Note: This post is adapted from a sermon I first delivered at Bethany Bible Chapel in Winchendon, MA on July 3, 2022. It follows the outline of the sermon on every point but is not verbatim what I said in the initial delivery; the message was also originally taught from the ESV but has been switched to NASB here.

While some people who know me on Facebook may expect differently, it has been about 15 years since I was last punched in the face. That time, it was by my ex-fiancée; she had been led to believe by some people who didn't like me (admittedly, for good reason) that I had been cheating on her. I hadn't, but at the moment when that right hook connected, that didn't really matter. What mattered in that moment was that she really believed it, and through her actions, I was finally convinced that she really believed it. The reason for this is actually pretty simple: we act in accordance with our beliefs. That is, our behavior displays what we really believe, whether we intend to or not.

The epistle of James is heavily focused on this. James wrote his preserved letter to believers who already understood the gospel. This letter doesn't deal heavily with the basics of the faith or how to understand salvation; his concern is what they're doing about it. The passage we're looking at today is essentially a summary of the whole book in that it condenses a lot of these concerns into one neat little package.

What does it mean to say that this faith can't save? Every commentary I consulted in preparing this message had something to say on this matter, always addressing a stated concern that Paul taught a salvation of faith and James taught a salvation of works. How these commentaries addressed this was usually something along the lines of recognizing that Paul and James aren't contradicting each other because they aren't talking about the same thing. Where Paul in Romans is focused on the gospel as the basis of establishment in maturity, and therefore concerning himself with the means of salvation when talking about faith and works, James is presenting the results of establishing one's maturity on the gospel, and is therefore concerning himself with the effects of salvation when talking about faith and works. We have to understand this distinction when reading James; we read it through the lens of understanding what salvation looks like as it plays out in our lives, not how we enter into it in the first place. And James is very concerned with how it plays out in our relations to one another. In fact, the passage cited above is sort of the climax of James' condemnation of partiality. I summarized the section before it for time concerns when preaching this message, but I'll include the actual text here because I can:

James has, for some time now in the letter, been calling out the practice of treating some people in the body better than others. This is especially focused on the treatment of the poor as compared to the rich; James expresses grave concern about the church treating the rich better simply because they are rich, and will go on later in the letter to attack accumulated wealth in one of the most inflamed condemnations of the entire Bible. We can tell from James' examples in today's passage, in which he primarily focuses on the treatment of those who lack as examples, that this is still part of that condemnation. James is declaring here that our behavior, especially toward one another, is a gospel issue.

Now, I've mentioned this before, but it bears reminder here: when I and others call something a gospel issue, we are not saying that this issue is the content of the gospel. That is, when someone says that our approach to racial reconciliation or sexual abuse is a gospel issue, they aren't saying that Christ came to save us primarily from inequality or assault, as it is sometimes framed by its critics. What we're saying when we reference something as a gospel issue is that it is an issue that reveals what we believe about the gospel. James is saying that in today's passage, that our treatment of others reveals what we believe about the gospel. And Jesus said the same in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. In the parable, people are sorted 'like sheep from goats,' and each is given their due reward and an explanation on why they're receiving what they are. For example,

Jesus declares that the evidence of whether they belonged among the sheep or  the goats wasn't in lofty words or fancy theological training or their volunteer hours at church. He is answering on their behalf a series of questions that he treats as pretty fundamental to the issue at hand:

• When I was hungry, did you give me food?
• When I was thirsty, did you give me drink?
• When I was a stranger, did you welcome me?
• When I was naked, did you clothe me?
• When I was sick or in prison, did you visit me?

He makes it very clear that the answers to these questions matter. In both cases, those receiving reward as well as those receiving punishment, the addressed parties express confusion. Both ask when they ever saw Jesus in these situations, when they ever had the opportunity to act in accordance with these questions. And Jesus tells both of them "to the extent that you did (or did not) do it to one of the least of these, you did (or did not) do it to me" (Matthew 25:40,45; NASB). By their actions, the people in the parable displayed whether or not they had love for one another, but that wasn't all. Jesus tells us, by delivering this parable, that this very same behavior reveals whether or not we have love for Him. The answer to those questions, as it concerns "even the least of these my brothers," is the very same answer as it concerns Him. But how does this work?

This may sound a bit controversial, but hear me out: our actions are determined by what we believe, not by what is true. For example, I can say with certainty that it is true that Jesus rose from the grave. The historical accounts for this event meet or surpass the standards to be taken as serious historical evidence, the nature of the accounts themselves have elements that lend them credibility, and the timing lines up with what we would expect for first-hand accounts. I could go into detail, but that isn't the point right now. The point right now is that people who don't believe it's true don't act like it's true. Maybe they deny the supernatural and their actions reflect a belief in naturalism. Maybe they deny that Christ is God, and their actions display that they are not fundamentally considering Christ in their decision-making processes. Whatever it is, the actions of those who do not believe in the resurrection are defined in some measure by the fact that they don't believe it. The fact that the claim is true isn't enough to change the behavior of everyone who comes in contact with that truth; the truth of the resurrection does not, by itself, change our behavior, but our belief in the resurrection does.

