Studies in the Epistle of James :: V The Practice of the Word of God

V The Practice of the Word of God

Nowhere is James richer than in this wonderful paragraph in verses 19-27 of the first chapter. He has in mind “the word of truth” of verse 18 and follows that idea with pungent and powerful words that remind one of the Sermon on the Mount. It is not clear whether the first part of verse 19 belongs in idea to what goes before or what follows. “Ye know this, my beloved brethren.” It makes perfectly good sense either way. It is also uncertain whether we have a statement or a command, for the form may be either indicative or imperative. If you know it, act on your knowledge. Let us listen to what the Word has to say, since we are renewed by the use of it, and be less captious in our criticism of its teachings (Mayor). Moffatt puts it, “Be sure of that, my beloved brothers,” and connects it with verse 18.

Brilliant Listening (1:19a)

By “swift to hear” James brings a vivid picture before us. Moffatt has it “quick to listen.” Sirach (5:11) has a like command: “Be swift in thy listening.” One thinks of fleet of foot, yes, and of ear. The Vulgate has velox here. The wild animals (and the Indians) of necessity have keen ears and can hear the slightest rustle of a leaf or crackling of a twig. The rabbit, so often hunted by man and dog, pricks up his ears at the sound of a pin dropping. The use of the telephone and radio have given added importance to the value of the ear. The ancients relied very much on the ear, for the reader of books had a wide-awake audience who depended on the ear rather than the eye for information.

The mechanism of listening is very wonderful, the contact between brain and brain through the sound waves of speech and the reception of the spoken words by the ear. Jesus often said: “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” The ear with many was, and is, the sole avenue of acquiring knowledge. It is no disparagement of books to say that the art of conversation is one of the greatest refinements. But the very essence of a good conversationalist is that he be also a good listener; else he is a consummate bore. Sydney Smith said of Macaulay that his occasional flashes of silence made his conversation delightful. In Qoheleth Rabba we read: “Speech for a shekel, silence for two, it is like a precious stone.” Broadus had a great lecture on “The Art of Listening.” It is a really rare art and one of the most useful.

Poor listening will make poor preaching of a really good sermon. Good listening will come near to making a good sermon out of a poor one. The writer of Hebrews complains that his readers have become dull of hearing. The word “dull” means no push. They had no push in their ears, no energy in listening, were already half asleep. In particular do we need to listen when God speaks to us in his Word of truth, to have “a quick and attentive ear to catch what God has spoken” (Hort). Inattention is irritating and may be deadly. Sirach says: “The mind of a sagacious person will meditate on a proverb; and an attentive ear is the desire of a wise man” (3:29). God is constantly speaking to those with ears to hear. It is good for the young to learn the habit of attention, a help in meeting temptation.

Eloquent Silence (1:19b)

Another life rule of James (Windisch) is “slow to speak.” One must not forget Homer’s “winged words,” for words can be laden with messages of joy and life and peace and love. Eloquence has its place, real eloquence of the soul—words on fire that blaze and burn, words that thrill and electrify, words that make life and death noble and high, words like those of Jesus that are spirit and life (John 6:63). But when all is said, there is something deeper than mere speech, higher than just words, nobler than talk. If speech is silvern, silence is often golden.

Sorrow may be too unutterable for words. Joy may pass beyond all speech. The proverb also has it that “many a man has had to repent of speaking, but never one of holding his peace,” unless silence is guilty or cowardly. But it is easy to be voluble with the tongue and slack in life. Sirach says: “Be not violent with thy tongue, and in thy deeds slack and remiss.” Volubility is certainly not a sign of power. The silent man, like Moses, is more likely to be a man of power and performance. The parrot and the owl form good examples of the weakness of chatter and the wisdom of silence. Zeno calls attention to the obvious fact that we have two ears and one mouth and should therefore listen twice as much as we talk.

James does not, of course, mean that men should be slow and dull talkers after they begin to talk. He means slow to talk, not slow in talking. Often the least interesting men are the very ones who talk most frequently and at the greatest length. We are to think twice before we speak. Sometimes, if we do that, we shall not speak at all. At any rate, we shall be more likely to have sense in our speech. We shall speak to more purpose if we speak after silence and out of the reflection from silence.

McLaren has a good phrase, “Spread out our souls to the truth.” “Be still, and know that I am God.” Mary “kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). She could only listen to God. The Quakers have some ground for their plea for meditation in the Christian life. Introspection can, of course, be overdone, but the present age is not given to reflection and contemplation. Practical mysticism is the best type of Christianity. Indeed, Christianity without mysticism is empty and formal.

