월드미션프론티어

James 1:26-27 (NIV)

26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

" If anyone considers himself religious," James says, " and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. " (James 1:26). Some people who think they are religious have a Christian vocabulary instead of a Christian experience. They think they are doing their duty when they are just talking about it. Those who talk their religion by the yard and live it by the inch James says, their religion is worthless.

The Word of God makes a difference in how we live. We don't receive the Word so we can go out and speak learnedly about the Christian life. We receive it so we can live it. A genuine spiritual experience puts truth into practice.

James gives us a definition of religion that is pure and undefiled. It is not what you might expect. He gives no doctrinal or theological terms, but something practical and ethical. He said, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (1:27). If you want to see religion in its purest form, look not to the constitution and bylaws of the church but look to laity reaching out to the hurting people of our community with the love of Jesus Christ. They are practicing a pure religion that is undefiled.

We show that we are people of the Word in two ways:

1. by our social action (caring for orphans and widows)

2. by our moral purity (keeping ourselves unstained by the world).

Pure religion has two parts: outer (taking care of the physical needs of others) and the inner (taking care of spiritual needs of ourselves).

James comes full circle back to the issue he started with.

How do we live out our faith in a hostile world? The answer is clear: Walk the faith. If we really want to show we are on the side of justice we reach out to them in the name of him whom the Psalmist called, "Father of the fatherless and protector of widows" (Psalm 68:5).