James 1:19-27
Lesson Focus: James encourages us to practice listening and hearing well so that we may respond with the grace that has been given to us by God.
Lesson Outcomes: Through this lesson, students should:
Understand the difference between listening and hearing.
Understand the connection between how we converse with others and our own ability to live into the salvation we have been given.
Be encouraged to allow the Holy Spirit to help us practice a faith that is pure and undefiled.
Catch Up on the Story We ended last week with the understanding that James hopes that we have the wisdom to know from where our temptations and trials come. We discovered that we could not, even for a moment, blame God for our trials and temptations. These things aren’t put in our way as a test. No, our trials and temptations come from within, from our disordered desires.
We have a choice to make when we are tempted, either to reject it outright and move on or to dwell on it a bit. When we dwell on it, we are further enticed and lured by it, and soon enough, we give in. From temptation, sin is born. Though we still have a choice to make, we can still turn and walk away. If we don’t, sin grows bigger and bigger, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.
So, James says there’s a wisdom in taking responsibility for our own sinfulness and not blaming others. But there’s another side to the wisdom about which James speaks; the wisdom of knowing who we are as a result of God’s good and generous gifts. We are the “first fruits” of God’s creation. That is, the first to be freed from the power of sin and the death that results from it. We have already been endowed with the ability to resist sin, and we must now live into that wisdom as those who have gratefully and respectfully received God’s good and generous gifts.
Slow to Anger… James will continue to remind his hearers about the good and gracious things they have already received. In order for his friends to live into their status as the first fruits of God’s creation, they must be “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger….”
This seems like simple enough advice, and if you’ve been around the church long enough, you’ve probably heard it spoken more than once. I think we’ve forgotten it, though. To be sure, being quick to listen and slow in both speaking and anger is mainly missing from the American discourse.
Sadly, it has infiltrated the church as well. Perhaps this infiltration is to be expected as the church is populated with imperfect people who spend most of their time surrounded by personalities who don’t listen and get angry quickly. James, however, thinks we can and must do better. As always, we’re not on our own.
So, what does this relatively simple piece of wisdom mean? First, we must be “quick to listen.” There’s a difference between hearing and listening. When I’m at the coffee shop writing a sermon, I often wear my noise-canceling headphones with some soft instrumental music playing. The goal is to cut off the outside voices to concentrate on the work that I’m trying to do. As great as my noise-canceling headphones are, they aren’t perfect, so soft music is meant to help drown out the ambient music and voices surrounding me. But I’m not really listening to the music. It’s there, but I’m not concentrating on it. I’m listening to it, but I’m not hearing it in a way that allows me to fully appreciate or understand its full meaning or musical richness.
I’m afraid that is what we do with the most meaningful conversations in our lives, especially the conversations upon which a lot rests. We do this with discussions about human sexuality, politics, religion, and just about everything else. We’re listening (or perhaps reading on social media) to the words that the other person is speaking, but we aren’t hearing what they’re saying. We’ve already decided what we think, and nothing the other will say has much of a chance to change our mind. Or, as we’re listening, we’re clued in on one point the other person has made, and while the other person is still speaking, we are actively formulating our response. As soon as there is a break in the other’s cadence, we pounce with our rebuttal or counterattack
When either of these moves is used, the conversation will go absolutely nowhere. Both persons will depart angry at the other for not “listening.” And what we mean by that is, “not changing their mind to agree with me.”
Now, we don’t exactly know what the readers of James’ letter were dealing with. Still, we can expect, as one commentator notes, that this type of admonition expects there is “a tension-filled atmosphere where careless words could cause major destruction…an environment where accusations are being made, battle lines drawn, and shortsighted actions offered as solutions….”[1]
But, James insists, it does not have to be this way. We must genuinely strive to hear. We must try to understand the other. We must clear our minds of our preconceived ideas about who the other person is and their motivations. We must submit to the Holy Spirit to hear what it is saying and what the other person is saying.
Then, and only then, after we have submitted ourselves to the Spirit, should we speak. Of course, this doesn’t mean we have to accept the other person’s position. We don’t always have to agree. That’s not what James is urging. Instead, our speech (including our written words in text messages, email, and social media) must be run through a Spirit-empowered filter.
That leaves us with “slow to anger.” If we concentrate on truly hearing others, genuinely trying to understand and empathize with those we converse with, we will be much less angry. At least, our anger won’t be (as) reactionary.
Anger isn’t a sin. Inordinate and uncontrolled anger is. Anger that unnecessarily breaks relationships with others is. Again, this doesn’t mean we can’t get angry. There are many legitimate things in this world that should make us angry. How we let that anger shape our response to the world is essential.
