James 3:1 - Faith Without Works—Now What? Practical Christian Living Explained (Session 9)

This episode is a verse-by-verse Bible study of James 2:15 - 3:1, examining the historical context, theological meaning, and faithful application of Paul’s message to the church. 

In this episode of Reasoning Through the Bible, the study continues, focusing on faith and works, practical Christian living, helping the poor and needy, and the stricter judgment of Bible teachers.

The passage in James 2 raises the question: what practical use is faith if it does not result in compassionate action? This episode examines how Christian faith in action should express itself through good works, care for those in need, and obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit. The discussion highlights the biblical call to serve widows, orphans, the poor, and others facing hardship, showing that genuine faith is meant to be visible in everyday life.

The episode also transitions into James 3:1, where Scripture warns that not many should become teachers because teachers will incur a stricter judgment. The conversation explores the seriousness of teaching the Word of God, the dangers of false teachers, the importance of spiritual maturity, biblical preparation, and faithful handling of Scripture. Special attention is given to Christian accountability, rewards, stewardship of spiritual gifts, and the principle that to whom much is given, much is required.

This episode is especially relevant for listeners studying:
James 2 explained, James 3 explained, faith without works, Christian good works, Bible teachers judgment, practical Christianity, Christian service, biblical compassion, spiritual gifts, and verse-by-verse Bible teaching.

Key topics in this episode:

- James 2:15–26 and the relationship between faith and works
- The biblical responsibility to help the poor and needy
- Practical Christian living and active compassion
- James 3:1 and why teachers face a stricter judgment
- The importance of sound doctrine and careful Bible teaching
- The danger of false teachers
- Christian accountability, stewardship, and rewards
- Using God-given gifts faithfully in ministry and service

Bible passages discussed:

- James 2:15–26
- James 3:1
- Ephesians 2:10
- Luke 12:47–48

Reasoning Through the Bible offers verse-by-verse Bible teaching designed to help listeners understand Scripture, think carefully about doctrine, and apply biblical truth to everyday life.

Transcript

Glenn 0:15

The book of James talks a great deal about doing good works to those around us who are in need, and of what practical use is our faith? Well, today we're going to talk about that. We're also going to get into some things about how to live out the faith on a practical basis. Hi, my name is Glenn and this is Steve. We are Reasoning Through the Bible. Today we're going to be at the end of James, chapter 2. Steve, last time we went into quite a bit of detail about the theological topics around faith and works. Well, today I want to step back just a quick step and talk about the practical application of our faith being useful in the world around us on a daily basis. Steve, what obligation does the Christian have? To do good works to people around us?

Steve 1:07

It's the obligation that they're led to do through the leading of the Holy Spirit that they have with them if they're a believer. If you are a believer, then you have the Holy Spirit. You should be leaning on what the Holy Spirit leads you to. Now. James has given three illustrations, or a couple of illustrations, in verses 14 through 26 of chapter 2 that we talked about in our last sessions. I think you have some additional ones, though, too right.

Glenn 1:32

Yeah, I just wanted to again. Last time we spent quite a bit of time talking about the theological explanations of this, but I wanted to talk a little bit about practical shoe leather application, because that's really where the rubber meets the road here. In James, chapter 2, verse 15 and 16 says if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food and one of you says to them go in peace, be warmed and be filled, and yet do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? So his question here is about what use is it?

Glenn 2:09

Steve, around us I would dare to say every one of our listeners has people around them that are hungry or in need of food. Sometimes we don't want to see that, but it's a very needy world. Jesus said the poor you will always have with you. There's always going to be poor people, which means there's always going to be opportunity to help those around us. Yes, we claim and rightfully so our faith in Jesus Christ is a valuable thing. But what James is saying here, what use is it to people around us? It's kind of a broad question, but what is the obligation to the Christian? To go help those who?

