Jeff Gelineau - Class 1: Radical & Different
April 1, 2020 44 min
Class 1 from Bro. Jeff Gelineau’s series on “James”.
Class 6 from this series was used for GCT Episode 050.
Scripture references
Transcript 102 sections, automatically transcribed
Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.
- 0:00
Welcome to the 2007 Florida Christadelphian Bible School. The first speaker this morning is Brother Jeff Jeleno from Semihills, Florida, California. Sorry, sorry, Jeff. Study in the book of James, and today's class title is Rules and Regulations. Brother Jeff.
- 0:30
There's been some confusion on the proper pronunciation of the last name. Now, it appears there's another couple here who spell their last name very similar to how I do, but I think it would be helpful if we went to the Strong's Concordance and did a little research on the name.
- 1:04
Even though it's spelled similar, you can clearly see that Jeleno is an Italian name. I think it's Strong's 3782. Jeleno is a French name, so there clearly is no relation, and obviously you can see there's no resemblance.
- 1:26
None whatsoever. I can't see why anybody would have, you know, ever made a mistake. And believe me, I thought about putting the mustache on my mom, but went for the dad instead. This is my family here at the Rocky Mountain Bible School, which is probably the most beautiful Bible school. Complete opposite of here.
- 1:50
There's actually mountains. Very, very lovely. My oldest son is Levi and youngest is Luke. We're just very, we try not to use the word proud. We're very pleased to have them as our sons. They've been baptized, each one, about four or five years and are a joy to live with. They do mainly to their mother, the best mother around, my wife Kelly.
- 2:18
And I am with Brother David Lloyd, who many of you know. I'm buying Bob Lloyd's insurance agency from Bob and Kelly's father, Ken. So that's what I do for a living. Of course, we can't get Bob or Ken to retire. Bob, who we just celebrated his 80th birthday, feels he's still too young to retire.
- 2:44
And even though he had hip surgery to remove a tumor, followed by a heart attack, followed by open heart surgery, followed by a lung collapsing, feels he's still too healthy to retire. So he's recuperating very well from all of his trials and planning his next vacation and his next seven speaking trips. So we're happy to say that.
- 3:09
We're going to speak this week on the topic of James. I just love the book of James. My first time I've ever taught on it, so you'll have to learn along with me. I think the thing that intrigues me most, that interests me most about James, is it's just such an incredibly practical book.
- 3:30
And I strive in all my teaching to try to be practical so that you walk away learning something. And I really feel that James is very much radical and different, which is why our first class is called that. Consider this verse, for example, read today by Wes. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
- 4:07
Now, think about this verse in the context of who James is writing to. We know who James is writing to. He says, James, a servant of God, Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes. So know that he's writing to Jews. Jews who, for 2,500 years, before receiving this letter from James, considered religion to be something very, very different.
- 4:37
They considered religion to be something like this. Don't worry, you're not expected to be able to read that, right? I just want you to compare the simplicity of James' short little definition of what religion is with the complexity of what the law looked like. Consider the reality of what religion was to a Jew.
- 4:58
For centuries and centuries, for my parents and their parents and their parents behind them, religion was this complex ritual. You have to put your hands on the head of the ram, right? And you kill the ram, and you sprinkle the blood upon the altar. And then you take of the blood, and you put the blood on the right ear, on the tip of the thumb, of the right thumb.
- 5:27
And you put the blood on the big toe. And you take the fat of the ram, and the rump, and all the fat that covers the inwards, and the call above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat is upon them, and the right shoulder. And a loaf of bread, and a loaf of oil bread, a cake of oil bread, and one wafer out of the basket.
- 5:47
And you put them all in the hands of Aaron, and he waves them, and becomes a wave offering. And then you burn it before the Lord. And James writes this letter to this people whose lives were full of rules and regulations, full of trying to follow this complex systems of law. A people whose religion to them was nothing if it wasn't overly complex.
- 6:15
A people who took a single verse from Exodus 23, Thou shalt not see the calf in its mother's milk, a kid in his mother's milk. And they produced literally 432 kosher laws from, what is that, nine words.
- 6:38
James writes to this people who, to them, religion looked like this. And he tells them quite simply that pure religion is to visit the fatherless and the widows, and to keep yourself unspotted from the world. Radical and different, that's what I say. That's how James would have been received by his audience. No matter how open-minded you were, it would have been pretty uncomfortable to hear what James is saying.