As if all of what we’ve just said isn’t enough reason to be quick to listen and slow to speech and anger isn’t enough, James clarifies things more in the last clause of the sentence. “…for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.”
Think about that a bit. Our anger isn’t helpful!
A few tweaks to the translation we’ve used should help us better understand what James is saying. The “your” in the English translation isn’t there. Instead, what’s there is the word for “human.” Secondly, a better translation for anger might be “wrath.” One commentator notes that “wrath” is preferable because it connotes an idea of vengeful retribution, which is what James has in mind.[2]
So, the clause should go something like this: “for human wrath does not produce God’s righteousness.”
The term “God’s righteousness” could mean either God’s righteous will for the peace, restoration and salvation of the world or God’s righteous will for our own moral and ethical conduct. I don’t think, however, that the two meanings are mutually exclusive. I think it’s both. Our anger or wrath doesn’t help us be who God has created us to be, and it doesn’t help our world be what it was made to be.
In other words, when we seek to correct the misguided thinking of a neighbor, friend, or relative in our anger, we’re working against our intentions and God’s too!
That’s a lot to say for one sentence. The following sentence begins with a “therefore.” “Therefore rid yourself of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.”
James is making a connection between our ability, through the power of the Spirit, to control our speaking and anger and the salvation of our souls!
We are admonished to root out of our lives all of filthiness or impurity and the evil that springs from it. I can’t help but think that James has explicitly in mind the type of impurity and evil that comes from the arrogance of speaking too quickly and from becoming vengefully angry.
I think those things are different for all of us, but the point is that we actively participate in the work that God through the Spirit is doing in our lives. We must work to remove impurity and evil from our lives and welcome what God has given to us, our salvation.
When James says, “and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls,” he’s pointing to what his readers have already received. He’s talking to believers who have already begun their journey toward Christ. The word that has been implanted in them is the saving and sanctifying presence of Jesus in their lives. It must be welcomed, not in the sense of arrogance or entitlement, but with humility. Again, we submit to the power of the Spirit in both rejecting sin and receiving salvation.
It doesn’t matter what we say we believe. As long as it isn’t born out through our actions, what we believe is useless.
Doers of the Word This is precisely what James is getting at in the final verses of the chapter. We are to be doers of the word, not just those who hear and say they believe.
James uses an analogy here. It’s like you’re looking in the mirror contemplating yourself. And here, James doesn’t mean just your outward appearance, but the force of what he’s saying is that we’re contemplating the fullness of who we are and what we are becoming in Christ. It’s like we’ve done that work of knowing who we are becoming, but then as soon as we step away from the mirror, we forget all of what we’ve seen. As soon as our focus has shifted, we forget all about what God is shaping us into.
James wants us to constantly remember who we are and who God is shaping us to be. As we do so, we’ll be able to be “doers of the word,” that is, we might love God with all we have and love our neighbor as ourselves.
James wraps up the chapter by bringing the last few verses altogether. “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
So What? It seems that how we listen, how we hear those around us, and how we respond affect the kind of Christians we’ll be. There’s a connection here between our speech and our love for God and our neighbor.
It will only be after we have begun to enter into dialogue with those around us in a charitable way that we’ll be able to practice our faith in a way that is pure and undefiled.
We are Christian, and we are a church for the sake of the world.
Specific Discussion Questions: Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.
In what ways might the preceding section, verses 12-18, be connected with verses 19-27? Do the two sections feel disjointed to you, or are they part of the same argument?
Describe a time when you were listening but not hearing someone with whom you were in conversation? How did that make you feel? What were your emotions?
Describe a time when you were not heard by someone with whom you were in conversation? How did that make you feel? What were your emotions?
How are being quick to listen and slow to speak connected? Can you be slow to speak without listening well? What makes you think that?
Verse 20 says, “…for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” What do you think that means?
The verse could be translated this way, “…for human wrath does not produce God’s righteousness.” Does that change the way you understand the statement? If so, why?
What do you think James means by “God’s righteousness?” Is James talking about God’s righteous plans for the world, for us, or both?
Later, James encourages us to be doers of the word, not just hearers. How would you connect that statement with his statement about being quick to listen and slow to speak?
James uses a mirror analogy to help us understand what he’s saying. James isn’t referring to looking at a mirror and then forgetting what you look like on the outside. He’s talking about a deep kind of personal reflection about who we are and who we are becoming. Why is it dangerous for us to forget who we are becoming because of what God has done in our lives?
[1] J. Michael Walters, James: A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 1997), 60.
[2] Ibid., 61.