As such, our actions serve as evidence of what we believe. Our words are an inferior proof in this regard. After all, we can lie about what we believe. We can even lie to ourselves. Titus is warned by Paul about false teachers that "They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed" (Titus 1:16, NASB). James touches on this same idea in our passage, when he says "What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works;" note here that he doesn't say "what good is it that he has faith," but rather, "what use is it if he says he has faith" (James 2:14, NASB). James isn't even comparing faith and works, he's showing that an empty statement of faith is not sufficient evidence that said faith exists! Works serve as evidence of what faith exists, and I don't mean big showy works. My standing at the pulpit and preaching isn't the kind of evidence God is looking for, and Jesus goes so far as to say that even miracles aren't enough on their own.

The will of the Father is not a matter of mighty works or big displays, but rather the daily knowing and being known. After all,

It's for this reason that I haven't historically liked Valentine's Day or the later addition, Sweetest's Day. I'm not anti-romance or anything, but I don't like the idea of being told I need to go big on the same day as everyone else. More so than that, though, I don't like the implication that a big showy practice on a scheduled interval is we show love. I firmly believe that if Carol and I relied on an annual ritual to prove our love, we'd be doomed. That stuff is nice, it's fine to do it, but if it exists in a vacuum it actually proves the opposite. If I can't muster up any energy to display my love outside of circumstances where I'm being pressured to do so, it sends the message that I don't actually have any love dwelling in me for her. It's the daily life, the love shown bit by bit, day by day, hour by hour; it's the life of love that proves love, not the holidays of love.

Similarly, it is the daily walking with God that displays our love for Him. In my previous Sunday morning message at this church, I referenced the then-current sermon series about the heart of Christ and said that the point of so much of what we were saying was to take the things we learn about the nature of Christ and behave as though they are fundamental truths of the universe. That all of creation, including us, is defined by the very heart of who Christ is. This happens by way of a growing relationship with Him, in which we make decisions in service to Him. Loving Him above all and loving others in that is essential to our walk as Christians, and it will be displayed in our actions toward one another. James warns, "If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,' and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?" because a faith that is fixed on God will draw us closer, not only to Him, but to those who bear His image (James 2:15-16, NASB).

It can go the other way, as well. Actions that do not glorify or serve God are evidence of faith that is not fixed on Him. One of the things we need to keep in mind here is that we each have some areas in which there is room to grow. None of us are perfect; even if our lives in general point to a faith fixed on God, we have some element in our lives that is still skewed, whether by holding onto it for ourselves or being just a little wrong about who God is in that matter. That which we believe can be our undoing just as easily as they can help us grow, and even one area of false faith in our lives will impact our general behavior. Jude warns about this, though he's mostly focused on false teachers and therefore on a pattern of behavior that displays a whole life rooted in something other than Christ, when he says that "...these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed" (Jude 1:10, NASB). Our actions are the means by which the immediate fruit of our beliefs are realized in our lives. But we need to discuss why that is.

In my church, we do a communal scripture reading during a part of the service that happens before the sermon, and whoever is preaching that Sunday selects the passage to be read. On the Sunday when I first preached this message, I asked for the reading to be the entire third chapter of 1 John. John tends to follow more cyclical logical paths than Paul and James, so throughout the chapter (and the epistle) there's a degree to which he's saying the same thing over and over again in different ways; but what he's saying in this epistle strongly mirrors what James is saying in our text, and this message is highly apparent in chapter 3. Consider the parallels between the James passage and this from 1 John 3:

I would encourage you to read that whole chapter as related to this concept, but for now I'd actually like to highlight a verse a couple chapters later.

If we have true faith, it will be made manifest in our lives. By submitting to Christ, we overcome the world; we are no longer bound by its sinful nature, we are no longer subject to its whims and passions, we are free in the way only the victorious can be free from that which they've defeated. This new state, this nature of being one who has overcome, is manifested in the keeping of God's commandments. But not as a burden! A heart aligned toward God will have a natural inclination to move toward Him and to act in a manner that pleases Him, and what pleases Him and makes up the bulk of His commandments is love for Him and love for His image-bearers, especially those of His family. This isn't a demand that we are struggling to meet, it isn't a weight we are being forced to carry. When our hearts change, our desires and drive will change, and that will shape our behavior. We can determine if a heart is oriented toward God by whether or not that heart is producing fruit that glorifies God. In contrast, James warns us in 2:17 that a dead faith cannot stir the heart to action. The warning is presented as a question, "can that faith save him?," but it's a very stern question. And John provides an equally stern answer:

That is, if our 'faith' is so weak that it cannot stir our hearts to love the person next to us, the person we can see and touch, the person whose pain we can directly witness and understand, the person who struggles daily against the same sinful worldly systems as we do, how can it possible move us to love God? God knows our pain intimately, but we barely know His. How many of us sat with Jesus, ate with His disciples, heard His laugh and rested our heads against His shoulder? Will a heart be moved more strongly by stories about someone than by experiencing life with someone? James goes so far on this basis as to suggest that faith without works doesn't even deserve to be called faith. In verse 18, he challenges those who will not put their faith into practice to follow through; he asks for proof of faith without works. But there's no way to show faith if it isn't impacting anything! It's like asking someone to show you the wind without allowing the wind to push against anything. How can you possibly say there is wind when it affects nothing? By definition, if wind is not moving and pushing against anything (even the air itself), is it even wind? Categorically, no. And faith is the same way. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that faith is, categorically, evidence and conviction. And these have real world results; if one will not act in accordance with their convictions, it stands as evidence that they do not hold those convictions. What James is doing here is highlighting the impossibility of faith being knowable, even the possibility of faith being real, if it has no works.