- 7:09
James would have been very hard for the Jews to hear, but I think he comes about it honestly. I think he learned it at the feet of the Master. He learned it from his brother. James' brother Jesus was also radical and different. James' brother's Jesus teachings were also quite revolutionary. I think there's no other way to describe them.
- 7:33
Let's start out with dealing with something as basic as where Jesus was from. Jesus was from Galilee. Now, Galilee was the farthest you could be from Jerusalem and still be in the nation of Israel. And it was the most backward culturally of all the regions. You see, religiously, and therefore politically, and therefore socially, Jerusalem was the center of the country.
- 8:07
How the leaders of the Jewish religion would have viewed Jesus coming from Galilee would be very much today like how the Pope would view someone coming from the hills of Kentucky and trying to come into Rome and tell him what he's doing wrong. I was going to say the hills of West Virginia, but I gave the Sauders a break there.
- 8:35
I mean, we're talking, when we talk about Galilee, you've got to realize that most Jewish jokes of the time started with something like, you know, a Galilean was out walking his donkey. You know? I mean, they were the pun. They were the butt of the joke. Galileans, the few who actually learned Hebrew, generally spoke it so poorly that they were not even called upon to read the Torah in the synagogue.
- 9:05
Galileans even spoke their own language. They spoke Aramaic so poorly that they were clearly noticeable by their accents, as Simon Peter one day is reminded of. Yet it's from Galilee that Jesus brings this message. Jesus clearly wasn't one of the religious elite. He wasn't one of the favored. He wasn't one of those on the inside.
- 9:31
He didn't have connections. He didn't come from good stock, have a good reputation. He didn't come from a good area. And when he chose his disciples, you noticed, he didn't surround himself with notable men. Every one of them, except Judas Iscariot, were Galileans. There were no scholars like Nicodemus. There were no wealthy patrons like Joseph of Arimathea.
- 9:59
There doesn't seem to be much natural ability amongst any of them. Mainly they were unlearned and ignorant men. And his arrival, his arrival was heralded by a complete maniac. The one man who foresaw his coming and tried to spread the word lived out in the wilderness. He wore camel's hair for a shirt and ate nothing but locust and wild honey.
- 10:28
He was revealed to be the Christ, the Son of God, by more and more crazy people after crazy people. Those who said, this is the Jesus, were the ones who, earlier, were in chains and thrashing about. And people wouldn't even approach them because they were known to be lunatics. Scary, insane, demon-possessed people are the ones who would shout out, this is Jesus, the Son of the Most High.
- 10:57
And when Jesus actually began to teach, it wasn't soothing words that came out of his mouth. He didn't make any effort to try to ingrain himself back in with the people and make them feel more comfortable.
- 11:14
He didn't try to allay their fears or their questions about his integrity or his position by preaching a sound, comfortable, traditional message that everybody would enjoy and everybody would feel very comfortable with. Jesus' teachings were radical and different. Christ was the king of the poor and the dejected. He championed the cause of the underdog.
- 11:41
He ate with sinners. He ate with prostitutes and tax collectors. We have no idea what a tax collector is today, but virtually, it's a mafia protection racket where the mafia come in and they strong-arm you for some money. And this is who Jesus chooses to eat with. Streetwalkers and mob hitmen.
- 12:10
What was life like then in the time of Jesus? What would it have been like to live in Jerusalem when Christ was there? I want to consider for a moment the Israel that Jesus entered 2,000 years ago. Let's talk about what Jesus faced in Jerusalem so many years ago. Let's pretend that we're just simple believers.
- 12:30
And as simple believers, we're not leaders, we're just going to follow the leaders ahead of us. Society, and therefore Jewish religion, was basically broken up into four very distinct groups. There were four different leadership groups in Israel at the time. And just like today, we know that not all Christians are alike, and we've learned recently that not all Muslims believe the same.
- 12:56
Just like those, Jews also were divided into separate subgroups. The smallest of the groups were known as the Essenes. And understandably so, they were small. Because they lived in monkish-like communities out in the desert, usually in caves. The Essenes were convinced that the Roman invasion had come as a punishment for their failure to keep the law.
- 13:24
So they devoted themselves to purity in hopes that by a fastidious keeping of the law, God would remove the oppressors. The Essenes took ritual baths every day. They maintained a strict diet. They wore no jewelry. They took no oaths. They had all the material goods in common. They hoped that their strict adherence to the law would encourage the appearance of the Messiah.
