Pure and Undefiled Religion

This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father: to look after orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27).

This verse in James describes religion that is pleasing to God. I would like to do a little exegesis from the Greek text to see if it will help to understand what James was getting at. Remember that although this was written in Greek, the common language of most of James’ readers, he was born and raised a Jew, and he addressed his letter to “the twelve tribes in the dispersion,” aka Jewish people. To follow the cardinal principle of trying to read the Bible as the original audience would have done, we must think like a first century Jew.

The word James chose for “religion” appears only four times in the New Testament. It is translated “religion” three times, and once as “worship,” although that occurrence refers to false worship. (Col. 2:18) According to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (Vines), the word religion emphasizes concern for “the externals of divine service.” The Jews were very familiar with this type of religion. Think of the focus on the temple, priests, sacrifices, and hundreds of rules that defined their religion. It could easily become external; this is precisely why Jesus blasted the Pharisees. I believe that James used this word to draw a sharp contrast between pure religion and the external sham that Judaism had become for many.

The words pure and undefiled are similar in meaning to us, but there may have been a distinction for James’ audience. Looking at Vines again, the word pure means “ethically [pure], with the significance being free from corrupt desire, from guilt.” This is an internal evaluation – having a pure heart. The Jews would also recognize the allusion to the ritual purity required of all who served at the temple. The ceremonial cleansing of the priests and Levites with blood and water was the external picture of the internal purity God required.

 The word undefiled speaks more to the outward aspect. Vines says “undefiled, free from contamination.”  The Jews would have remembered that their sacrificial animals were to be spotless, free from imperfections just as the Old Testament law required. Something as simple as a scar or discoloration would render the animal unclean for the purpose of sacrifice. The application of these two words to Christian religion would suggest that both our inner motivations and our outward actions must be in line with God’s demands of believers.

The first of James’ two admonitions describing acceptable religion concerned widows and orphans; this is drawn directly from the Hebrew Scriptures. Time and again God chastised Israel for ignoring the needs of these people. Certainly, He hated their idolatry, but He expressed similar disapproval of their abuse of widows and orphans. We may miss the significance of this in our wealthy welfare society. In our day, orphans become wards of the state which feeds, clothes, and houses them until they reach eighteen in most cases. In ancient Israel, right up until the time of Christ, orphans were often left to fend for themselves unless someone in their clan adopted them. Barring that, they would have to sell themselves as slaves or starve.

The situation was not much better for widows. Although Levitical law mandated some care for widows, it was often forgotten or ignored. Jesus chided the Pharisees specifically for tithing their spices and ignoring their duty to others. The instructions that God had commanded through Moses regarding support for both widows and orphans were systematically disobeyed. This is one reason why God heaped such wrathful judgment on Israel through most of His prophets. God cared deeply for people in difficult circumstances, and His people were supposed to mirror His concern. They failed to do so much of the time.

In the early years of the Protestant Reformation, Christians began to rectify some of Israel’s failures. Schools, orphanages, and hospitals were built to care for the less fortunate. Beginning in the twentieth century, some of the wealth of the two-thirds-world began to be directed toward the poor. In the years following the Great Depression in America, a welfare structure was constructed that now accounts for almost 25% of GDP. To gain perspective on that, consider that military spending reaches only 3%, and between 5 and 6% goes toward education. In spite of the government’s largess, No Kid Hungry reports that “In the United States alone, an estimated 14 million children live in food-insecure households, meaning up to 20% of all kids face daily uncertainty about where their next meal is coming from.”

I realize these statistics do not represent widows and orphans specifically, but they represent the needy in our society similar to those in James day. I suspect that most sincere Christians believe the needs of the poor are taken care of by the safety net of government programs. The statistics disprove that notion. I have no trouble suggesting that people who fall through or disregard the government safety net are precisely the people toward whom Christians must demonstrate pure religion. If American Christians would simply tithe from their wealth, there would be enough money to feed, clothe and house every person who truly needs it. If only those Christians who wish to demonstrate pure religion by James’ definition set about to find the “orphans and widows” in their circles, a huge bite would be taken out of the problem.

The second element of true religion mentioned in James 1 is separation from the world. Keeping yourself “unstained by the world” is an important test of your spiritual condition. The Apostle John said, “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Love for worldly things, otherwise known as materialism, may be the biggest “stain” James was referring to. When recommending proper Christian behavior, Peter warned his readers to “make every effort to be found at peace, spotless and unblemished in him” when the destruction of worldly people occurred at the end of the age.

I am going to quit preachin’ and go to meddlin’ as someone used to say. The use of our money is not the only way Christians demonstrate their religion. What we have to offer is time, treasure, and talents. I have dealt with treasure. We must also look carefully at how we spend our time. Employment and entertainment probably consume the lion’s share of Christians’ time these days. The question you must ask is whether your time is “unstained” by worldly things. The workaholic or the sports fanatic may want to consider how much time is stained by the world. One could ask what percentage of the 168 hours granted each week is spent in “pure religion.” For some, the answer would be embarrassing.