If our faith is not moving us along the path highlighted by John, that of growing in our service to God's commandments and manifesting His love ever more, then it simply is not faith. Or at least, it isn't faith in Christ Jesus. One can have faith in many things, but if that thing is the God of the Bible, these results being discussed by James and John will be the fruit of it. James is helpful here, in that he provides some examples, and these examples are expanded upon and added to by the writer of Hebrews. James highlights Abraham and Rahab; the former is discussed in more detail in Hebrews 11:8-10 and 11:18-29, while the latter is addressed in Hebrews 11:31. They are, in Hebrews, listed among a collection of examples, people who held great faith, and whose faith was proven by their works. The examples we have of faith throughout scripture are people whose faith drove them to action. In every case, they believed God was going to do something or had done something, and they acted in accordance with that belief. The chapter highlights not only great and major decisions made in faith, but consistent daily life spent in light of God's nature, God's works, and God's promises. This is boiled down in Matthew 8, where in verse 10 Jesus declares a centurion as having more faith than He had seen in all of Israel. But what showed Him that faith? Simply put, a man who recognized Christ's authority, understood who Christ was in daily terms that impacted his life, and acted in full confidence of what Jesus would do.

There's a process to this, so let's break down how it works with an example from my own life. The first step is that our beliefs about the truth of the world inform how we process information. We decide who and what we're going to trust, and how we will analyze new data, based on the beliefs we already have about the world and the bigger picture. I'm habitually anti-authority, and while God has softened my heart toward those in authority, my natural inclination still isn't exactly instant trust. This became glaringly relevant the first time I was arrested. I was 13, got attacked in art class over a misunderstanding paired with a bad day, was arrested for fighting in school, the details aren't important right now. What is important is that the police officer who sat across from my parents and me explained that he knew I hadn't actually broken the law, every witness' testimony lined up on that fact, but it had been determined that it was better to charge me anyway so ensure the department would not get accused of racism, seeing as the young man who attacked me was black and I wasn't. He assured us that this was a thing that happened from time to time and they therefore knew the court would throw out the charges and everything would be fine; he was right in that regard, the court did throw out my case and I was never in trouble, and the family of the young man who attacked me accused the court of racism for punishing their kid but not me.

So the idea was that I wouldn't get in trouble, the police would look squeaky-clean, the kid who attacked me gets punished, and everyone wins. Based on conversations with my parents since then, I'm under the impression they very much accepted that answer as the best way to navigate a complicated situation. As I said, they had ample evidence as the situation continued to unfold that the officer was right about how the situation would be seen and how best to offer some measure of satisfaction without putting me at undue risk. I, however, did not. What I heard in that explanation was that the police were, on a systemic level, putting their image as a higher priority than their actual job. That they were more concerned with looking like they were practicing justice than in actually practicing justice. As the officer's worldview made him think he was explaining a reasonable compromise for a broken world, and the worldview of my parents made them hear a reasonable compromise for a broken world, my worldview made me hear a confession of repeated offenses against my community. While my parents thought about how much pressure that officer must have been under and how complicated the situation was and worried whether or not the judge would follow through on the officer's promise, my head was elsewhere. How many people, I wondered, had been thrown under the bus before me? How many of them didn't get their cases thrown out like mine was? How many people were in prison, or had criminal records, or were now dead because it was easier and more important to maintain the image the police were after than to do right by them?

Now, I'm not actually advocating for my position in this post, and I wasn't in the sermon. I've done that elsewhere and certainly will again, but the point here isn't whether or you agree with me or my parents. It's why you agree with who you found yourself agreeing with. The point is that, as you were reading that story, some things stood out as more reasonable than others. Some things clicked easier, some people sounded like they were being more fair to the circumstances than others did. That's what I'm trying to highlight. That moment where your mind began to interpret the story through the lens of what you already believed, that's how this works. We process information based at least in part by a system of credibility we establish based on our existing beliefs about the world and how it works. And then, once we've processed the information, the information we have deemed as credible informs how we make decisions. That event (and others) formed a long-standing distrust of police in my mind, and that distrust manifests in how I handle encounters with police. But that's not limited to isolated encounters, because how we make decisions and the bulk of our decisions shape our daily lives. How I view cops is evident in how I drive, how I vote, how I talk to my kids about the law. There is a fair chance that my anti-authoritarian mindset, by shaping how I interpreted that one situation, will not only prove to shape my whole life, but the lives of generations after me. And this is true of all of us, and it is true of every belief we hold. They all impact our behavior in this way, and by doing so, they all shape every day of our lives. Even if we try to act differently without changing those beliefs, it will break down. The consequences of our beliefs will find a way to show through, even when we don't realize it. There will be cracks, and people who know how to recognize the beliefs at play will see them glowing bright and clear through those cracks.*

We would be wise to remember that God always knows how to recognize the beliefs at play and sees all our cracks.