- 13:51
Another relatively small group were the Zealots. The Zealots were also separationists, but they had a completely different strategy. The Zealots advocated armed revolt to overthrow the foreigners. It's interesting. We know that Jesus included Simon the Zealot in his ministry, but we also know that his insistence on his kingdom not being of this world and his resistance to sending his servants to fight would have infuriated the Zealots.
- 14:26
At the opposite end of the extreme of the Zealots were the Sadducees. The Sadducees were not separationists at all. They were more collaborationists. They had cooperated with the Greeks years ago, with the Maccabeans, and now they were cooperating with the Romans. The Greek thinking had influenced their beliefs, and they now did not believe in an afterlife of any type or any kind of divine intervention on this earth.
- 14:56
But contrary to popular belief, the Sadducees were not sad, you see. They, sure, they didn't believe in the resurrection. But, think about it, if you don't believe in any type of future reward or any type of future punishment, then you might as well enjoy life. Enjoy this limited time you have here on earth.
- 15:18
The Sadducees had palatial homes filled with silver and gold, and they filled their lives with parties and fun. They were a very popular group to be in. But the most popular group of all were the Pharisees. they were the party of the middle class, the party of the people. The Pharisees were the ones that kind of invented the concept of the synagogue, and they controlled all the synagogues, and they mostly controlled the Sanhedrin.
- 15:51
So basically, the Pharisees are the group that controlled all the religious life at this time. The Pharisees were a lay community, were familiar with that. they also held to high standards of purity, particularly in regards to Sabbath observance, ritual cleanliness, and the exact time of feast days. The Sadducees struggled between separatism and collaboration.
- 16:17
They struggled with being in the world, but not a part of it. So it's interesting, I think, today to ask yourself, if you were living then, 2,000 years ago, which party would you have found yourself in? If you were alive at the time of Jesus, what would you have chosen? Jesus, I think, probably had to ask himself the same question, and he chose not to follow any of them.
- 16:46
He chose to walk his own path. Would I have chosen that? No. What would I have chosen if I'd come along three years before Jesus began his ministry?
- 17:02
Extremists, like the Essenes and the Zealots, would probably have scared me off. The Essenes were so extreme that they would even force themselves from going to the bathroom at certain times, for fear it might defile them. And I wouldn't want to live that way. And I'm not one for fighting against the Roman soldiers with a few sticks and stones.
- 17:24
So I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have chosen to be a Zealot also. But I wouldn't have felt very comfortable with the materialistic tendencies of the Sadducees either.
- 17:40
So what's that leave me? A Pharisee. I think that most likely I would have been a Pharisee. And I'm pointing the finger at you too. I think you would have been also. I think we most of all would feel more comfortable with their beliefs. It was a lay community centered on preserving the truth handed down by their ancestors.
- 18:04
Does that ring any bells? Yet why is it that the gospel records so much conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees? Why is it that in the gospels the Pharisees are the ones that arise as the foil in the story of Jesus? Why is it that the one group that I would have felt most comfortable with, the one group that neither had gotten too extreme or had given up on their beliefs altogether and cashed in on the opportunistic wealth?
- 18:35
Why is it that this one group that clashed so often with the Lord Jesus and was intricately involved in his crucifixion, why is it that that's the group I would have felt most comfortable with? Well, I think it's simple. Jesus' teachings were radical and different. All of the groups at the time of Jesus had one thing in common.
- 18:59
They were all trying to preserve what was distinctly Jewish. The Jews were in effect erecting a fence around their culture in hopes of saving their tiny nation of high ideals from the pagans that surrounded them. It seemed like a good goal, right? The Pharisees were simply preserving the law. They were the ones who had instituted the concept of rabbis to teach the people and continue the traditions of the elders.
- 19:31
And you know, they were doing a great job of it. But in the process of trying to keep the law pure, they had invalidated its intent.
- 19:44
And their desire to keep things the way that they were and not be changed by the Romans, they actually destroyed the way things were supposed to be. You see, God had goals and desires for the Israelites' spiritual development. But they were so infatuated with preserving their place in God's plan that they lost sight of God's goals.
- 20:07
angels. So I ask myself as a Pharisee, how have we done? As Christadelphians, how have we done as a lay community intent on keeping ourselves separate? For that's what Pharisee means, is separate. And being in the world and not part of it. I think in the history of our religion, we've also done an excellent job of preserving the truth.
- 20:39
A comparison of our basic doctrines from 1850 to 2000 reveals virtually no major changes over the past 150 years. It's interesting, as you read the history of Brother Thomas, he began his search for Bible truth with a man named Alexander Campbell. But eventually, he separated from the Campbellites, over important, but relatively few, number of issues.
