that are… joyful? Isn’t joy for when people get married, or when babies are born, or when a new season of your favorite show is available to stream, or when you are going to have tacos? Yes, joy is for the good things in life.

So why does it sound like James is telling us to enjoy suffering? Is he insane?

Well, no. In order to understand what he is saying, we have to think of the long game. We’re not to be joyful because of the difficult times we are facing, but because of the growth potential they provide for us. Going through things teaches us to endure, and being able to endure makes us more mature and complete. Pressures shape us into stronger people. Recall that if you subject carbon to intense heat and pressure, you get diamonds!

Consider any elite athlete. They didn’t get where they are by accident, but through years of difficult and intense training. Do you think they truly enjoyed all of that training? Of course not, but I bet they did enjoy knowing that through their training, they were going to be the GOAT at their sport.

If you want your muscles to become stronger, you have to progressively challenge them. Likewise, when our faith is challenged, it also becomes stronger. James is asking us to take on the right attitude of joy during our times of discomfort, because we know that through those challenges, we are deepening and growing our faith.

In thinking about all these things, I’m reminded of the time Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, under unimaginable distress because he knew he would soon lose his life. Imminent death is the kind of thing that would test anyone’s faith, even Jesus. He didn’t want to go through with it any more than you’d want to drive a stake into your own eye socket. In his situation, I would have been tempted to just run away and wash my hands of the whole thing. I’d say to myself, “This whole messiah business has taken quite a turn and I just want a quiet life somewhere.” I can imagine he had that same temptation. Surely he didn’t enjoy being betrayed, put on trial, scourged, and nailed to a piece of wood to die in total humiliation.

Jesus didn’t have to do what he did, but he was thinking of the long game. Yes, he knew he would face a horrible death, but deep in his heart he had something resembling joy. Not joy because of the circumstances he was enduring, but because of what was just over the horizon. It was this joy and hope that allowed him to muster the strength to say with his dying breath, “It is finished.” He knew that his dying would mean, paradoxically, conquering over the powers of sin and death, and leading us on a mass exodus out of their clutches. He knew that his resurrection would unleash a new reign of God on the earth and again put us at one with God.

Jesus did what he did because he was thinking of us.

-Jay Laurent

A couple questions to reflect on:

1. What are some trials or difficult times that you have had to endure?

2. Can you think of any ways you grew as a result of these times?

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