NT for Lent 17 - James 4
And with this final episode on a Sunday we are back on track for our Lent readings as of tomorrow. Today’s return to the good books is brought to you by James 4.
Submit Yourselves to God
1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? 6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
11Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
13Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
March 15th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
hmm… methnks me knows of you. Have you ever been in a staff pastoral position in any WA church?
March 15th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Grace… this is the third thread in which I’ve talked about this, but my head has been spinning around with some of Wolfgang Simpson’s talks from the “Dangerous Stories II… Forge National Conference”.
His thesis is that the institutional church as we know it is not what Jesus had in mind… that interlinked house churches based around homes is actually the most primitive (and authentic) expression of true church. He gave lots of illustrations about how these kinds of movements (”church” stripped down to its bare bones… clusters of no more than 16 people… ) are multiplying explosively around the world. He also believes half of the world’s population will be reached for Christ by this “underground” movement.
So I’m musing about whether in the exodus of some people who love Jesus from the institutional church is God “seeding” something… these exiles have a disatisfaction with church as we have known it and a hunger for church as God intended it. Might God be birthing a missional house church movement in Australia too?
I don’t know if that has any resonance with you, but I’d encourage you to listen to Wolfgang’s tapes (or book) and see whether something in this speaks to you. I’ve posted the link to buy his talks… and others… in the “Dangerous Stories II” thread.
Let me know what you find!
March 15th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
No. If you want to know about me, then feel free to email me. I may even send you a photo.
Clan.mackenzie@bigpond.com
March 15th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
AHD Librrary Guy …. you apologised for a comment the otherday regarding “Lance and Lionfish will never be happy”. No probs mate, I just wanted tomake sure th people understood my perspective.