- 21:07
You fast forward 150 years, and the Campbellites, now known as the Church of Christ, have adopted every single traditional Trinitarian doctrine common to Christendom. And yet, Christadelphians hold very closely to the original doctrines taught by Brother Thomas. We've done a great job, I think, of teaching our children the same precious and important doctrines handed down to us by our ancestors.
- 21:36
But, in the process, have we sometimes, like the Pharisees before us, lost sight of the intent of the Lord's gospel? So that, quite simply, is the question before us in these classes. James' message was radical and different to the Jews of its time. James' message was uncomfortable for them to hear. And I believe that if we're honest with ourselves, we'll find it uncomfortable for us to hear also.
- 22:18
There were two main issues, I think, that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for. the Pharisees had become legalistic. They were so focused on the rules and regulations that they forgot the purpose of the law. They had kept the form of their religion, but had totally lost the function of it. And the Pharisees had become exclusionary.
- 22:42
in their efforts to fence in their beliefs and protect themselves from the pagans outside, they weren't making any attempts to bring converts into Judaism. They weren't even making any effort to include other Jews in their group. They would lay heavy burdens on people's shoulders and provide no help or assistance at all about how to carry those burdens.
- 23:09
On the contrary, Jesus' teachings were full of grace. Jesus understood that man was not made for the Sabbath, but Sabbath for the man. The purpose and function of our religion is more important than preserving its form. It's okay to do good on the Sabbath. Jesus focused on forgiving people rather than regulating them.
- 23:37
And that brought in the multitudes. By their very nature, Jesus' teachings were inclusive. Jesus reached out to people and included them in this gospel of grace.
- 23:52
I fear that we tend as humans to have a natural tendency towards legalism and exclusion. It's like two sides of this teeter-totter. When the purity side is up, the acceptance side is down. We strive for doctrinal purity, no matter how weakly and ineffective we are at it. And in the process, we normally exclude more and more people around us, until eventually we end up like the man in the story who finally finds a church that he's comfortable with.
- 24:33
And he looks around and realizes he's all alone. But reversing it doesn't help much either, does it? Filling the church up just by accepting all kinds of people and throwing out any hopes of correct doctrine is not the way to go either. It's not like we want to somehow balance in the middle either.
- 24:55
Being lukewarm isn't the solution. By introducing grace into the picture, what we invent is a miraculous teeter-totter. Jesus shows us that we can maintain the highest standards and still accept those who are unable to live by those standards. Jesus so shows us that we should encourage people to reach for ideals while still living with them in the reality of our sinful, morally compromised lives.
- 25:34
Jesus tried to push religion away from its infatuation with rules and push it towards grace. And Jesus lived this life of grace. And this simple concept of grace was revolutionary. No one had ever heard of it before. No other religion had ever, has ever brought forth this concept of grace. other religions dealt mainly with appeasing the gods, making them happy so they would bless your crops and help you to have many children.
- 26:04
The gods didn't demand much of us in the way of obedience and none of them offered any type of forgiveness if we displeased them. But the God of the Jews was different.
- 26:17
Unfortunately, the Jews had lost sight of that. The Jews had lowered God's grace down to almost mathematical equations. If you committed this sin, you simply offered this sacrifice and you were forgiven. Jesus' teachings were radical and different. Jesus tenderly and lovingly offered to us absolute grace.
- 26:43
Jesus forgave an adulterer caught in the middle of her sin. Jesus forgave a thief caught and hung on a cross. Jesus forgave a disciple who had denied him three times, denied that he ever even knew him. And ultimately, Jesus forgave the bloody crowds that screamed out for his death, crucify him, crucify him.
- 27:13
So when we read this book of James, we get the sense we're reading something different, something radical. James does an excellent job of bringing us back to the spirit and the intent of our Lord's teaching. James does an excellent job of bringing us back to grace. A radical and different way of looking at religion.
- 27:38
Not a religion full of rules and regulations. Not a religion of sins and consequences. Not a religion of sacrifices and offerings. things. James does an excellent job reminding us that pure religion, true religion, the type of religion that really pleases God, is not filling your life with an over-insistence on rules and the consequences that occur if you fall short of the law.
- 28:06
law. It does involve paying attention to your own personal righteousness. And we'll talk about that later. But real religion is not complex and ritualistic. Real religion is not strenuous or hard to follow. Real religion is all about living a simple, loving, Christian life. Pure religion, the kind that passes muster before God and the Father is this.
