February 6 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 37—James 2:14–26

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? ¹⁷ So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
¹⁸ But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!
²⁰ Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"—and he was called a friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. ²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? ²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Devotional:

In Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan warns us against a subtly counterfeit form of Christianity under the character "Talkative."

"This man is for any company, and for any talk; for he talketh now with you, so will he talk when he is on the ale-bench: And the more drink he hath in his crown, the more of these things he hath in his mouth. Religion hath no place in his heart, or house, or conversation [behavior], all he hath lieth in his tongue and his religion is to make a noise therewith.^"†

Through James, God says, "that faith" is "dead."

The first part of James 2 reveals that a tell-tale sign of such dead, "Talkative," counterfeit "Christianity" is to look down on the needy and show favoritism to the rich. Such partiality is incompatible both with genuine faith and with God's law (good works). This second part of James 2 focuses more specifically on the relation between faith and good works.

Martin Luther actually balked at whether James really belongs in the Bible on account of this text. The main difficulty is that James seems to contradict Paul. Paul says that we're justified by faith alone. James says that we're justified by works and not by faith alone.

But the difference is more apparent than real. When we read them in context, we see that even though Paul and James use the same words, they use them with different meanings.

For James, then, to be "justified" means to be vindicated in your claim that you are a genuine believer. This use of the term can be found elsewhere, for example, in Matthew 11:19 — "Wisdom is justified [proved to be genuine] by her deeds."

^&daggerJohn Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (Oxford World's Classics paperback, 2003 edition).

Click here for background on the author of Are You For Real?: Meditations in the Epistle of James for Secret or Family Worship.