It is quite possible (Johnstone) that the free conversational style employed in the early Christian meetings was taken advantage of by contentious persons, with the result of serious wranglings, as in the church at Corinth (cf. 1 Cor. 14). “In the multitude of words there wanteth not transgression; but he that refraineth his lips doeth wisely” (Prov. 10:19). Such violent talkers break up the spiritual life of a church. The less they know, the more they talk. They have positive opinions on every subject of politics or religion. They know how their neighbors should act in the smallest details and criticize everybody and everything. They are happiest when all is agog with talk of some sort; and the more gossipy it is, the better they like it. “They cannot think, and it is a relief to them to hear their own voices” (Dale). Epictetus (Ench. xxxiii, §5) has the same idea as James: “Let there be silence for the most part or let that which is necessary be said in few words.”

Dull Anger (1:19c f.)

The third life rule of James is “slow to wrath.” There is a clear connection between speech and anger. Anger inflames one to hasty and unguarded talk. In turn, the words act as fuel to the flames. The talk inflames the anger, and the anger inflames the talk. The more one talks, the angrier he becomes—like a spitfire. If one stops talking, his anger will cool down for lack of fuel. Men who are dull enough in listening, who will sleep through any sermon, are quick to resent a personal reflection or an imagined wrong. Often one’s manhood is gauged by his quickness to avenge a personal affront, with murder as the outcome. This is a fine place to be dull, when one is tempted to be angry.

Anger is sometimes justifiable, even necessary. There is such a thing as righteous indignation against wrong. Jesus “looked round about on them with anger” (Mark 3:5), but it was compassionate anger. It is possible to be angry and sin not (Eph. 4:26), but we must not let the sun go down upon our wrath. Unlike God, we do not know all the circumstances in the case. Getting mad is not promoting the kingdom of God. “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” (Compare Matthew 5:21 f.) The euphemistic phrase of James is emphatic by its very mildness. Man’s wrath is set over against God’s righteousness. The growth of religion and of civilization is marked by the self-restraint of the individual and of the state. Vengeance is a boomerang in most instances. The taking of vengeance into one’s own hands brings down the house on one’s head. Not only is unhappiness brought to others; immeasurable harm is done in one’s own life.

At any rate, it pays every man and every nation to be slow to anger.

Boys, flying kites, haul in their white-winged birds;

You can’t do that way, when you’re flying words.

Thoughts, unexpressed, may sometimes fall back dead,

But God himself can’t kill them once they’re said.

Sometimes unpalatable truth has to be spoken, hard words have to be said. “Am I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16). But the preacher needs to temper rebuke with love and anguish of soul.

The Rooted Word (1:21)

“The implanted word” is probably a mistranslation. The common idea of the word is “inborn” or “innate” (cf. Wisd. 12:10, “their wickedness is inborn”). The word is occasionally used for second nature or secondary ingrowth (Hort). The word is sown, not grafted, and so “rooted” seems to be the meaning here (Mayor). See also Romans 6:5, “united with him in the likeness of his death.” The figure is that of the seed sown in the heart and taking root and growing there. So Jesus spoke of the man who had no root in himself (Matt. 13:21).

Receive the rooted word; but before doing so, one must cleanse the heart like a garden of all noxious weeds. The imagery is doubtless a mixed metaphor, but never mind that, for the thought is clear. The “putting away” suggests the laying aside of a garment, as in Hebrews 12:1 one strips for the race. In Ephesians 4:21 Paul contrasts putting off the old man with putting on the new (cf. also Col. 3:8 ff.). Mayor notes the comparison between dress and character in the wedding garment (Matt. 22:11), the white robe of purity (Rev. 3:4, 18). In 1 Peter 2:1 we have language similar to that of James, “putting away therefore all wickedness.” But probably James means to carry the figure of the garden all through the verse, as Moffatt has it: “So clear away all the foul rank growth,” the weeds of “filthiness” and “overflowing of wickedness.” The “filthiness” may mean impurity. Compare Paul’s phrase “corrupt speech,” literally “rotten speech” in Ephesians 4:29. But in Revelation 22:11, “And he that is filthy let him be made filthy still,” the notion is more general.

