You people are really fun to discuss the word with.

     I had a great time Tuesday and the hour just by. So many ideas clarify themselves in my mind when I TALK with someone and hear what they have to say and ask, "What about this....?"  and hear many answers. I love Bible Studies.
    Tuesday we looked just very quickly at the ten or a dozen ideas James introduces in Chapter 1. There are some big ideas, [trials, wisdom, religion] and there are some very current topics [discrimination, moral purity].
    I think the most important discussion we had Tuesday related to the difference between trials and temptation. Those two words appear to mean very different things to James. Trials come in a variety of sizes and colors, but all can produce, if you keep your stick on the ice, maturity and completeness. They can turn out to be, if not the best thing that every happened to you, at least very useful for growing in Christ.
     Temptations, on the other hand, lead to death. When you are dragged away and enticed by your own evil desires, sin is born, and when it is "full grown , gives birth to death." Pretty graphic. Poor little fishy gets sucked in by that sparkly green twister and winds up someone's dinner. Except James is talking about us facing temptation. Holy cow.
     Notice this powerful enemy, temptation, does not come from God. He is immune to evil. Unfortunately, it's in us, even as forgiven Christians, and we have to deal with it. Paul taught that we're dead to sin. But here we read the heart is deceitful above all else. So don't be deceived, James says in 1:16. God has given you an amazing gift. "He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created."
      Jesus is called the first fruit among many brethren [although I haven't found the reference yet!) and those brethren are us. We can live like him. In fact, that's what James is writing about. He's concerned about turning a sinner from the error of his ways. [5:20]. He says if we persevere we will be "mature and complete, not lacking anything" [1:4].
      And already in this first chapter we have two keys to living that way. The first is asking God for wisdom. We're going to talk more about wisdom and I think it will be really life changing. The second, at the end of chapter one is the Word. But James doesn't focus on reading the Word. He says we have to DO the word; three times in 22 and 23 by Jenn's count. And there it is again in 25. "But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it [two more times] ---he will be blesses in what he does.
      What an amazing encouragement as we get together to study and discuss that powerful Word! We are bound to be blessed.