The Book of James - The Life-Giving Word

James 1:19-27

Greetings and grace to you. We’re back in the letter of James this week.

Every summer, David Gibson notes, the residents of Oxford and Cambridge get a visual treat. They observe tourists trying to board punts (a long, narrow flat-bottomed boat, square at both ends and propelled with a long pole) on their famous rivers. And nearly always they witness some poor, unsuspecting person doing splits. It turns out that boarding a boat from dry land is more difficult than many suspect. One leg stays and the other leg goes, and the result is both painful and undignified.

“This is James’ mental picture of the Christians he is writing to,” states Gibson. He continues, “He can see them with one foot firmly planted in the Bible and with God. But he can also see them with the other foot still touching down in the world, with its way of thinking, speaking, and acting. And a foot in two totally different domains is no basis for anything stable or whole.”

James now speaks to us directly about the problem of our split personalities. We’ve been wrestling with our love for God and the strong pull in totally different directions. But there is a cure on offer. There is a way to be whole, one person, inside and outside. And it all has to do with our attitude toward the Bible.

Gibson simply states the solution: do God’s Word. Do it. Then he writes:

“That book sitting there beside you on your desk or on your lap or on your phone: take note of what it says, do what it says, and you will be whole [complete]. You will find parts of your personality fusing together, parts of your divided heart coming together, your loves dissolving from two into one. A well-known sports clothing brand tells us to ‘Just do it,’ and that works as a strikingly simple incentive to get the life you always wanted. James puts it the same way. Just do the Bible.”

I hope you can join us this coming Lord’s Day as we learn how we can grow up in our faith and become a complete or whole people.

For His Glory,

Pastor Wayne