- 28:38
Reach out to the homeless and the loveless and guard against corruption. It's a simple life, but it's not that simple. We can't live life aimlessly or without consideration if we're going to guard against corruption from the godless world.
- 29:03
It's a simple life, but it's not an easy life. None of us feel naturally comfortable reaching out to help the homeless. That's something very much outside of our comfort zone. It's a calling that really is radical and different. I think few people understood this radical and different message better than James. But like Jesus' message before us, James' message is not easy for us to hear.
- 29:35
For like the Pharisees before us, we also lean towards legalism. And we find it uncomfortable to be pushed out of a life of rules, out of a life of black and white, and into a life of grace. So James is all about reversing your natural tendencies. And that, quite simply, is why James is so uncomfortable.
- 30:04
Because it is, by its definition, unnatural. It's very natural, very normal for us to be in the position that we're in today. But it's not necessarily the healthiest or the best position for us to be in. We tend to settle, don't we? We tend to allow ourselves and our ecclesias to fall to the lowest common denominator.
- 30:33
Left to our own inclinations, we're not driven to do better. We don't naturally strive for something greater. We don't rise above. Left to our own inclinations, we all quietly and simply allow the slow, creeping malaise of society around us and allow it to have its negative effects upon us. And that is the purpose of James.
- 31:02
I think James' goal is to wake us up. To help us remember why we're really here. And what we should be doing with this life. To help us see what is important and what is merely for show. James does an excellent job reminding us both personally and ecclesially of our calling. It's particularly interesting, I think, how James deals with our ecclesial life.
- 31:30
Because in a very real sense, it was organized religion that Christ was rebelling against in the first place. And yet, he then went on to create and to organize an entirely new religion that would grow to be the largest in the world.
- 31:50
But it's important. We look at our ecclesial life in the light of grace. When Christians gather together in churches, everything that can go wrong, sooner or later does. And don't worry, it's not unique to your ecclesia. It's not unique to Christadelphians. It's the same across the world and every group. Tempers flare. Clicks form.
- 32:20
Personalities arise. Sooner or later, there's some upset. There's some unrest. And outsiders, non-believers, on observing this, usually conclude that religion is a lie. Right? We've all been, had the finger pointed at us. We're all hypocrites. And the message, therefore, must not be true. Because the messengers are not perfect. As believers, we see that entirely differently, don't we?
- 32:53
Just as a hospital collects all the sick under one roof and labels them as such, the ecclesia collects sinners. Many of the people outside the hospital are sick also. They just don't know it yet. Or they won't admit it to themselves. Or they deny it. Or disguise it. Or ignore it. But, it's similar with sinners outside the ecclesia.
- 33:21
Ecclesias are not, as a rule, model communities of good behavior. Surprise, surprise! If yours is, if you're in Utopia, Illinois, you know, give us the address, we'll all come join. To think that they are, or to think that even they should be, is just immature.
- 33:49
Ecclesias are rather places where human misbehavior is brought out in the open, and discussed, and dealt with, not ignored, not swept aside. Ecclesias are places where we can practice forgiveness. Ecclesias are places of grace. They're not places that we go to avoid sin, but rather places where we go to face our sins.
- 34:16
And the letter of James shows one of the early Ecclesias leaders skillfully going about his work of confronting and diagnosing and dealing with areas of misbelief and misbehavior misbehavior that had turned up and the congregation committed to his care. Deep wisdom is on display here in James. Wisdom both rare and essential. Wisdom is not primarily knowing the truth, although it certainly includes that.
- 34:52
Wisdom is skill in living the truth. For what good is having the truth if we don't know how to live it? What benefit has this wonderful blessing brought to us have if it hasn't changed the way we live our lives, the decisions we make?
- 35:15
And that's one of James' most famous messages. Be doers of the word. Let's look it up. If you turn with me to chapter 1, the chapter we read earlier, we'll start at verse 22.
- 35:37
From the NIV, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. When we come to James, we see that James counsels us to do the readings, not just to do the readings.
- 36:00
Actually do what they say. Not just think that by remembering to do them, you've pleased God. We said that James is all about reversing your natural tendencies. James is more concerned with transformation.
- 36:25
The important part of our development that God refers to as transformation, the changing of our heart to accept God's word and to become more like our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. James clarifies the difference between transformation transformation and information. There's a big difference between coming to the word of God to be changed into a child of God versus simply gathering more academic knowledge.