Another noxious weed that must be gotten out of the way is “wickedness,” which here may have the narrower sense of malice. “What was called holy anger was nothing better than spite” (Hort). It is even suggested that the “overflowing” is a sort of overgrowth or excrescence (Hort), but with no idea of admitting that a small amount of wickedness or malice is not evil. The precise figure is an ebullition or effervescence of malice. Surely one too often sees this picture in actual life. Malice bubbles up and runs over into word and deed. “The evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth that which is evil” (Luke 6:45). He speaks out of the abundance of his heart. Surely evil runs riot unless it is checked and taken out, root and branch. Per contra one loves to think of the abundance of grace (Rom. 5:17, 21) and the abundance of joy (2 Cor. 8:2).

When once the weeds are out of the way, “make a soil of modesty for the Word which roots itself inwardly” (Moffatt). Surely the repentant sinner can only “receive with meekness.” Hort notes that the temper full of harshness and pride destroys the faculty of perceiving the voice of God. Jesus urged men to come to school to him, because he is meek and lowly in heart (Matt. 11:29). Meekness is not a virtue that ranks high with all men. Many of the ancients counted it a vice, as Nietzsche has taught in our generation. But the spirit of Nietzsche’s superman is not the spirit of Jesus or of the true gentleman. There can be no true culture without gentleness and the grace of meekness.

If the seed of the Word gets root and is allowed to grow (compare the wayside, stony-ground, thorny-ground hearers in Christ’s parable in Matt. 13), the tree of life will flourish in the garden of the soul. This word is “able to save your souls.” It brings a present salvation here and now (John 5:34), a new life of purity. It helps in the progressive salvation of the whole man in his battle with sin and growth in grace (2 Tim. 3:15). It leads to final salvation in heaven with Christ in God (1 Peter 1:9). The gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16); the very power of God pulses in it. See Hebrews 4:12 f. for a wonderful picture of the vital force of the Word of God, quick and powerful, all electric with the energy of the Spirit of God. Men may scoff at and scout the message of God, but it saves men’s souls. What else does that?

Hearers Only (1:22-24)

James keeps the balance well. He has shown the wisdom of good listening. Now he proves the futility of mere listening with no effort to put into practice what one hears. There is life in the Word of God if it is lived. It is quick with life-giving energy for those who put it to the test of life. One may hear and not heed. The Greek used the same word for both ideas. One is reminded of the parable of the sower again, for only one of the four classes of hearers brought forth fruit. That is the test. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The reception of the Word will only bring final salvation in case the fruit is borne.

James knew only too well the empty ceremonialism of the Jews who said and did not. Jesus (see Matt. 23) arraigned the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in the most scathing denunciation of all time. “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.” Show yourselves “word-doers” (Hort). By “word” it is not clear whether is meant the Torah (Oesterley) or any word of authority (Hort), or the rooted word just mentioned (Plummer). The latter is most likely, though the partial personification of “word” here reminds one of the opening verses of the Fourth Gospel and of Philo and the Targums.

The “hearers only” did nothing else but listen. They were true “sermon tasters” who fed upon the ministry of the Word or the written word, only to fatten into sloth and spiritual inertia. They got the hookworm disease in religion and belonged to the shirkers, not the workers. Rabbi Chananiah used to say: “Whosesoever works are in excess of his wisdom, his wisdom stands; and whosesoever wisdom is in excess of his works, his wisdom stands not.”[64] The rabbis said there were two crowns, one for doing and one for hearing, based on Exodus 24:7: “we will do, and we will be obedient” (“hear”). The word for hearers appears nowhere else in the New Testament and was used for attendants at the lectures of philosophers and other public speakers rather than learners or disciples. One thinks of the public reading of the Word in the synagogues. But even so, “Act on the Word,” Moffatt has it. Else it is like pouring water into a sieve. It is in one ear and out of the other.

Some people have a sort of religious dissipation in attending revival services and imagine that they have accomplished a great deal if they simply go. People easily acquire itching ears that love to be tickled with some sensation. The word takes no root in the hearts of such men. They run from church to church to get a new word, a sort of soda-water habit. They deceive themselves but nobody else. These spiritual “gadabouts” are shallow and skim the surface only. They make a sort of motion picture but accomplish nothing substantial in their own lives or in the work of the kingdom. They are guilty of a logical fallacy and are the victims of their own delusions (cf. Col. 2:4). One has thus a case of autointoxication. He has inoculated himself with the virus of his own error.