The result of all of this is that we can't simply "fake it til we make it." We don't rely on our own strength or willpower to behave in a manner that glorifies Christ, and the goal of sermons and posts and books aiming to help us on our walk with Christ, if they are handled properly, never seek to put pressure on us to just do better. I told the church during this sermon that I, the lead pastor, and the other regular preacher at our church are concerned with helping the church, including ourselves, live our lives in a manner that more clearly displays God's love and glory, but none of us are under the impression we can push people to any sustainable actions that will accomplish that. Sermons there and posts here are fundamentally invitations for all of us to examine our beliefs. The fact is that the only way to produce a life that glorifies God is to constantly have God before us and examine ourselves for places where we are not believing rightly about Him. As we know Christ more clearly and seek after Him more fervently, change will happen in our lives. The more we align our hearts and minds with the truth of who God is, the more our lives will reflect Him. The goal here is to ensure that our instinctive means of interpretation is who Christ is, and submit to the process by which God changes our lives through that lens.

Having Christ as our interpretive lens is more than just knowing things about Him. James ends our passage with a warning to that effect, when he says "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder" (James 2:19, NASB). One commentary I consulted pointed out that the faith of demons is better than the faith of some of us, because they at least know God well enough to shudder.  That is, they have enough awareness of who He is and who they are and what that means for them to recognize the end result of that interaction; but even that is not enough faith to bring about any change in them. But this shouldn't be so for us!

We have the mind of Christ! By submitting to Him and becoming a new creation, we have available to us the true interpretive lens for all of reality, the very mind of the God who knows all and sees all, who dwells in us and leads us. And this perspective is alien to the world, the ways of Christ stand out against the ways of mankind. If we are living this out, truly living it out, we will begin to look strange in the sight of the natural world around us. So we need to ask ourselves some hard questions. How much of what drives our reactions to things are cultural pressures, put onto us by families, friends, our environment, our affiliations, and other social sources? How much are we actually trusting Christ to guide our minds and actions? Are we living like we have the mind of Christ? Do we look like little Christs in our contexts, or do we look like the natural product of our contexts? Our behavior is a relatively easy means of analysis, both self-analysis and the analysis we open ourselves to by entering into the family environment of the local church. Our behavior will always reveal the truth of what's happening inside us, eventually.

I used to have a Nissan Truck. It was old enough that that was its name on the title: Nissan Truck. I was delivering pizzas with it one day when I suddenly found myself sitting at an usual angle, facing significantly more upward than I was before. The truck was making a weird noise, as well, so I pulled over and checked it, and found that the frame had rusted through and snapped right where the cab met the bed. I pulled it all back together using zip ties, and used some electrical tape to close up the severed fuel line. And from the outside, for the rest of that delivery, it looked fine. But it was very apparent in the driving of it, and with even a cursory examination, that it was very broken. Sometimes we want to be like that, just make it look good and ride it out til glory, but that doesn't work. We can't prop up our lack of faith with empty works or even empty knowledge. Sin rusts us to our core, and we need a new frame. Too many of us are trying to drive around on zip ties and tape, and it's time we honestly face how little that helps us.

If you're reading this, and you've been treating the Christian life or social morality or ethics or even some other faith as a checklist that you think will save you, it's time to stop. You need to repent, recognize Christ for who He truly is, and place your trust fully in Him. Lay down whatever it is in your mind that tells you to interpret discussions like this as anything you can or should do to fix yourself, and lean on Him to change you on a fundamental level.

If you've already done that, if you've recognized your need of Christ and submitted to Him, then you need to take stock. have you fully given yourself over to Him, or are you still trying to hold on to rusty pieces? We need to always be looking to the person of Christ and our beliefs about Him, examining how well we reflect Him. And this side of eternity, there will always be something where we're lacking, where we're a bit off the mark. We need to identify those places where we don't quite look like Christ, where we don't have a natural draw to glorify Him more, and take things like this post as an invitation to ask why. What belief am I holding that doesn't align with the truth of who God is? Don't beat yourself up, don't try to force a new behavior; take a step back and examine your beliefs. Where are our hearts and habits leading us? Any place in our lives where we are not being drawn closer to God is a place that needs examined.

Our works cannot save us; they are, rather, a declaration of what has been done in the core of our being by God by His grace through our faith. We do not change ourselves, but we submit to His changing power. And the result of this is that we will practice the good works He has intended for us. So let us be a people who are trusting God enough to walk in His power down the strange paths he has for us, now and forevermore.

* - For the record, this is the essential claim behind things like microaggressions and casual racism/sexism/antisemitism/etc. The idea is that those who hold institutional power in some way are trained by their social structures themselves to view those who do not hold that same power as inferior, through various ideas that are embedded in one's worldviews. These ideas then filter through into individual words and actions across one's daily lives, and that the act of trying to resist the effects of those ideas (the stuff we quickly identify as racism, like lynch mobs) without changing those ideas themselves will still result in little signs of those ideas showing up in one's words and actions in ways the racist/sexist/etc. person does not recognize as wrong but the target of those ideas is intimately familiar with.

