James Chapter 2 & 3:

James Chapter 2:
So the first thirteen verses in this chapter are on one thing, favoritism. Showing favor to someone based on appearance, also known as: Judging. So to summarize these verses I put it like this: If you show favoritism based on appearance you have judged, the Bible says that Judging is a sin.
I admit that I have done my unfair share of judging, I say unfair because I most likely judged unfairly. If you look through the Bible you will find several cases on Judging. John 8:4 Jesus is confronted about the adulteress women, but he backfired it on the Pharisees. He told them that which ever had no sin, to throw the first stone. I now refer to this whenever someone mentions judging, I call it “throwing stones.” After an incident about three or four years ago I have tried (and failed) not to judge people. About that time we had just moved to our new town and it was a Wednesday. We went to church and I went into awana, I felt kinda left out. I remember looking at everyone in the room and judging them on their appearance. I dead wrong with that, it turned out that one of the kids I remember thinking was a jerk is now one of my best friends. So judging should be a NO GO for us.
Verses 14-26 are on faith without deeds. So faith without deeds, it’s not doing us any good. Why does it make a difference if we do stuff with our faith?
Verses 18-19: But someone will say, “You have faith and I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that-and shudder.
So what James is saying is: So you believe? Great! But so do the demons, their belief (AKA faith) isn’t doing them any good because they aren’t trying to make good out of it. For example, you go to a Bible study on sharing your faith, then you sit at home thinking. “I will wait for someone to ask me about Jesus!” Well guess what! Chances are, they won’t ask you, and you sitting there isn’t showing your faith. Also, if they know you are a Christian, they will be waiting for you, or ignoring you. Most likely, you don’t show your faith with works they won’t believe you have faith! Yeah that’s a little harsh to throw on someone directly, but that’s how the book of James is, no skipping anything. It’s all or nothing. Then James does something I would like to say I do allot, he laid down the facts, and he wasn’t going to say something without backing it up. He gave two examples of faith and deeds working together, Abraham and Rahab the prostitute from Jericho. James was the kind of guy you want on a debate team, because he knew his facts and knew how to present them!

James Chapter 3:
Taming the tongue, I would say that I have a fast tongue. I am quick to answer something, usually have a comeback for an insult, and with any question you have I usually can answer with a sarcastic comment. But taming my tongue I have learned to try harder and harder at everyday, do I fail? Yes! No brainer there, it’s very hard to tame the tongue. In James it is compared to a forest fire, forest fires are very hard to put out in our day, but just think about then. They didn’t have all of the stuff we have today! So that makes the comparison even worse. You and I can and chances are we will as, “Yeah, I’ve tamed my tongue, I don’t say anything mean to anyone, I don’t gossip and so on!” Well guess what genius! That there is a sin, boasting! Didn’t see that coming did you? The Bible says that boasting in anything but God is a sin, now you are thinking, “Oh rats!” We boast on a daily basis, such as: “Yeah, I’m just a natural at that video game! And you guys are all losers!” Even if you take out the whole loser’s part it’s still boasting! Yeah, we humans are puny indeed. Now let’s get out of the basics with this, in that day and age they didn’t know that they tongue was controlled by the brain. So in that case, if you even THINK something that could be called boasting it is still boasting! So the point is, you CANNOT completely tame the tongue, you can keep yourself from saying something very mean but you can’t stop from thinking it every time. That’s why I don’t want to ever be able to read minds.



Jack,