And now James draws a wonderfully vivid picture of the idle hearers, the hangers-on in revival meetings, like the scum that comes first to the surface, lighthearted, impulsive, nonchalant, without depth of purpose or seriousness in life. Such a frivolous listener glances at his face in a mirror, taking note to see that he looks natural and proper. A quick look suffices for that, for “his natural face,” the face of his birth, the only one that he has. If nothing is awry about his appearance reflected in the mirror, he is satisfied (or dissatisfied) with the momentary glance. The mirror was probably of metal, and the word is often used by the poets (Mayor). Here the mirror is the Word of God (spoken or written) by which one takes a look at himself, and the quick and superficial view brings satisfaction or a passing pang. See 1 Corinthians 13:12 for the use of “mirror” for the imperfect knowledge of Christ through reflection in the Word of God and in life contrasted with the blessed reality when face to face with him (Mayor). But here in James the man tarries by the mirror for a moment and soon moves off.

All that he saw in the Word of God is now out of sight and out of mind, like the wayside hearers in Christ’s parable. If it was a sermon that he heard, the impulses for good quickly die away. He is back at his business, at his club, or in his home. He straightway forgets what he was like, what sort of man he was in the mirror. In particular, any unpleasant features are forgotten. The momentary trembling of the conscience no longer bothers him. Alas, how easily the burning heat of the day withers the tender shoots in the stony ground; the weeds and thorns choke to death the pious aspirations of the better hours.

Real Students of the Word (1:25)

The image of the mirror is carried on into the picture of the doer of the word, the “doer that worketh,” a doer of work, “an active agent” (Moffatt). The phrase is tautological but very emphatic. He is not only a doer of word but a doer of deeds. He has put the word into practice and has brought practical results. He has transmuted word into deed. This is what counts, the practice of the Word of God, not mere glancing at the mirror nor chatter about what one saw or picked up, not a hearer of forgetfulness. It is astonishing what poor memories men have for what God says. The Doctrine of Addai gives as an uncanonical saying of Jesus: “That which we preach before the people by word we should practise by deed in the sight of all.”

The sincere listener pauses long enough to become interested in the real meaning of the Word of God, which is now law to him, for he wishes to obey this Word of the Master. These listeners are the joy of the preacher’s heart, those who turn to the Scriptures, like the Bereans, to see if these things are so (Acts 17:11). The word in James suggests curiosity and eagerness, as in Sirach 14:23, of the one who looks through the door of wisdom, and in 1 Peter 1:12, the desire of the angels to peer into the problems of the mission of Christ to earth. The law of God is attractive and perfect to the doer of work, as the psalmist has it: “The law of the Lord is perfect” (Psalm 19:7). But it is not a law of compulsion but of freedom. One is free to accept or to reject it. Certainly James does not have the view of the Judaizers, who made the law a yoke of bondage even for Gentiles, but rather that of Paul, who accented the freedom in Christ (Gal. 5:1). Jesus held out freedom as the great blessing of truth (John 8:32)—freedom to exercise one’s highest functions and faculties held in bondage by sin and mere legalism.

Perhaps the chief emphasis in this verse lies in the word “continueth.” The man remains by the side of the roll of the law spread out before him and unrolls page after page with the keenest interest and zest until he rightly grasps the meaning of God. Thus he puts the Word into practice. He has it stamped on his mind and heart. He is a Christian pragmatist. He, like Brother Lawrence, practices the presence of God. He translates the word of truth into his own life and becomes a living epistle. This is the Bible that the twentieth century loves to read. The man who does this is “happy in his doing,” “blessed in his activity” (Moffatt). He is happy in the doing, even if it falls far short of the ideal in the word of truth. He has tried, and he will keep on trying. He can sing the song of the shirt, the song of the plow, the song of the desk.

Complacent Religiosity (1:26)

Mere listening may be idle. Mere work may be perfunctory. One may be a worker only as well as a hearer only. The hearer only deceives himself by an error of reason (1:22). The worker only deceives his own heart by an error of conduct. He leads himself astray, out of the path, by the delusion that religion consists in the performance of religious duties, not in the attitude toward God in the heart or the ethical conduct. Paul uses the term for Pharisaism (Acts 26:5) and in Colossians 2:18 for the worship of the angels. It is the external aspect of public worship. Originally it had the meaning of reverence for the gods (Hort), but it soon came to be used for the ceremonial rites of worship. In 4 Maccabees 5:6 the word is used for the refusal of the Jews to eat pork.

In a word, it is applied to one who does faithfully the religious chores. The Pharisees form a striking illustration of this emphasis on the ceremonial side of public worship. The regular attendance at the hours of prayer, faithful observance of the rules of ritual purification, payment of the tithes—these things constituted worship. Finally, these alone constituted worship. Religion came to consist in the ceremony alone, the letter and not the spirit, the hull and not the kernel.