Until one died of old age (and a rough life) a couple months ago, we had two cats, which we got at the same time from the same shelter. Both were considered special cases and, even though there was a line out the door because it was a mass adoption event, we had no conflict or objections in taking them both. One, who we named Cullen, was 10 years old, had spent some unknown amount of time living on the street, and had to receive a number of medical procedures during his time at the shelter to make sure he would be okay. The other, who we named Cassandra (but usually call Cass or Cassie), was almost a year old and therefore should have been in high demand; however, she was the product of inbreeding and had some neurological and physical problems which we were warned may or may not become major issues later on. The major impact of her neurological issues is that, while she clearly wants attention and loves people, she was incredibly skittish and her behavior was described as "she doesn't really know how to be a cat."

This was actually a big part of why we got both of them. We would have been very happy with either alone, each for their own reasons, but we specifically wanted both of them. The logic was that having an older cat who knows how to interact with the world and with people, and has a grasp on general cat behaviors, would help Cassie adjust; while having a younger cat to look after and play with would help Cullen stay active and healthy.

Some of the things Cass needed to learn from him were just social cues, but over the time Cullen was with us, he also seems to have taught her necessities like how to hunt. She didn't learn everything exactly the way he does it, but she clearly picked things up from him. Like how Cullen was very fond of headbutting me and rubbing our foreheads together as a form of social connection; she has not acquired that specific behavior and I doubt she will now, but after watching him do that she has taken a habit of leaning her face close to mine so we can sniff at each other for an apparently similar end.

The fact is, no one in our house was ever going to be able to teach Cass some of these behaviors ourselves. She would have, I'm sure, found some way to engage with us that worked for everyone involved, but it would have been alien to us as previous cat owners and stressful for her to figure it out on her own. And there's no guarantee she would have picked up everything. Maybe she would have taken an interest in hunting mice all on her own (a very valuable skill for our old house in the forest), but we certainly would not have ever been able to help her do that, let alone do it well. There are probably countless little daily behaviors that she picked up from Cullen, some necessary to her well-being but completely unnoticed by us, that we would have never known how to handle or been in a position to teach if we had.

A couple years ago I was talking with a friend who was finishing his ministry training in something similar to a church internship. His congregation was mostly older, and he was looking for some way to get them active in his community while accepting their limitations, and asked me if I had any thoughts. After gaining some information about his congregation and the community from him, I suggested that he reach out to a local college's campus ministry and see if they would be interested in an arrangement where his congregation served as mentors and the young Christians helped with church activities that the congregation wasn't up to doing. After he asked me to explain the mentor relationship I had in mind a bit more, he told me he was certain the pastor he was working under would not take well to the notion that some Christians are more mature in their walk than others.

I called myself a Christian for most of my life, but never really knew what that meant until a pastor in Boston started actively investing in me. He asked me tough questions about my life and faith, met with me to discuss application, gave me resources that I needed, and treated me as more of a son than a random face he saw every week. It was in his church that I began actually feeling the gravity of the teachings I had believed, and for the first time in my life I spent time actually fighting against this body of sin; it was shortly after moving away from that church, at my lowest point, that I finally fully submitted to Christ. This was a step I was not ready to take until someone realized how lost I still was and made a point of showing me the way.

One of the ministries that seem the hardest to put into place in churches today seems to be discipleship ministries. Which is a shame, because we are all, in our earliest days as Christians, very much like Cass was when she was brought home. New to this life, excited about living it out but not really knowing how to do it, and in need of guidance from someone who has experience in the daily grind of the Christian life as well as some of the hardships that arise in it. Even as we mature and wrestle with deeper theology or a wider range of practical concerns, we still find ourselves needing someone who has already been to this part of the road, who has made it through, who is just that little bit further along. We all, at every stage of our Christian walk, need a Cullen.

The Bible describes the Christian life as one of growth and maturity. We start out looking very much like the world we just came out of, with old habits still clinging to us and not accustomed to thinking of the world in a Christian framework. This is expected for that stage of development, but we aren't meant to stay there. I've addressed before that the general epistles were frequently written to people who were expected to be able to discern the difference between true and false teachers, not only by glaring theological deviations, but by subtle behaviors and even intentions. In the passage cited above, the author of Hebrews compares his readers to little children, not yet ready for the meat of truth. This concept of spiritual children is not uncommon in the New Testament; Jesus spoke fondly of children and the need for us to look to Him as children, Paul calls Timothy his "true child in the faith," and the epistles of John consistently refer to his readers as his children, even when he acknowledges that there are elders among them.

One thing this current pandemic has made clear to me is that we, as the church in America, do not have a rich understanding of what discipleship looks like, and this is because we do not give it the importance it deserves. This is, as I mentioned above, not a new concern, but consider how the pandemic has made it more glaring. We were forced into a situation where we had to decide what was most important about our functions as a church. The things we put the most effort into continuing to do in the current environment show not only what we think church is for, but what defines the Christian life. And what have those things, by and large, been? Sure, there is some variety church-to-church, but I'm talking about the large-scale trends. In what basket have we put all our eggs?