- 36:56
There's dangers involved, I think, when a person receives information but doesn't receive transformation. One of them is pride. If it's simply an accumulation of information that you're after, then the person with the most information ends up feeling proud of what they've accomplished and not humbled by the message of salvation.
- 37:19
Spiritual arrogance accompanies information without transformation. Because you know a lot about a very important subject doesn't make you a very important person. academics without discipline avoids humility. To receive the academic benefits of time spent around the word without receiving the discipline of the word avoids that humbling aspect of the message. Another danger involved when a person receives information without transformation is self-deception.
- 37:57
When we are informed but not transformed, we can actually deceive ourselves and think that we are something when we really aren't. We can develop the appearance of spirituality.
- 38:14
Take any person you know whose knowledge of the Bible is, say, ten times greater than the average person and ask yourself, is that person ten times more patient? Are they ten times more joyful? Ten times more loving than the average believer?
- 38:41
Are we allowing God's word to have its intended effect upon us? Or are we just attending class after class, Bible school after Bible school so we can appear to be more spiritual people? Are we reading but not hearing?
- 39:00
We have to make sure that our hearts are ready to receive. We have to make sure that the soil of our heart is receptive to the things that God is trying to say to us. We have to spend time with God in His word, but it's not just for time's sake. Our job is to create opportunities in our life to allow God to speak to us.
- 39:25
To be quiet. To be still. To be peaceful. To focus on what we're reading and give God the opportunity to really speak to us through it. Are we allowing God's word to have its intended effect on us? Or are we simply just reading it, putting it down and picking up the remote control?
- 39:45
That's what James saw too often in his ecclesia. He continues in verse 23, If any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightforward forgetteth what manner of man he was.
- 40:03
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deed. When a man beholdeth himself, the problem is not necessarily the length of his look. Or the amount of time spent staring into the mirror.
- 40:25
The problem isn't that the person didn't spend enough time around the word of God. The problem is stated in the next two phrases. He goeth his way. While this person was listening, his mind was elsewhere. They come, they hear, but they're not really interested in allowing God's word to affect change in their life.
- 40:48
In fact, they soon go their way, believing they've done their duty simply by coming to hear. The result of this is the final phrase. He forgetteth what manner of man he was. The word forgetteth means to lose out of mind or neglect.
- 41:09
The hearer will soon be out of the assembly and on his way. He'll forget what he's heard. The word of God will not germinate in his heart. It won't take root and affect a change. In fact, like a preoccupied man looking into a mirror who soon forgets what he saw, so it is with the hearer only.
- 41:28
He will soon forget what he's heard. But sadly, he's deceived himself into believing that he's pleased God because he has simply listened. The doer of the word looks just like the hearer he's sitting to, sitting next to on Sunday morning. But the intentions of this person are different. This individual comes not just to hear, but to actually receive God's word.
- 41:57
He's not distracted by other things. His intentions are to do what he hears. He's prepared his mind and he's ready to receive. This person not only looks with an aim to do it, but he continueth therein. He understands that the further he gets from Christ, the more likely he is to leave Christ.
- 42:17
So he continues reading and looking into the word. He continues receiving the word into his heart. And he continues in this process of transformation. That's what James wanted for the members of his ecclesia. And that's what he wants for us. James wants us to be transformed. He doesn't want us to follow the same old plan that got us where we are today.
- 42:39
That's why James' message is radical and different. So the next few classes we're going to look at a few of these messages that James has for us. In our next class we want to tackle what many consider to be the heart of James' book and that's faith and works. We'll see how James and Paul complement each other to complete our understanding of this important concept.
- 43:03
In our third class we'll continue discussing the same theme of faith and works and we'll look at rules and regulations. We'll see why it's equally as hard for us as it was for the Jews to truly understand that our works don't save us and to talk about our propensity towards legalism. Thursday's class we'll talk about the topic of prayer.
- 43:27
We'll learn from a man who truly understood how to pray. Our fifth class is called Bitter and Sweet and we'll focus on James' instructions to us about how to tame the tongue.
- 43:42
And in our last class I'm going to try to throw in all the other seven topics that I wasn't able to accomplish in the first five classes so we have a cute name for it like this and that. James is kind of referred to as the New Testament Proverbs and he's famous for all these great little one-line verses.
- 44:00
We will tackle some of those. I'm looking forward to spending this time with you and I thank you for your attention this morning.
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