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.
I can relate to James. I like the way his mind works. What we are reading in his letter is the mind of God expressed through the lens of James’ life. (Keeping in mind that all of this is orchestrated by God’s Holy Spirit!)
In the prior verse, James describes the very worst kind of religion. It is so bad that he calls it “worthless.” In today’s verse, James goes to the other end of the spectrum. Today he shows us the kind of religion that is “pure and faultless.”
This kind of thinking is typical of how an engineer might analyze something. To get an idea of how bright a lightbulb is, one must have an understanding of complete darkness and pure brightness. To understand the concept of “damp” it helps to know the difference between dry and wet. James does the same type of analysis with the concept of religion. Both ends of the scale are related to religion, but one end is good the other is bad.
Personally, I don’t hear James passing judgment on the church or critiquing the hymnal you might prefer. Instead, he is showing us two pictures. In verses 23-24 he mentions looking in a mirror. Perhaps he imagines his readers looking at their faces in a mirror and then comparing what they see to the two pictures he paints of religion.
Application: Imagine the two pictures of religion James gives us connected by a long string pulled tight. Now hang your picture on the string where you think you are in your religion.
Food for Thought: How can we keep from being ”polluted by the world?”
Encourage your fellow brothers in Christ to follow God’s ways.
Good point Rob, we can encourage one another in the right path. We help each other through true fellowship.
Another way is to keep a growing relationship with Christ as a priority. We need to put up a no trespassing sign by not watching or listening to worldly material that can compromise our relationship with our Lord.
Thank you both!
It is hard to be polluted by the world if we keep our eyes on God!
And it’s hard to keep our eyes on God if we allow ourselves to be polluted by the world.
Touché!
All good points even for today (months away).