The Sunday morning sermon.

This has been the one constant, and make no mistake, it is an important thing. Of the things we do on the average Sunday morning, I would argue it should take precedent. If we are only able to do one thing from our normal Sunday morning services, it should be the preaching. But if we are only going to do one thing total? If we are going to push against government orders and demand that we be free to exercise the function of the church as declared by God? That should be personal discipleship.* After all, in the Great Commission which guides the function and purposes of churches and Christians in the world, teaching was presented as one aspect of making disciples rather than a distinct and superior task. Even those parts of scripture that seem to elevate the role of teachers do so in the context of their service to the body.

What does it look like to elevate the members who have the lowest number, or at least lowest visible number, and least showy of gifts? What does it look like to put the last first? What does it look like to aim our mission at those considered the least in the church, the least mature, the least skilled, the least educated, the least eloquent? It means turning our eyes away from the man in the pulpit long enough to see each other, and in doing so, invest in one another and build one another up and teach among ourselves what it looks like to live this Christian life. To have, as our daily behavior, to be both someone's Cullen and someone's Cass. The sermon is crucial, it has a necessary place in the Christian life, but it is little more than a single weekly tool designed to support a lifestyle of direct, personal discipleship. But have we done that? How many of our churches put the same effort into making pandemic-suited small groups and facilitating the direct growth of individual members as we put into getting our sermons on Facebook Live? Full confession, I didn't. Not at first.

Did Jesus stand before large crowds and explain the scriptures for them? Yes. Is this how He built His church? No. That was through personal relationships in which He walked with people for years, showing them what life He was calling them to, explaining things they were ready to understand, calling them to active participation in His ministry. We have letters to Timothy, but is that method of teaching how he became Paul's spiritual child? No, that was through Timothy's time spent traveling with Paul, watching how he worked and lived, actively taking part in the mission. Were His final and ultimate orders to His disciples to "call all the world into your sanctuaries and have them sit quietly as you explain the Word to them," or were they to "go therefore and make disciples of all the nations" (Matthew 28:19a, NASB)?

Our job is discipleship. To both teach and learn from personal experience, close relationships, and active participation in the life of the church. May we learn to put discipleship of one another higher than our pastoral hero worship as we continue to navigate this Christian life.

*- I am not of the opinion that we must defy current government and medical orders to practice faithful discipleship and therefore am not here arguing that we should at this time. We are in a very privileged position, historically, in that we have ample tools available to allow us to invest in one another's lives even when we must be apart. However, should it become the case that we must choose between discipleship and obedience to mortal powers, we must choose discipleship.

**- Yes, I know the verse that tells us not to forsake gathering. However, there is a great deal of flexibility in terms of how many of us gather in one place at one time, how we gather, and how frequently we gather. The Sunday Morning All-Church In-Person Service expression of worship is not here, or anywhere, commanded.

The church of Ephesus comes first, and the promise they receive goes all the way to the beginning of scripture. Mankind is created and placed in the Garden of Eden, this paradise where they can live in community with God Himself, but they allow sin to enter into their lives and the world and have to be removed. Now, we tend to talk about how they had to be removed because they couldn't remain in God's presence, and there's truth to that, but the passage actually describes a more specific motive: Adam and Eve needed to lose access to the Tree of Life.

Now, we see later in Revelation that this is not a return to the literal Garden of Eden. The New Jerusalem is a city, not a garden. But it does have the streams of flowing water, it does have the Tree of Life, and most importantly, it has the people of God living in the presence of God without sin. It is in this context that Hebrews, which concerns itself with a significant section on the day of rest coming for the people of God through Christ, presents the fullness of that rest being realized.

This rest, according to Hebrews, is found in Christ for those who will believe on Him. This is placed in contrast to the generation that wandered in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt, who contended with God and failed to trust in His promises and provision. But it is in the presence of God, in true community with Him like there was in the Garden and will be again in the New Jerusalem, that the rest God promises will be fully realized. This is our first point about salvation: it is a restoration, a return to the perfect design of God and community with Him.

Revelation paints a very vivid picture of those who remain enemies of God being cast into the lake of fire, called the second death, followed immediately by the redeemed going to dwell with God forever. The fundamental promise being made to the church of Smyrna, then, is that the saved have no fear of final separation from God and can trust in the eternal life He offers. The contrast is set forth in the narrative of Revelation, and promised here in chapter 2, but is given in a very clear and concise way by Peter. In his second letter, Peter talks about how unrighteous people and the corrupted natural order will be destroyed by fire, and then promises that those who are in Christ need not fear that because they can look beyond to the new life that awaits them.

At a quick stroke, the promise to the church of Pergamum seems a bit odd. What is this hidden manna, and why a stone with some name on it?

