Category: Scriptura Ponderings

James 1

¹James, a bond-ser­vant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes who are dis­persed abroad: Greetings.

²Con­sid­er it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter var­i­ous tri­als, ³ know­ing that the test­ing of your faith pro­duces endurance. ⁴ And let endurance have its per­fect result, so that you may be per­fect and com­plete, lack­ing in nothing.

⁵But if any of you lacks wis­dom, let him ask of God, who gives to all gen­er­ous­ly and with­out reproach, and it will be giv­en to him. ⁶ But he must ask in faith with­out any doubt­ing, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, dri­ven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For that man ought not to expect that he will receive any­thing from the Lord, ⁸ being a dou­ble-mind­ed man, unsta­ble in all his ways.

⁹ But the broth­er of hum­ble cir­cum­stances is to glo­ry in his high posi­tion; ¹⁰ and the rich man is to glo­ry in his humil­i­a­tion, because like flow­er­ing grass he will pass away. ¹¹ For the sun ris­es with a scorch­ing wind and with­ers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beau­ty of its appear­ance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pur­suits will fade away.

¹² Blessed is a man who per­se­veres under tri­al; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. ¹³ Let no one say when he is tempt­ed, “I am being tempt­ed by God”; for God can­not be tempt­ed by evil, and He Him­self does not tempt any­one. ¹⁴ But each one is tempt­ed when he is car­ried away and enticed by his own lust. ¹⁵ Then when lust has con­ceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accom­plished, it brings forth death. ¹⁶ Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. ¹⁷ Every good thing giv­en and every per­fect gift is from above, com­ing down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no vari­a­tion or shift­ing shad­ow. ¹⁸ In the exer­cise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

¹⁹ This you know, my beloved brethren. But every­one must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; ²⁰ for the anger of man does not achieve the right­eous­ness of God. ²¹ There­fore, putting aside all filth­i­ness and all that remains of wicked­ness, in humil­i­ty receive the word implant­ed, which is able to save your souls. ²² But prove your­selves doers of the word, and not mere­ly hear­ers who delude them­selves. ²³ For if any­one is a hear­er of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his nat­ur­al face in a mir­ror; ²⁴ for once he has looked at him­self and gone away, he has imme­di­ate­ly for­got­ten what kind of per­son he was. ²⁵ But one who looks intent­ly at the per­fect law, the law of lib­er­ty, and abides by it, not hav­ing become a for­get­ful hear­er but an effec­tu­al doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

²⁶ If any­one thinks him­self to be reli­gious, and yet does not bri­dle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s reli­gion is worth­less. ²⁷ Pure and unde­filed reli­gion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to vis­it orphans and wid­ows in their dis­tress, and to keep one­self unstained by the world.

James 2

¹My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glo­ri­ous Lord Jesus Christ with an atti­tude of per­son­al favoritism. ²For if a man comes into your assem­bly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, ³and you pay spe­cial atten­tion to the one who is wear­ing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my foot­stool,” ⁴have you not made dis­tinc­tions among your­selves, and become judges with evil motives? ⁵Lis­ten, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the king­dom which He promised to those who love Him? ⁶But you have dis­hon­ored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and per­son­al­ly drag you into court? ⁷Do they not blas­pheme the fair name by which you have been called?

⁸If, how­ev­er, you are ful­fill­ing the roy­al law accord­ing to the Scrip­ture, “You shall love your neigh­bor as your­self,” you are doing well. ⁹But if you show par­tial­i­ty, you are com­mit­ting sin and are con­vict­ed by the law as trans­gres­sors. ¹⁰For who­ev­er keeps the whole law and yet stum­bles in one point, he has become guilty of all. ¹¹For He who said, “Do not com­mit adul­tery,” also said, “Do not com­mit mur­der.” Now if you do not com­mit adul­tery, but do com­mit mur­der, you have become a trans­gres­sor of the law. ¹²So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of lib­er­ty. ¹³For judg­ment will be mer­ci­less to one who has shown no mer­cy; mer­cy tri­umphs over judgment.

¹⁴What use is it, my brethren, if some­one says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? ¹⁵If a broth­er or sis­ter is with­out cloth­ing and in need of dai­ly food, ¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is nec­es­sary for their body, what use is that? ¹⁷Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

¹⁸But some­one may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith with­out the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” ¹⁹You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shud­der. ²⁰But are you will­ing to rec­og­nize, you fool­ish fel­low, that faith with­out works is use­less? ²¹Was not Abra­ham our father jus­ti­fied by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? ²²You see that faith was work­ing with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was per­fect­ed; ²³and the Scrip­ture was ful­filled which says, “And Abra­ham believed God, and it was reck­oned to him as right­eous­ness,” and he was called the friend of God. ²⁴You see that a man is jus­ti­fied by works and not by faith alone. ²⁵In the same way, was not Rahab the har­lot also jus­ti­fied by works when she received the mes­sen­gers and sent them out by anoth­er way? ²⁶For just as the body with­out the spir­it is dead, so also faith with­out works is dead.

James 3

¹Let not many of you become teach­ers, my brethren, know­ing that as such we will incur a stricter judg­ment. ²For we all stum­ble in many ways. If any­one does not stum­ble in what he says, he is a per­fect man, able to bri­dle the whole body as well. ³Now if we put the bits into the hors­es’ mouths so that they will obey us, we direct their entire body as well. ⁴Look at the ships also, though they are so great and are dri­ven by strong winds, are still direct­ed by a very small rud­der wher­ev­er the incli­na­tion of the pilot desires. ⁵So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things.

See how great a for­est is set aflame by such a small fire! ⁶And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniq­ui­ty; the tongue is set among our mem­bers as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. ⁷For every species of beasts and birds, of rep­tiles and crea­tures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. ⁸But no one can tame the tongue; it is a rest­less evil and full of dead­ly poi­son. ⁹With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the like­ness of God; ¹⁰from the same mouth come both bless­ing and curs­ing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. ¹¹Does a foun­tain send out from the same open­ing both fresh and bit­ter water? ¹²Can a fig tree, my brethren, pro­duce olives, or a vine pro­duce figs? Nor can salt water pro­duce fresh.

¹³Who among you is wise and under­stand­ing? Let him show by his good behav­ior his deeds in the gen­tle­ness of wis­dom. ¹⁴But if you have bit­ter jeal­ousy and self­ish ambi­tion in your heart, do not be arro­gant and so lie against the truth. ¹⁵This wis­dom is not that which comes down from above, but is earth­ly, nat­ur­al, demon­ic. ¹⁶For where jeal­ousy and self­ish ambi­tion exist, there is dis­or­der and every evil thing. ¹⁷But the wis­dom from above is first pure, then peace­able, gen­tle, rea­son­able, full of mer­cy and good fruits, unwa­ver­ing, with­out hypocrisy. ¹⁸And the seed whose fruit is right­eous­ness is sown in peace by those who make peace.