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News for the week of Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sunday School Lesson: Bible Studies for Life - November 1
Live your faith
By Jim West
10/28/2009
Focal Passage: James 1:19-25, 2:14,18-26
Faith unlived is no faith at all. Real and meaningful and authentic and genuine faith is active and not merely passive. That is, in sum, the message of the letter of James. And since James is considered to be the earliest document in our New Testament (dating according to some to the 40s A.D. — a scant 10 years after Jesus’ death!), it shows us that very early on there was already a tendency among some Christians to talk the talk without walking the walk. How, then, does faith become lived and real and not just a slogan or a nice little sign over the kitchen sink? First, it becomes real when we receive the implanted Word (1:19-21). And when we do we become listeners purified. Receiving the Word means recognizing that anger doesn’t suit the people of God and that such people purge themselves of all filth and evil excess. Receiving the Word, in short, means being changed by what we hear. A word unapplied to life doesn’t mean much of anything at all. If the Word changes us, we have heard it. If we hear it and it doesn’t become a part of us, we’ve not really heard it at all. And it hasn’t really become a part of us at all either. Someone once said that God gave us two ears and one mouth because he wants us to listen twice as much as we speak. This certainly, though humorously put, makes good theological sense. We aren’t called to dictate to God, we are called to be hearers, and thereby doers, of the Word; not lords of the Word who can pick and choose those parts we like and abandon those we don’t. This leads naturally to the second section of our lesson.
Faith becomes lived faith and thus real faith, second, when it acts (2:14, 18-26). Having been changed by the Word the next logical step is applying it. After all, what good does it do anyone to claim to have faith when they don’t live it every day? Such faith becomes a farce and a fraud. And there’s far too much of that kind of fraudulent faith active in the world today. In this passage James has a conversation with a man who claims to believe. So James challenges him — show me your faith without works! Of course, that cannot be done, so James continues. Fine then, I will show you my faith by my works! Abraham showed his faith by his works, not by singing a happy song or giving a rousing testimony in the presence of other believers. He didn’t, in other words, just talk about his belief — he acted on it, concretely. That’s exactly what real faith is.
Does this mean that James believes that Christians are saved by works and not faith? Not in the least. What he does believe, and he’s right to do so, is that faith and works are opposite sides of the same coin. You simply cannot have one without the other. If you attempt it, you don’t have Christianity—you have a distorted, man-made, false faith. Faith AND works, not faith OR works. That’s what Christianity everywhere has always held. Works without faith is hubris and faith without works is nothing but death.
We can only live faith if we have faith. And we only have real faith if we live it. So exactly how well do we hear and do? Do we really listen to God when He speaks to us through Scripture and sermon or do we ignore what He says? Once we’ve heard Him, what do we do with it? Are we doers or just hearers? No one can answer that question for us. We must face it ourselves and answer honestly. And then, repent!
— West is pastor, Petros Baptist Church, Petros.
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