Day 77: James 3:13-5
The tone of James' letter gets even more serious in this section. He exhorts and he warns. James becomes not just a wisdom teacher, but a prophet as well, warning people about what will befall them if they do not repent and live humbly, as friends of the poor. He warns as well about conflicts in the church, diagnosing that the source of conflict is our greed and our cravings. I'm not sure that this is the only source of conflict among us -- but it certainly is one. And in our particular context here in North America, there is so much to want, and so much temptation!
James spends quite a bit of time chiding those who are wealthy, warning them that there is more to life than making a profit, and that "they can't take it with them." What do you think of James' words? Are they relevant to us today?
James ends his letter with instructions about how to pray, and especially how to pray for those who are sick. "If any of you are sick, they should call the elders of the church, and the elders should pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord." He makes reference to Elijah, who prayed that no rain would fall -- and it didn't, and then who prayed again that it would rain -- and it did.
And the final words, the most promising of all: for those who wander away from the Truth, if someone brings that one back, they will both save them from death and bring about the forgiveness of sin. This is how important we are to one another.
A Bible scholar once told me that James is an example of the survival of the minority opinion in the church. It's a small peek into what the piety of the Jewish Christian believers might have looked like. We don't have much of their wisdom in the New Testament, but we have this letter.
So, what do you think of the letter of James?
James spends quite a bit of time chiding those who are wealthy, warning them that there is more to life than making a profit, and that "they can't take it with them." What do you think of James' words? Are they relevant to us today?
James ends his letter with instructions about how to pray, and especially how to pray for those who are sick. "If any of you are sick, they should call the elders of the church, and the elders should pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord." He makes reference to Elijah, who prayed that no rain would fall -- and it didn't, and then who prayed again that it would rain -- and it did.
And the final words, the most promising of all: for those who wander away from the Truth, if someone brings that one back, they will both save them from death and bring about the forgiveness of sin. This is how important we are to one another.
A Bible scholar once told me that James is an example of the survival of the minority opinion in the church. It's a small peek into what the piety of the Jewish Christian believers might have looked like. We don't have much of their wisdom in the New Testament, but we have this letter.
So, what do you think of the letter of James?
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