Consider It All Joy

^{Jas 1:2} Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

Beginning study today on my series on James that will go through the end of September and excited because James is one of my favorite books. It is probably the most practical book on the New Testament written in a style resembling ancient Wisdom literature like Proverbs. The writer, James the brother of Jesus, wants his audience to know how to live their faith in Christ. He encourages people to be "doers" of the word and not merely "hearers" (1:22).

James begins by connecting wisdom with real life experience. It's not just what we know – that would have been the pursuit of the later Gnostic heresy – it's how we LIVE the faith. James sees faith and life as wholly integrated. The belief we have about Jesus gives definition to how we pattern our lives. Faith without works, James says, is dead faith. (2:17). This isn't merely a theological observation, it's a declaration about how we experience in real life the presence and love of Jesus. We all live oriented toward something. Pagan religion in James's time believed that the Gods could be placated and manipulated to bring peace, war, provision, prosperity, and love. Jesus followers were instructed to live FOR the world so that the world would have REAL LIFE. That life was reflected in the best of the world's wisdom literature (it's amazing to see how Christian themes have analogues in so many philosophical streams around the same time as James is being written). In Christian thinking, Wisdom stems from Jesus being the pre-existent Logos, or Word. When we live wisely, we live in congruence with the purposes and will of the creator WHO provides for ALL of his children (and causes it to rain on the just and unjust).

The same is true today. With Tillich we agree that faith is living for one's ultimate concern. Everyone has the one thing (or things) that give structure to one's life, that shape one's schedule or spending habits, that determine who one is in relationship with and who one avoids. For James, our ultimate concern is life in the kingdom of the one, true, creator God. God is the organizing principle under which all of our dreams, aspirations, goals, and purposes gain their meaning and significance. There is no other life that could ever really be called "ultimate." Any other path would be a dead end as it stopped short of diverged from God whose purpose and will has been made known fully in the life, ministry, and teaching of Jesus. To truly live means then being a "disciple" – a devoted learner and practitioner of the WAY of Jesus. In James' mini-sermon, we are given clear pathways into THE WAY of life that brings REAL LIFE.