Chapter 5
Tenth Test, 5:1-11, Test of Patient Endurance
2022 - This one also has a very different opening:
1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. [Jas 5:1 ESV]
It is hard to see how this is going to turn into a test of faith.
2022 - As I read this, and look back at the last test, the test of dependence, I can't help but wonder if this is a continuation of Test 9, rather than a new test. That word presumption comes into play, I think. Independence comes into play. This seems like either an additional example or an amplification of those in 4:13 that were planning their get rich quick strategy. Now we look also at those already wealthy, who rest on that, and not upon God's plans. As James describes them in 5:1, it is difficult even to see these as saved. Could he really mean that after salvation, it is possible to be so entrapped by worldly wealth that we transfer our trust from God to money? All the way through vs 6 this indictment of those who depend on riches are in view.
2022 - And look how 7 starts? Therefore! Not a new topic, but a conclusion of the current theme:
7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. [Jas 5:7 ESV]
I think 5:1-11 goes with rule 9, I don't think it is something new. It even reaches back into four and pulls the previous points forward? 5:9 goes back to 4:1. The whole point seems to be not getting distracted by the cares of the world - like going and making money someplace, or just enjoying what you have and not working for the kingdom and waiting for the results of that, being content to work for kingdom ends and not worldly ends. Don't get discouraged that Jesus has not returned. Farmers don't get impatient waiting on rain for their crops. The prophets didn't get discouraged when the Messiah didn't come in their time. Job lost everything he had, but he continued to trust and worship God rather than turning away and embracing worldly security.
And then "don't swear"? ABOVE ALL, don't swear? How does this fit? MSB says the Jews of the time were forever swearing by this or that, but deceptively, because they believed that only a swear in God's name was binding. So all their swearing was dishonest. Jesus also taught that we are to be honest in all our speech, and it shouldn't take some kind of oath to keep us honest. Well ok, I agree with all that. But that does not tie this in to what has been going on in Chapter 5.
Previous notes. Above is from 2022.
I don't get this one at all. Maybe my brain is just wearing out from so much...It seems to be a warning against the rich for taking advantage of others to gain wealth and then resting on their wealth. But it isn't that. Because it says that wealth is rotting away?
Maybe it is about taking advantage of others in the church?
Or maybe it is talking about the advancing distraction of wealth. It corrodes in that it is worldly, and for those who are wealthy, dependence upon it increases with years. We worry less and less about God guiding our way and our steps and depending on Him for the next day and the day after. We say "I have enough to do as I please. And those who are not so wealthy continue to struggle, to let us go our way, and we do not concern ourselves with their struggles. Our inattention to their needs - because we have plenty and disdain their needs and say they can work too like we worked - is tantamount to murder. This is not the attitude of faith.
2023 - Vss 1-6 do not sound at all like they are about testing the faith of Christians. These verses address the corrupt rich who are finding, as they age, that riches bring less and less comfort. The shine is fading, so to speak, and they find themselves lonely - perhaps hated by those they've cheated. Maybe those they took advantage of are looking knowingly as they stumble, and cough, and approach the same end as the poor they cared nothing about. The field gets level as we get older. Regret...no...they are haunted by the decisions they made that paupered others while enriching them. This is not about working hard and getting ahead. This is about getting ahead by dishonest business practices, withholding wages, a take it or leave attitude towards those who really do not have that choice. Getting rich by oppression, not by honest hard work, building on previous work, waiting patiently for the effort to pay off - it doesn't come immediately, it comes over the long haul. Yes...that's what is going on here. How does this relate to faith? Perhaps the rich never had to depend on faith, and as the testing grows more and more difficult with age, the rich have no reserves because they didn't "farm their faith". But those who had to have faith to keep going in the face of a difficult life? They are strong in faith, able to face the challenges of age as they arise. SO, is this a "new" test? It is certainly a self-evaluation. It seems to be addressed to the rich who suddenly find that they seem to have missed something important along the way, something they didn't know they were missing. And here is a possibility for what it might be. This test, this evaluation is specific to one group - the very wealthy - who always had a direction, but let the direction control them instead of the other way around. They compromised. They cheated. I don't know if they're saved. But these first six verses finally make sense...and I bet they "fit" with what went before, too, if I can just find the connection.
2023 - 1-6 addressed the rich directly...maybe. The "therefore" in 7 almost seems to say that these oppressed rich, finally reaping the oppression they have sown, are a contrast with the poor, patient brothers who put godliness ahead of worldliness. They ought not compare themselves unfavorably with those who have worldly riches, but contrast themselves with them, as they are described in 1-6. They ought to compare themselves with the prophets, who, though they died paupers, are rewarded at the coming of the Lord for all eternity.
2025 - I think it is important to note the character of the rich in this section. James' description tells us that the rich he is talking about are those that cheat those they rightly owe for work done. They are the rich who pursue luxury and are wanton in all that they do. These are "worshipers" of wealth and all that it can give them - for their personal pleasure - at the expense of others. These rich do not sound like saved people. They may be in the church, but they are not saved people. So perhaps this is the test - are they rich and charitable, being fair to all with whom they come in contact, or are they miserly, greedy, cheating others so they can have more? This would tie back to 5:1. These rich people do not have a bright future in eternity, and their end is inevitable.
Eleventh Test, 5:12, Test of Truthfulness
Don't swear. One verse. Be what we are to be only because of God, not because we are beholden or awed by anything else.
