April 27 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 117—James 5:19–20

¹⁹ My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

Devotional:

Verse 19 says, "if anyone among you wanders from the truth…" In other words, God says that it is possible for church members, for professing Christians, to stray. Some of those may be "temporary Christians" who have never been born from above and converted. Some of those may be genuine Christians who are born again but who backslide for a time. Only God really knows for sure. What we know for sure is that God calls us to show concern for one another. "My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, ²⁰ let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins."

If "someone brings him back"—someone! It may especially be the responsibility of pastors and elders to seek to restore the erring, but according to God, it is not only their responsibility. It is also yours. As the 17th century English Puritan, Thomas Manton, wrote:

Besides the public exhortations of ministers, private Christians should mutually confer for comfort and edification. I say private Christians not only may, but must keep up Christian communion among themselves: Heb. 3:13, "Exhort one another while it is called to-day." They are mutually to stir up one another by speeches that tend to discover sin, to prevent hardness of heart and apostasy. God hath severally dispensed his gifts, that we might mutually be beholding to one another. Therefore the apostle calleth it, 1 Pet. 4:10, "the dispensation of the manifold grace of God."^†

You might not be your brother's keeper, but you certainly are your brother's brother (or sister). "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end." (Heb. 3:12–14).

^† Thomas Manton, An Exposition of the Epistle of James, 1693 [Banner of Truth, 1968], pp. 475–476

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