The manna is a theme that gets some development earlier in scripture, though it isn't as strongly recurring topic. In fact, there are really only two places we need to go to get the general thrust of the story so far. The first is during the wandering in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt, when the people of Israel were in a barren place and hungry. God sustained them with provision in the form of a miraculous bread that appeared with the morning dew that they simply gathered. While there is very little discussion of the manna after that point in scripture, it certainly left a mark on the culture, because it gets cited after Jesus feeds the 5,000. He performs the miracle, He and His disciples ship out at night, and the people find them the next day and ask for more bread as a sign. A relevant part of that conversation includes:

Later, they grumbled among themselves about Jesus proclaiming that He was the bread that came down from Heaven. They got Jesus' point, even if they didn't like it: while the manna was a very real and effective sustenance for the people of God, there is a better sustenance delivered by God in the person of Jesus Christ. The promise of hidden manna, then, is a promise that ties back to the earlier promises of eternal life, with a focus on Christ as the giver and sustainer of that life. In 1 John, the author of both the epistle and the gospel revisits this topic when he tells us, "And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life" (1 John 5:11-12, NASB).

Thus, the promise delivered through the church is Pergamum is not simply some bread and a stone, but an imperishable life founded on Christ and a new identity found in Him. The redeemed can trust that our lives are grounded on the solid rock of Christ, because He is both the giver and sustainer of life as well as the author of the promises that life contains.

The message to Thyatira is a bit more straight forward. Jesus promises authority over the nations and, as the morning star frequently represents, a position of some glory. 1 Peter 1:12 notes a similar theme, in recognizing that the saints of old looked forward to the fullness of salvation and that the nature of what we receive is so great that even angels long to see it. But while the idea of us receiving authority and glory will be revisited here, they are not widely common themes in the general epistles. When they arise, in fact, they are generally pointing beyond us. Consider, for instance, John's words just one chapter earlier, during his greeting.

Any glory or authority we may receive is second in importance to that which Christ receives. We can trust that this promise is true, that God will grant us to rule with Him and that He will glorify us in the end, but there seems to be an almost subconscious hesitance by the authors of the general epistles to let us ever think about that without immediately turning our eyes to the One who deserves all authority and all glory. This is a stark reminder that not only is Christ the means by which our salvation comes, but that salvation is ultimately for His glory and not our own. I would do us no favors in presenting it any other way.

The book of life, again, points to eternal life; confession of the name includes both glory and endorsement, and we can ask for no greater endorsement than that of God the Son. Instead of revisiting these concepts, though, look at the first clause in that sentence, that we will be clothed in white garments. This is a promise of purity, that we will be washed clean, that the one who overcomes (that is, the one who believes on Jesus as per our opening verse) will be sanctified and made whole. Hebrews, a book largely about salvation and redemptive history, touches on this a number of times but few as concisely as "by this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10 NASB). The blood of Christ washes us clean, this is the means by which we are sanctified, and we have assurance given to the church of Sardis that this will be perfectly completed.

We have here new information on the new identity we have in Christ, that it involves being marked as one of God's, but this talk about being a pillar in the temple ties back to the promise in the message to Ephesus. Philadelphia's portion includes residing in the presence of God, but the temple language ties back to the apparently false form of Judaism they were dealing with. These people lived in the midst of what appears to be a false temple or synagogue, and are promised a place in the true temple of God.

This, the eternal temple where Christ stands forever, always in the presence of the Father and without need for further sacrifice or washing, is the temple that the redeemed can look forward to calling home. Where Ephesus was given an emphasis on the perfection and the closeness of God to His people, Philadelphia is given a picture of life in perfect and continual communion with God.

The church of Laodicea is a rich body. In the message to them, they have to be reminded that the wealth they have on Earth makes no dent on the poverty they have in spiritual matters, and that they are 'lukewarm' in their devotion to God. There is much that can be said about what it means to be lukewarm, but turning to verse 21 we see that the church is given a vision of something far greater than the riches they are relying on. After all, the throne of Christ is no small seat of power, but as Peter describes it:

Angels, authorities, and powers are subject to the throne of Christ. The things of this world that we seek are too small, they are as nothing compared to the vast riches we have in Christ. To the church of Laodicea, and any of a similar mindset, the desire for earthly wealth is a distraction from the fullness of what awaits those who put their hope in Christ.

The overarching thread of salvation woven throughout the general epistles, though, is that this is all through and for Christ, and as He is better than anything we have on this world, so His salvation is greater than anything we can have through other means, and the weight of our treatment of salvation is greater than how we handle any other subject. This is why false teachers are viewed in such a harsh light: what they do with the gospel is objectively far more important than what they do with anything else. We cannot honor God or do any ultimate good if we will not handle this matter well, and we cannot handle it well if Christ is not the focus of all of it.

In Christ, through the salvation He offers, we have a new and better identity, one that is pure and washed free of all sin and corruption, that includes authority and coming glory, that allows us to reside joyfully in the presence of God forever, without fear of further pain or death. This is founded on the work of Christ and grounds everything we are and everything we do. Let us look forward with joy and expectation, patiently awaiting the fullness of this great salvation, as James reminds us:

If we are truly grounding ourselves on this promise and on patiently waiting for it, our lives will be impacted. This will be the focus of the final post in this series.

