The Book of James - 4 - Pure Religion

Verses 1:19-27 tell us to listen humbly, be doers of the word, and exercise a religion that is pleasing before God.

1. Righteous God, Righteous Life

In verses 19-21 James describes a person doing three things – not listening, speaking too quickly and getting angry. All three things tend to happen when we are upset. Our emotions tell us something is wrong, and we are convinced already that this is the case, so we no longer listen, but rather want to be heard. We truly believe something is wrong, so we are angry and want to make things right.

The only problem according to James, is that we cannot make things right, and especially not with our anger. James says that our anger will not produce the righteousness of God.

A few things can be said for general application:

• We must listen first, and then speak carefully. Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 makes this same point. We are not God. So we need to be careful with our speech. We should be quicker to reading the Bible, and listening to what God has to say, that to speak up quickly. 
• Further away from the direct context of this text, is our do we do conversation? Do you want to share? Or do you want to give people the opportunity to be known by you, as you ask them to share about their lives? This is an application of being slow to speak and quick to listen. Value people, make them feel like they have worth to you, by asking questions. You may find out the more you hear the story the more precious they will be to you as human beings. 
• To not get angry – there is often a sense that we get angry, when we think that life is about us. So logically, when things do not go directly our way, we will get angry because the world is not acting as it should. Road rage, we think it is about us. People mistreat us, we get angry, because we believe we are the point. Rather, if everything we have, everything we do is about Christ. The only things that will make us angry, are things that Christ cares about – we will care about getting people reconciled to God by preaching the gospel, we will care about social justice, as the prophets in the Old Testament did, we will truly hate sin, but also understand sin in a greater way that will make us so much more grateful and joyous at the thought of what Christ had to do for us. 

2. Doers of the Word

Verses 1:22-25 stress one thing: action. James gives a great illustration of what it is like to be a Christian who does not do anything about his faith: a man looking into the mirror, going away and forgetting what he saw. The point is that the visit to the mirror was completely useless. I know I use to do something, I would look at my watch, and straight away realized I did not actually internalize what it said. I still do the same thing with my phone. These actions are completely useless! So it is if we hear the word of God and do not do anything about it.

James suggests a better way in verse 25: bending down, with the intent of study and then not forgetting but, doing. This leads to blessedness. I don’t like doing this but here it actually really does help – in the ESV, I have “the one who looks into…” the Greek word translated “look into” is παρακύπτω adds to emphasize the contrast with one who looks into the mirror and forgets. The one who is blessed – παρακύπτω can be defined in this way :

① to bend over for the purpose of looking, w. focus on satisfying one’s curiosity, take a look ② to try to find out someth. intellectually, look (in, into) εἰς νόμον τέλειον Js 1:25

3. 1:26-27 Pure Religion

Verses 1:26-27 are connected with what has just been said about living out our faith. Religion ought to be a true faith that works in order to please God. Some are religious, love traditions, love the heritage of being religious, love the idea of spiritual reality, and the concept that we are not alone, and there is more to this life. These are not bad in themselves, but the same way a religious person who does not do anything is useless, his religion does not please God.

Religion that pleases God, helps those who are most in need in our community and in the world. If the Church truly fulfilled this commission, there would be no orphans in the world.