Reading and meditation on Chapter 4 of the Letter of James:
We must avoid having bad intentions: « What is the source of the wars and fights among you? Do they not originate from your fleshly desires that carry on a conflict within you? 2You desire, and yet you do not have. You go on murdering and coveting, and yet you are not able to obtain. You go on fighting and waging war. You do not have because of your not asking. 3When you do ask, you do not receive because you are asking for a wrong purpose, so that you may spend it on your fleshly desires » (verses 1-3).
We must avoid spiritual adultery, that is to say friendship with the world: « Adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is making himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you think that for no reason the scripture says: “The spirit that has taken up residence within us keeps enviously longing”? 6However, the undeserved kindness that He gives is greater. So it says: “God opposes the haughty ones, but he gives undeserved kindness to the humble ones » (verses 4-6).
Adultery represents the breaking of a promise of the permanent loyalty between a man and a woman, the two being married. Spiritual adultery is the breaking of a promise of the permanent loyalty made to God and Christ, with the Christian baptism (Matthew 28:19). Friendship with the world is defined more precisely by the apostle John: « Do not love either the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; because everything in the world—the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the showy display of one’s means of life—does not originate with the Father, but originates with the world. Furthermore, the world is passing away and so is its desire, but the one who does the will of God remains forever » (1 John 2:15-17).
We must subject ourselves to God and oppose the devil: « Therefore, subject yourselves to God; but oppose the Devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw close to God, and he will draw close to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you indecisive ones. 9Give way to misery and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into despair. 10Humble yourselves in the eyes of Jehovah, and he will exalt you » (Verses 7-10).
Who is Satan the devil?
Jesus Christ described the devil very concisely: “That one was a murderer when he began, and he did not stand fast in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks according to his own disposition, because he is a liar and the father of the lie » (John 8:44). Satan the devil is not the abstraction of evil, but a real spiritual person (Matthew 4:1-11). Likewise, the demons are also angels who have become rebels who have followed the example of the devil (Genesis 6:1-3, to compare with the letter of Jude verse 6: « And the angels who did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place, he has reserved with eternal bonds in dense darkness for the judgment of the great day »).
When it is written, « he did not stand fast in the truth », it shows that God created this angel without sin and without any trace of wickedness in his heart. This angel, at the beginning of his life had a « beautiful name » (Ecclesiastes 7:1a). However, « he did not stand fast » in his integrity, he cultivated pride in his heart, and over time he became « devil », which means slanderer, and Satan, opponent; his old beautiful name, his good reputation, has been replaced by one of the everlasting disgraces. In the prophecy of Ezekiel (chapter 28), against the proud king of Tyre, it is clearly alluded to the pride of the angel who became « devil » and « Satan »: « This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says: “You were the model of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eʹden, the garden of God. You were adorned with every precious stone —Ruby, topaz, and jasper; chrysʹo·lite, onyx, and jade; sapphire, turquoise, and emerald; And their settings and mountings were made of gold. They were prepared on the day you were created. I assigned you as the anointed covering cherub. You were on the holy mountain of God, and you walked about among fiery stones. You were faultless in your ways from the day you were created Until unrighteousness was found in you » (Ezekiel 28:12-15). Through his act of unrighteousness in Eden, he became a « liar » who caused the death of all of Adam’s offspring (Genesis 3; Romans 5:12). Currently, it is Satan the devil who rules the world: « Now there is a judging of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out » (John 12:31; Ephesians 2:2; 1 John 5:19) .
Satan the devil will be permanently destroyed: « For his part, the God who gives peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly » (Genesis 3:15; Romans 16:20).
We must not judge our neighbor: « Stop speaking against one another, brothers. Whoever speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks against law and judges law. Now if you judge law, you are not a doer of law but a judge. 12There is only one who is Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and to destroy. But you, who are you to be judging your neighbor? » (Verses 11,12).
There is the same exhortation in the Sermon on the Mount: « Stop judging that you may not be judged; for with the judgment you are judging, you will be judged, and with the measure that you are measuring out, they will measure out to you. Why, then, do you look at the straw in your brother’s eye but do not notice the rafter in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Allow me to remove the straw from your eye,’ when look! a rafter is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the rafter from your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to remove the straw from your brother’s eye » (Matthew 7:1-5).
This exhortation not to judge is to be put in the context of the general human relationship and not in the normal framework of a court which requires the intervention of a judge to rule on the guilt or not of a person.
Jesus Christ says that the human who tends to systematically judge his neighbour, often forgets that he is in very exactly the same situation as the person he is judging: a sinner like all the other descendants of Adam: « For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Jesus Christ adds a second point showing that the person who is judging, puts himself in a very delicate situation from the point of view of the one who will exercise judgment, King Jesus Christ, especially shortly before the great tribulation: he will be judged in the same way how he judges others. So non-judgment, seen from this perspective, is a way of being careful. However, Jesus Christ said before, in his sermon, that we must be merciful and thus, it will be shown mercy to us. We must forgive, so God will forgive us our faults (Matthew 5:7; 6:14,15).
However, Jesus Christ goes much further concerning the person who tends to judge his neighbor, he says without hesitation, that he is a hypocrite. Indeed, he judges his neighbor by ignoring that he has faults, even much more serious; Jesus Christ says that the person judged has a straw in his eye while, by optical effect, the other, has a rafter in his eye. The expression used by Christ is completely in keeping with the person who regularly judges his neighbour: « Physician, cure yourself » (Luke 4:23).
We must avoid presumption and arrogance: « Come, now, you who say: “Today or tomorrow we will travel to this city and will spend a year there, and we will do business and make some profit,” 14whereas you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears. 15Instead, you should say: “If Jehovah wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16But now you take pride in your arrogant boasting. All such boasting is wicked. 17Therefore, if someone knows how to do what is right and yet does not do it, it is a sin for him » (verses 13-17).
The comment of the disciple James on the fragility of human life, leads us to ask existential questions about its meaning. The biblical book of the Ecclesiastes is very exactly in the theme of the existential reflection of the meaning of life with some questions linked to death and hope. The Ecclesiastes puts them in two important perspectives: the description of the life which would be stripped of all spirituality, and on the other hand, which would be in a spiritual way of life.
The central theme is: « The greatest vanity!” the congregator has said, “the greatest vanity! Everything is vanity! » (Ecclesiastes 1:2). The theme of the absurdity of the current human condition is illustrated by many examples. The human condition that leads him inexorably to death, so what he will undertake, in the end, this will be useless.
There is not only this realistic but also dark observation, there is also the best solution, written in the last words in the chapter 12: « The conclusion of the matter, everything having been heard, is: Fear the [true] God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole obligation of man. 14For the true God himself will bring every sort of work into the judgment in relation to every hidden thing, as to whether it is good or bad » (Ecclesiastes 12:13,14). If this book begins with a very dark aspect of existence, the counterpoint is the solution of the good relationship with God, that can get us out of this absurd cycle, of this existence, by granting us the everlasting life (John 316.36; 17:3). Throughout this observation of absurdity, there is an alternation between the spiritual darkness, our current human condition and the spiritual light, the fact that God can deliver us from this dead end.
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Meditation on the Letter of James leading to Christian maturity
When we read the Letter of James, it is surprising to see the likeness of his way of teaching, with that of his older brother Jesus. He uses many illustrations as Jesus did…
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Achieving Spiritual Maturity (Hebrews 6:1)
Table of contents of the http://yomelyah.fr/ website
Reading the Bible daily, this table of contents contains informative Bible articles (Please click on the link above to view it)…
Table of languages of more than seventy languages, with six important biblical articles, written in each of these languages…
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