Look at your talents. I wrote several articles recently about spiritual gifts and natural talents. (See Related Posts) Natural talents and spiritual gifts are given by God with the understanding that they will be used in His service. Finding a way to use them in your local church is an essential part of your responsibility to the Giver. If your religion is “pure,” acceptable to God, it would seem reasonable to assume that a good share of your blessings from God (time, treasure, and talents) would be directed to the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth. Evaluate the purity of your religion by James’ standard. Then make the necessary corrections.

Related Posts: Natural Talents in Service to God; Spiritual Gifts

I Think I Love Jesus

This is going to be an autobiographical, philosophical ramble. If the thought of poking around inside my head is not a pleasant one for you, you are excused. My wife, Karen, regularly chides me for thinking too much. She is usually correct; when I imagine bad motives for someone’s action, or when I create a dilemma of my own making, I am probably overthinking. It is the latter case that I am going to sort through in this piece.

I want to start by defending philosophy. The word scares or bores some people because they picture dusty classrooms and boring lectures. That’s understandable but not fair. A philosophy is merely a way of seeing things. It is often called a world view. Everyone has one whether they know it or not. We all look at the world through a filter of some kind. If we didn’t, the jumble of unrelated data would drive us crazy. We make sense of things by choosing to see them through our world view – our philosophy. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I recommend examination. Commenting on James 1:25 John MacArthur says, “If you desire to be like Christ… you must continually examine your life in the light of Scripture.” (Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1993)

I am not going to categorize all the potential philosophies that people choose from. I will simply say that there are worldly world views and biblical world views. I choose the biblical. I attempt to make everything fit into a biblical framework. I hope to operate according to the truth as I understand it from God’s Word. This is how I sometimes stumble into a dilemma of my own making. Some things are easy to sort: murder is wrong, so abortion is wrong; hate is wrong, so homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, and a host of other things are clearly not biblical. Materialism places things above God, so that is idolatry – very wrong. Those are some of the easy ones.

There are many that are not so easy. For the last many months, perhaps years, I have been troubled by my lack of emotion when I consider my love for Jesus. I desire to love Jesus, but I find it difficult. I “feel” I am not worthy to love Jesus. I find it difficult to imagine Jesus wanting my love. If a cockroach expressed love to me, what would it mean? If that sounds outrageous, remember that in God’s Word humans are likened to worms. I love what Jesus did for me culminating in His horrible death on the cross. I understand what that means for me intellectually, but I don’t usually “feel” love when I consider it.

Here then is my dilemma. I put “feel” in quotes because my biblical world view places feelings in my soul. My relationship with Jesus is primarily spiritual, at least in my present state. If I love Jesus only for what He did for me, that is transactional love – love based on an exchange. He did something wonderful for me, so I love Him for it. It’s a trade. There are no feelings involved on my part; that worries me. I sense that something is missing because I believe the Bible teaches that humans consist of body, soul, and spirit. If my love for Jesus is merely transactional, I fear it is not genuine love.

Karen and I were discussing this the other day and she helped me to see that the love the Bible speaks of, agape love, is given to us by the Holy Spirit. It is even called a fruit of the Spirit. Paul says that kind of love is poured out in our hearts by the Spirit. That being the case, biblically, I might have genuine love flowing out of my spirit to Jesus and not necessarily “feel love” in my soul.

While I am comfortable with that thought, I still think I am missing something. I wrote “More Than a Feeling” some time ago to correct myself for thinking that agape love wasn’t supposed to “feel” like love. The Bible is full of examples of God’s pure agape love for His people that are fraught with feeling. Agape may not be primarily a feeling, but in its richest form, it is not devoid of feeling.

I remember reading years ago about Mother Theresa in her final years. She admitted that she had lost the feeling that drove her earlier ministry. Still, she persisted in her calling to the end. John of the Cross speaks of the dark night of the soul when one might wonder if God has abandoned him. What did Jonah feel in the belly of the fish; what did Paul think as his ship was dashed upon the rocks; what did Jesus Himself think in the Garden of Gethsemane or on the cross when He cried, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” I am beginning to think that one of our deepest human frailties is the imperfect interface of soul and spirit within us. One day, after our resurrection to eternal life, they will be perfectly united; until that day, philosophers like me will question the legitimacy of our love.

You don’t have to go there with me. Karen, bless her soul, does not. She is perfectly happy with her experience of loving Jesus without questions. I envy her. Jesus said unless I become like a little child, I will never see the kingdom of heaven. I parsed that through my biblical philosophy and came up with the idea that simplicity is the hallmark of true faith. I have a tendency to complicate things that are really quite simple. That’s the philosopher in me. Perhaps it is just as Karen keeps telling me: I have to stop thinking so much.

However, through this process, I have come up with another word that plays into the concept of loving Jesus: devotion. I believe devotion leans into the side of agape love that requires an act of our human will. Jesus didn’t shy away from it when He declared, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” In the same way that my devotion to my marriage vows demands sacrificial obedience on my part, my devotion to Jesus requires obedience driven by love.

