I'm working on my final paper for my New Testament class, and one of the resources for my paper included a section that I found challenging and inspiring. I have quoted a section of it below:
"...Among James's readers, as well, there were clearly some who considered that believing 'that God is one' (Jas 2:19) qualified them to be considered among God's people, or that believing in 'our glorious Lord Jesus Christ' (2:1) was itself sufficient to consider themselves members of the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus. The propensity to find a refuge in religion and a resting place within a community of faith remains constant and keeps James's exhortation perennially relevant.
The tendency can take the form of compulsive doctrinal correctness or ritual conformity. The mark of a 'good' Christian can become the fervent affirmation of the right confessional formulae or a pledge of allegiance to the inspiration of Scripture or an insistence on the inerrancy of a leader or the dedication to the proper liturgical forms. It can also take the form of an obsessive use of religious language, as though faith were a matter of a style of speech, and that devotion to a person could best be demonstrated by the number of times his name was mentioned. The mark of a 'good' Christian can become the constant invocation of the Lord in every conversation."
More to come...this is all I have time to type at the moment...
From: Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Letter of James. The New Interpreter's Bible XII: A Commentary in 12 Volumes. Abingdon Press, Nashville: 1998.
1 comment:
You are spot on about the tendency to try to 'prove' we are genuine by followig some prescribed behaviour. I am a faithful Catholic but there are many ways to live within the boundaries set by Christ's Magisterium. The common factor I noticed among families whos children remain in the faith is NOT rigid adherence to liturgical norms but an simple joy in the truth of God, and living that truth with unrestrained joy.
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