2023 - The only "fit" I see for this verse is that the rich in 1-6 likely did a lot of false swearing, like crossing their fingers and that sort of thing, in order to euphemise the sins they were committing, the fraud they were perpetrating. For those without riches, DO NOT start doing this self-deception because it will lead directly to condemnation. If that is the case, this too ties back to the whole boasting about tomorrow idea. Not really an eleventh test, just amplification of what came before.
Twelfth Test, 5:13-18, Test of Prayerfulness
We should pray fervently, not lackadaisically.
Or...maybe this is about those who are sick because of sin in their lives? Not sick because the world is corrupt, but sick because of their own doing? I think that's what is meant. We are to pray for healing from these "tests" sort of, from making these mistakes that interfere with faith or detract from our faith. The whole book has been about testing to see whether you have faith in the first place. Perhaps this says that certain diseases and illnesses mean that you don't have faith.
Or maybe it is about the "illness" that failing one of these tests indicates? Maybe the "illness" of jealousy is in view, or the illness of uncontrolled passions that preclude not only salvation but fellowship with the body? Maybe the unsaved among us that believe they are saved - but fail these tests - are a disease among us for which we should pray for healing - by praying for their salvation.
I'm very tentative about these things...
2022 - There was a recent Rummage sermon, and I think I made notes somewhere, that the sickness that prayers of the elders can cure is sickness as a result of sin. Sickness as a result of unconfessed sin. No! It was Bobby Kelly in Psalms. David talks about his bones drying up and so on because he was hiding his sin with Bathsheba. This is sin sickness, and no medicine can cure it. Only confession and prayer can overcome this kind of sickness. This seems more like life advice than a test of faith.
2023 - This oft-quoted verse:
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. [Jas 5:16 ESV]. This verse is about not covering up your sins, as David covered his with Bathsheba, such that you become sick in your very bones, and ultimately die - not of disease, but of sin. If we confess, the sin does not fester and putrefy and rot us from the inside. This is about staying healthy!
Thirteenth Test, 5:19, 20, Test of True Faith
Bringing back a brother who has fallen into sin carries much weight with God?
Or maybe instead of a 13th, this is a conclusion. An admonition to help those being tested. To come alongside brothers and help them to be discerning about their faith or lack of it, and if they do lack it, to guide them to a saving faith, healing them of whatever worldly disease afflicts them and keeps them from a healthy faith, and brings them into the body of Christ, useful and used, faithful to God and to the brethren.
This makes a sort of sense.
2023 - Vs 20, "he will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins." What? Saving another saves us? That is NOT what this means. But I'm not sure what it does mean. Do some research before posting.
I've just lost it. I don't know why. Distracted by outside things. Distracted by my list.
I went back and re-read 10 through 13 and tried again. I don't want to be distracted from this book. This is the most it has ever spoken to me. It is written to Jews, but to Jews in the church. It is written to strengthen the church, and to bring those who appear to be in the church to a fuller understanding of what should be going on with them, and to illuminate symptoms of a lack of faith. James doesn't want these people to mistake - to mingle - the previous efficacy of the Law with the more direct and personal working of the Holy Spirit within each man. They are not to depend on a formula or a list, but on the continual urging of the Holy Spirit within them. That's the testing. Are they still holding to the remnants of what the law taught them about "compliance" and dependence on that compliance, or are they now individually and corporately depending on their faith - and HOW CAN THEY KNOW!?
2022 - As last time, it just seems like I lost the momentum right here at the end. Really, in Chapter 5. NEXT TIME I READ JAMES, find a different outline. See if the tests end with Chapter 3, or at the latest Chapter 4, and then the last of the book is not about testing but about practical, Godly living. Maybe I lost it in about the same place both times from trying to make it stick to an outline that is itself not quite complex enough. Maybe even outline it myself next time!
Also in 2022, I wore myself out on the judgment study today, digging deeply into Dan 7 and Rev 13, 19, and 20. My head is tired again.
2023 - This year, Chapter 1 really seemed to open up. Chapter 2 went very well...just not quite as well as 1. Then for 3, I lost momentum ENTIRELY because the grands were here and they both got up at 6:15 and I had no quiet time at all that day. We went out to eat that night, so I was too drained to come back to it later. Chapter 4 was on Lavayne's birthday. I went back and sort of "re-did" Chapter 3, and it helped...but then it seemed like I couldn't understand Chapter 4 at all. I had such ambition when I got through Chapter 1 of doing a whole series of FB posts, all neatly tied up, getting me through at least a month of posts if not all the way through March! Maybe that was my mistake. I was filling my barns with FB posts before I'd even planted the crop. And it all fell away from me. I still got a lot of good posts from Chapter 1. I was going to start them on Monday, but the kids were up early and I never even did a post that day. Tomorrow, I will do the first post in James and I will do what I can with it. I will not make any bold statements about posts through the whole book.
I have been struggling a lot lately. It is probably the case that I saw doing a bunch of posts in James as the "easy" way to keep some posts going, because it seems lately as if I have to struggle mightily with each and every one. That's not how it should go. I am struggling with other things too - age, weight, and physical condition mainly. Things are changing. Everything is slowing down. My "driven" personality is sputtering from lack of fuel. It's just sloshing in the bottom of the tank. It catches and I run pretty good for a bit...and then it starts sputtering and coughing again and needs frequent re-cranking. That's actually a pretty good analogy for what's going on with me right now.