Introducing The Bible Reading: James 5:1-20
(comments based on the Life Application Bible)
One of the purposes of this book - James - is to teach right Christian behaviour. James, who was the brother of Jesus, is by now a leader in the Jerusalem church, is writing to the first century Jewish Christians.
With energetic style and crisp, well chosen words, James confronts the conflict head on, that we can profess to trust God and to be his people, yet we still cling tightly to the world and its values.
At times we might possess all the right answers but contradict the gospel with our lives. James urges us to talk the Christian faith without forgetting to live it. In these verses we will certainly hear the point that, the proof of the reality of our faith, is a changed life.
This book has been described as a how-to book on Christian living and it is full of confrontation, challenge and commitment. Bible passages such as this one are very important and helpful at a time when being a Christian is very hard. We are persecuted in ways we might not realize.
For example into our personal life we might bring our rights, our wanting things quickly...to our fellowship we might bring pressure from health and safety so we end up having no outings which used to build fellowship...into our community life we might take help only to those who only help themselves... the list goes on.
Before we know it our connection with God gets blurred and we might not even realize it because it is how the rest of the world lives. In chapters 1-4 James outlines some of the characteristics of the Christian life. We will join his writings in chapter 5 as he begins to talk about our responsibilities to God, to others and to our own church fellowship.
No comments:
Post a Comment