God's righteousness — Faves of Dave - Bible Study

James 1:19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. (ESV)

I sure hope this study is encouraging or otherwise helpful to you. In the nearly three years I’ve been writing this blog and podcast, it has been my desire to share with you what I’m learning and getting out of the Scriptures. Making an effort to produce this once a week is a means to keep me accountable for working through a short passage and discovering or awakening a perspective that I’ve forgotten or let wane. James has a way of being direct and mincing no words. This section of his letter is no exception and I must confess that I need to embody the truth of this more than ever. Let’s break this down and meditate upon it for a little while.

First, we have what I understand is an imperative. He says, “Know (this)!” It is his way of getting our attention and implying, “I’m telling you something important for you to understand and value so that you will do it.” He qualifies his audience as “My beloved brothers” (v. 19) What he wants them to know is out of his love for these believers. It’s not a warning to his enemies or unbelievers but a passionate imploring for the spiritual benefit of other believers. Let’s accept that this applies to us as well.

The imperative has three elements. The first is “be quick to hear.” What does that mean? I suspect it means what we call active listening. It seems to me that it suggests that we turn our focus from off ourselves and toward others. In the age of social media that we’re in today, everybody has a soapbox. People have opportunities to share their mind and their opinions. But that’s not being quick to hear. That is being quick to speak. James is telling us that we need to be the opposite.

While the immediate context seems to indicate that “being quick to hear” is speaking of our willingness and effort to listen to others, I cannot help but consider that the “speaker” in the preceding verse 18 is none other than God. James says, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth.” (v. 18) Perhaps James wants us to consider that we also need to be listening to God’s word of truth in order for it to accomplish what God wills for our lives.

While we are to be quick to hear, the other two elements are something in which we should be slow. We should be slow to speak and slow to anger. How interesting it is that nearly 2000 years later, we know exactly why these are paired together. If we don’t like what we hear, perhaps we aren’t actively listening and seeking to understand the perspective of the speaker. If we take offense to it and become angry, what are we inclined to do? We quickly offer our retort or argument. Being quick to anger and being quick to speak often go hand-in-hand.

Verse 20 is what I suspect is James’ chief concern in this instruction. It is God’s righteousness being displayed through our actions of humility by being quick to hear but slow to speak and slow to anger. I don’t think about that enough. Too often, it’s easy to listen and carefully speak when the conversation is going agreeably. But what if it’s not? What if the message or the tone of the message was offensive to me? It is very easy to become angry and speak back quickly. James says that’s not demonstrating God’s righteousness, and that’s what we should really be about as Christians.

Verse 21 begins with “Therefore.” At seminary, we are taught that whenever we see the word “therefore,” we should go back and read the preceding text to see what it’s there for. In other words, James is about to continue giving more imperatives on how these believers should live and the reasoning or justification for doing this is in light of what he said earlier.

James tells them to “put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness.” (v. 21) Why? Because God wants us to reflect or manifest His righteousness through our actions. It seems to me that James is suggesting that if our pride manifests a lack of self-control regarding our tongue, then it’s likely that we have little self-control over other areas in our life. Our priority is to take inventory of what in our life is counter to God’s righteousness and seek the Lord to help us turn from those things.

How can we do that? I think James points us in the right direction when he says, “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” (v. 21) The instruction to “receive with meekness” speaks of humility which is the antithesis of pride. To do this, we must be quick to hear and slow to speak. What are we to receive? “The implanted word.” What is that? At the very least, it is the message about Jesus and the cross. That is a message of the Son of God humbling himself to enter into the world of his own creation as a human without sin and laying down his life for the sin of others. Is there any greater manifestation of humility in the history of the world? Nothing comes close to it. Through God’s eternal plan, He chose to do this and hand it to us. The idea of God implanting this word speaks of the extent God goes to in order to make this truth and this hope available to humanity. Here he instructs us to “receive it.” His humility was a significant component in this act. Our humility is required to receive this implanted word. We cannot think of ourselves as being “good enough” on our own. We cannot think of ourselves as being “too bad for God to forgive.” Both of those concepts demonstrate a form of pride. One says, “I’m good enough. I don’t need Jesus to die for me.” The other says, “God isn’t really that loving or that powerful to forgive what I’ve done.”

James says, that implanted word is “able to save your souls.” That begins with our conversion and salvation, but also speaks of how God’s word working in our life delivers us from troubles that pride and sin lead us into.

Let’s boil this all down into a prayer for this week.

Heavenly Father - Make your implanted word confront the pride in my life. Allow your will and your word to produce your righteousness in my life so that others will see Jesus and not me.