One common theme raised throughout the general epistles is that of false teachers. This seems to have been a fairly constant issue in the early church, as it is referenced by every single author of a general epistle, discussed by Paul, and even briefly described in Acts. Jude, who sought to write a letter about salvation, instead found the need to address false teachers too pressing to delay. Peter, who spent his first letter largely concerned with salvation and Christian living, had to write (or at least dictate) a second that dealt heavily with false teachers. James, in a letter that is almost entirely about living out the gospel, found need to make a point about false teachers his audience needed to avoid. This was a rampant problem, and not one that has ever really gone away.

The authors of the general epistles, when confronted with the notion of false teachers, thought back to the period after their ancestors left Egypt and before that congregation entered the promised land. There is much to be said about the apparent cultural importance of these events, that details of individuals such as Korah and Balaam found their way into the immediate thought processes of so varied a group of individuals. For now, however, we will focus on what these citations say about the false teachers of the day.

Balaam
2 Peter mentions Balaam as an archetype of the teachings he was condemning in 2 Peter 2:13-16. Here, Balaam is described as loving "the wages of unrighteousness," and those who are seen to be following after his character are described as "...stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children" (2 Peter 2:13b-14 NASB). In Jude 11, readers are warned that "for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam." John condemns the church in Smyrna, "'But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit [acts of] immorality" (Revelation 2:14 NASB).

​We know little about Balaam son of Beor, but the bulk of what we know is in Numbers 22-24, and we find in two different Biblical sources that he was later killed by the people of Israel while his town was being destroyed. The cultural understanding of what Balaam actually did must have drawn from other sources, however, because the actual narrative does not contain everything said of him here. Either way, the image being given of the false teachers of the day seem to include significant immoral behavior and an open enjoyment of their unrighteousness, as well as a certain amount of greed that drove Balaam to answer Balak's call after being told by God not to. This last point also indicates a disregard for God's command.

In Revelation, Balaam is associated with the Nicolaitans, a heretical sect which held that spiritual freedom was a license to live immoral lives and seems to have been present in Thyatira and Pergamum as well. Given the emphasis on good works in James, it is distinctly possible that the groups he was addressing were, if not Nicolaitans, at least similar to them in doctrine. If Peter and Jude have the same understanding of Balaam as John does, which seems likely from their descriptions, then they might also have been addressing the rise of the Nicolaitan sect. Given the context of the phrase in which Jude's use of Balaam appears, he may have also been citing Balaam's involvement in Balak's jealous attempts to usurp the will of God through sacrifices and condemn God's people.

The stories detailed above both take place during the Exodus, which is also referenced at length in Hebrews, notable here because it was a formative period in the development of Judaism. There is a certain degree to which the Jewish authors of the general epistles can look back to the wandering in the wilderness as a definitive period in establishing their identity, religious expression, and the promises God had made to their people. While they appear to have generally understood the rise of the church as the fulfillment of many such promises, there seems to have been an acute understanding that there was something new at play in the world that was unlike anything that had come before. In such a formative period, that would define much of Christian identity, religious expression, and the nature of God's promises and fulfillment, it should not be a surprise that the minds of the generation that saw God descend in human form went to the generation that saw God descend on Sinai. But not every general epistle goes to that history, or even to that level of specificity.

The epistle of James is, primarily, a study of the Christian life, and some parts are debated as to their influence on the doctrine of salvation. But in chapter 3, James (while still discussing the general expectations of Christians) focuses in on teachers. The first verse sets the tone, that teaching is a risky venture, and the rest of the chapter expands on the idea that our speech cannot be trusted unless our tongue is tamed, and even this is beyond our ability to do alone. We tend to read this passage as a command to all Christians to watch our tongues, and it is certainly useful in this way, and not contradictory to the broader context in which it appears. The fact that it appears as a clarification of a warning to teachers means that we can also look at it as a solid text to examine the nature of false teachers.

​The warning is simple: teachers are held to a high standards of accountability for what they teach, and the means through which they teach is corrupt and in need of purification. Our tongues can guide our entire lives, especially if we make our living through speech, and if we do not have this under control everything else will suffer. In this way he is, somewhat indirectly, warning that the false teachers, those who do not have bridled tongues, who allow blessing and curses to come from the same source, will lead themselves and their hearers astray. Everything described in the rest of that chapter, when applied to the body at large, is a matter of significant concern. When applied to teachers, it is harrowing.

Jude, in one sentence, describes the false teachers of the day in a very concise way: "For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah" (Jude 1:11 NASB). Balaam and Korah have been addressed already, and Cain is known for being jealous of his brother, offering improper sacrifice, and causing destruction and division. This all brings us to the big picture.

The general epistles, while addressing different audiences at somewhat different times, have a certain unity of description when addressing false teachers. They are described across the board as jealous, greedy, destructive and divisive, and dismissive of God's commands. This is all fine, and fairly easy to understand, and we can certainly apply the set to false teachers today; but probably the least clear common description best sums up the lot of them: these are people who would offer an improper sacrifice to God. But what does that even mean in a context where the sacrificial system is seen as superseded by a once-for-all sacrifice by Christ? Let's close this post by looking at that issue.