Most of the things done were good enough. It is good to have the outside of the cup clean but not so important as the inside or as clean water in the cup. Jesus exposed this failing of the Pharisees with great incisiveness and power. It is easy to mistake form for reality. So men have come to count their beads as prayer, to pray with prayer wheels. A person may attend church regularly, contribute liberally, come to prayer meeting, have family prayers, be a member of the church, and yet not be religious. He may have religiosity and not religion. One may mistake performance of religious functions for the possession of the spirit of religion. In the very act of working out the religious impulse men often fall into traps. So here the man considers that he is a religious man. He is content with his religious status, and yet he does not control his tongue. “He bridleth not his tongue”; this is the earliest known use of this striking figure, though Aristophanes speaks of an unbridled mouth.

The tongue is regarded as an unruly horse that needs bit and bridle held fast by the master to control it. The tongue is allowed to say whatever a spiteful heart prompts. The bitterest words are not felt to be inconsistent with personal piety. Such a man considers himself a pillar of the church in spite of his loose tongue and loose living. He performs religious duties on Sunday and is a shyster on Monday. He deceives himself, but no one else is deceived. Such a man’s religious service is empty of any value with God or man. It is vain and hollow mockery. His own complacency makes the matter worse. He is a stumbling block to those who judge religion by him, for he has divorced religion from life.

Unspotted from the World (1:27)

James does not give a definition of religion in this verse but an illustration of the right sort of religious exercise in contrast with the futile religiosity already noted. The absence of the article shows that he does not mean an inclusive description. “A religious exercise pure and undefiled” is here given quite the opposite meaning of the professional performances of the pharisaic pietists. There is pure religion, and the counterfeit is a tribute to it. This religion is free from pollution. There is in it no alloy of selfishness nor other sin. Moffatt renders it “unsoiled,” but it may have the notion of genuine metal.

This standard of purity and piety seems impossible, but God knows how to estimate the relation between listening and doing, between doing and loving, between loving and purity of life. The life must pass muster with God. At first sight one is perhaps depressed by the reflection that God’s standard of piety is so much higher than ours. What some men consider holy worship is to God hollow mockery. But then God is our Father. He planted the word of truth in our hearts. He has watched it grow. He knows the limitations of environment in which the tree of life has grown.

James gives two very practical tests of genuine religion. One is mercy toward the suffering. The widow and the orphan appeal to the hardest hearts. And yet men have been known to spend thousands of dollars upon palaces of worship while the poor perished in the alley behind the church. The social side of practical religion is receiving more attention these days than it once did. The very hospitals and asylums are an expression of that love for our common humanity taught by Jesus. James has no sympathy with that cold orthodoxy that is satisfied with singing psalms to Jehovah while the widow and the orphan suffer, with no help from the blind worshipers nearby.

Christianity is inward and spiritual, not mere perfunctory ritual. But it is not mere mystical brooding or abstract contemplation. The cry of the child and the cry of the mother for the child were heard by Jesus. Today the children cry aloud in our streets and in our factories for school and play, for love and sympathy, for better homes and better food, for care of the body and of the soul. Jesus still loves the children. Christ discovered the child. The modern world at last has begun to find out the child that Jesus has placed in the midst of us. There are many other forms of social service which the true Christian may find right by his door. The neighbor in need may even lie at his gate.

The other test of pure religion offered by James is more distinctly personal and more difficult, though the first test is met none too well. It is “to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” Moffatt has it “from the stain of the world.” It is a high calling surely if one is to walk in a world like this free from the stain of sin, with no spot upon garments, body, or soul. The Lamb of God was offered as a sacrifice without spot. Christ will present his church at last without spot. James had just spoken of the use of the tongue. That also can leave a spot or stain (cf. 3:6).

There is much dirt of all kinds about us. The germs of sin infest and infect us all. And yet it is not hopeless to make a fight for purity in life. We do not give up the battle for cleanliness of body, for healthfulness of body, for victory over the germs of disease about us and in us. It is worthwhile to lead the clean, white life of purity. One has his reward in his own life—in fresh power, in new joy, in richer fruitage. He has his reward also in the inspiration given to others, who are cheered to strive likewise against sin, to fight for personal and social purity, for better homes and better cities, for a better world in which to serve God, for a bit of heaven here on earth, for the reign of God in human hearts, for likeness to Jesus the Son of God.

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