James 1:26-27

Passage

If anyone presumes to be pious while not holding his tongue in check but while deceiving his heart, of such a one piety is useless.  Clean and undefiled piety before God the Father is this: care for orphans and widows in their affliction to keep oneself spotless from the world.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Again we hear in James the importance of keeping one’s tongue in check.  So many people think this verse is talking about the harmful things we use our tongue to say.  James is speaking far more generally than this.  Remember the greater context of the past few verses.  We are to be quick to listen and slow to speak.  If we claim to be pious in our worship of God yet cannot keep ourselves from speaking, how will we ever listen?  If we don’t listen, how can we ever hear God?  If we don’t ever take the time to listen to God, how will we ever be “praus” (πραΰς) before God?  {Remember that praus means broken in submission.}

Why does it make sense that we are not only to be concerned about how we use our tongue but even more concerned about how much we use our tongue?  Why does listening play such a pertinent role in true piety before God?

Second Thought:

James goes a step further to call the piety of someone who talks too much as useless.  You see, if we never listen to God because we’re too busy asserting our own agenda, our actions will be unreliable.  We won’t be a good model because we aren’t consistently being obedient to God.  We’ll end up deceiving ourselves because we think we are following God but we are really following ourselves.

Why is it important to consider not only ourselves but also our usefulness when considering our faithfulness?  Have you ever considered how important listening is too your usefulness to God?

Third Thought:

James then tells us what is clean and undefiled behavior: caring for those who have nobody else to care for them.  When we do this, we keep ourselves spotless with respect to the world.  This makes pretty good sense.  If we are focused on helping others we aren’t going to be focused on ourselves.  If we aren’t focused on ourselves, the likelihood of defiling ourselves with sin goes down.  Furthermore, when we help those who have nobody else to help them we find ourselves behaving like God.  God helped us when we have nobody left who could save us.

How much of your life is focused on others?  How often do you look for opportunities to help others – especially those that society might be likely to ignore?

Passage for Tomorrow: James 2:1-4