John MacArthur, in his commentary on Jesus’ dismissal of those who claimed to serve Him but were rejected, says, “Matthew 7:21–23 records the tragic results of spiritual delusion…. Jesus made a clear distinction between those who merely claim to be Christians and those who truly are. The difference is, true believers do the will of the Father from a pure heart. In the words of James, they are doers of the Word, not merely hearers who delude themselves.” If my motivation to follow a biblical world view (aka to obey Jesus) is from a pure heart, I think I am safe within the fold. I think I really do love Jesus.

Related Posts: On transactional love: To Love Mercy; More on delusion: Are You Qualified? Also Weak-day Christians

You’re It!

The topic of the election of the saints is prickly to some people. As I have written previously, my view has evolved over the years. (See Related Posts.) Having been raised in the Restoration Movement and having attended one of their Bible colleges, I began my journey with an Arminian view, which is to say that human will plays a substantial role in salvation. Years of Bible study and exposure to other views caused me to gravitate toward a more Calvinistic understanding of election which elevates God’s sovereignty. (See Calvinist or Arminian)

I think part of the reason for people’s resistance to placing God’s will over human will is our innate desire for independence. Even though Paul makes it clear that salvation is a gift of God’s grace, through faith with no work on our own, some of us insist on taking credit. If the elect of God were chosen before the foundation of the world as Scripture declares, it is hard for me to see how my will had much to do with it. In addition, I think many Christians have a lopsided view of what salvation is. Salvation is not about going to Heaven when you die; it is all about bringing Heaven to earth while you live here.

I like the way Carmen Joy Imes put it in her book, Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters. “Too often we think of ‘election’ as a matter of ‘being picked to be saved.’ But in Scripture, election is more like a game of blob tag, where if I’m ‘it,’ and I tag you, then we’re both it. We run around together and try to tag as many others as we can, who join hands with us and continue tagging others until everyone has been tagged. In this game, the essence of ‘it-ness’ is to tag others. So, too, the essence of election, and therefore the essence of the believer’s vocation, is to represent God by mediating his blessing to others. Once we are ‘it’ we don’t lean back in our recliners, glad that someone picked us. No, to be ‘it’ is to tag others. And to be elect – to be His – is to bear His name among the nations, to demonstrate by our lives that He is king and to mediate His blessing to others. That is the whole point of being the elect.”

I said earlier that I have adopted a somewhat Calvinist view of election to salvation. The hardline view speaks of irresistible grace – I cannot not be saved if I am elect by God. I temper that thought with this: as God’s chosen one, I must surrender to His choosing. Like the game analogy Imes uses, many of us were running from God when He “tagged” us. I would like to say that once I was tagged, I joined hands with Jesus and ran with Him consistently. I cannot say that. I run; I fall; I get up to run again. Falling is okay in this analogy. If I trip involuntarily, God is there to give me a hand up.

If I purposely let go and run off on my own, a different set of rules apply. Either I was never really tagged in the first place, and I pretended to join the game. Or, and here is where I depart from pure Calvinism, I was tagged, but something caused me to tire of the game, or something bothered me so much that I rejected the whole idea of the game and walked away of my own “free will.” I don’t see a way to read the admonitions of Paul or Hebrews chapters six and ten without accepting that as a possibility. In the either scenario, going back to Bible language, I must assume that I was not “elect” at all. God will never lose one of His own.

I think the reason it is so hard for us to wrap our minds around this concept is because our minds are finite; God’s mind is infinite. I put “free will” in quotes before because I believe in a totally sovereign God: He numbers my days; He knit me together in my mother’s womb; He knows the end from the beginning. I only know what my five natural senses can tell me plus whatever the Holy Spirit shows me supernaturally. When I get up in the morning (if God grants me another day), I must decide what to wear, where to go, what to do, and that feels like I am exercising my “free will.”

But the Scripture says my steps are “ordered” by God. God allows me to make choices, but everything I “decide” is already programmed into His will for my life. This is how I can harmonize the total free will of humans with the total sovereignty of God. Back to the subject of election. The elect are revealed by their actions. “By their fruits you shall know them,” Jesus once said. The New Testament writers could speak to “the elect” because their fruit was obvious. In his first epistle, John said that some people had appeared to be elect, but their actions ultimately proved that they were not.

This makes being elect a matter of ethics; we reveal our ethos through our behavior. In his book, How Should I Live in This World?, R.C. Sproul reminds us that “The purpose of divine commandments is redemption. The law of the Old Testament and of the New Testament is fundamentally person-oriented. To isolate this law from its basic concern for people is to fall into the abyss of legalism. Christian ethics is built on the obedience of people to a personal God.” The elect will embrace that ethos and willingly choose to obey its demands. Those who are not among the elect will chafe at having anyone tell them what to do. This is how you can know whether or not you’re it.

Related Posts: Election: God’s Choice; God’s Choice or Man’s; More about Calvinism: Understanding the TULIP Doctrine; On sovereignty: Disrespecting God’s Sovereignty