Steve 2:47

are in need Let me explain it this way is that we feel and we're usually taught you need to go out and share the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel being the good news that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and that he's come so that we might have a relationship with God and that he has died for our sins and that we can have eternal life in the need for that. But how is that actually showed out to others? It's not just going and telling people about the gospel, but it's showing people the gospel. The old adage is you are the best Christian that somebody knows, and so it's how we live our life and what we do.

Steve 3:26

In James's illustration there that he gave in 2.15 and 16. He says if you see these people that are in need and you just say, well, best of luck to you, I hope things improve for you and you don't act upon it, the compassion you have, what use is that to the people and to the surrounding world? I think that our obligation that we have as Christians is to live out the faith that we have and it's actually what James has been talking about there in chapter 2, is that that's how our faith is shown is through the things that we do, the way that we live and how we express our compassion for other people. I think that we have a great obligation as Christians to make an impact on the world. There's more ways of making an impact by just other than just sharing the gospel. It's actually doing some things that are going to actually help people out, and through that we show the compassion that Jesus Christ has for them.

Glenn 4:24

I think each of us, as Christians, should ask ourselves has God placed in front of me an opportunity or opportunities to help others? I think if we just open our eyes and look around, there's opportunities. There's always needs. The human condition is such that there will always be need of people around us that are in need of help and in need of somebody to come alongside them and help someone. There's always opportunities. If we don't know any, just go ask our pastor and I'm sure he'll help.

Glenn 4:58

What did James say already in the book? The best application of religion is to visit strangers and orphans and widows and those in need. Here he's in the end of chapter two. He's saying that if we see people around us that aren't clothed well and don't have enough adequate food, just saying okay, I'll pray for you, I hope you get better, that's not good enough. We should indeed, as Christians, have an obligation to do good works. I think we should all have a burden to help those around us. If you don't have a place, my goodness, in your church, I can guarantee you I've never seen a church yet that didn't have some needy people. Open your eyes and look around. I think that is one of the great things that over the centuries Christians have indeed done, that If we look at many of the hospitals, many of the Christian ministries have started hospitals or outreaches to prisoners, or many charity work, food ministries and mission work to go teach third world countries how to farm and grow food and how to do these things. Many, many of these were run by Christians that as soon as they're saved and get right with God, they feel this obligation to go out and help others. I think God puts that spirit within us.

Glenn 6:18

James emphasizes that and I just didn't want to deal with the doctrinal piece without laying on our hearts. This is the main thing. James didn't intend to get into a doctrinal explanation here. What he meant to say is Christian, get to work, roll up your sleeves and be of some use to those around you that are in need. And even Paul would agree in Ephesians. There's a great deal of theological things in Ephesians, but what does Ephesians 2-10 say? We're saved unto good works. So we are saved. What did they tell Paul as he went out? Remember, the poor Christians have always been focused on doing good works and we should look for opportunities to do outreach to poor and needy things like that. Steve, how would we find opportunities if we didn't know of any around us?

Steve 7:04

You put it the best way Open your eyes and look around. The opportunities are there and we should go and look for those opportunities. If we just sit back and wait for them to come to us, some of them times they might. But we're also told to make sure that we remember the widows and the orphans. There's great needs in nursing homes for the elderly. There's all types of opportunities that surround us that we can do on a daily basis. We just need to open our eyes, as you put it, look for them and then go out and take action on them.

Glenn 7:37

Now we're now moved to James, chapter 3. And at the beginning of chapter 3, he has one verse here that takes a bit of a hard turn, talks about a different subject. James 3-1 says this Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such, we will incur a stricter judgment. Steve, why do you think he warns people here that not to let many become teachers? It would seem like don't we need good teachers in our ministries, in our churches? But he's saying Let not many of you become teachers. Why would he give that advice?

Teaching the Word of God's Importance

Steve 8:12

Well, he's going to go through in the rest of chapter 3 here and give some illustrations as to why. But not everybody is number one, gifted to be able to teach. Not everyone is mature, spiritually mature enough to teach and not everyone has got the depth of scriptural knowledge to teach. And so if you have just people that might have the desire to teach but they're not spiritually mature or they don't necessarily have the knowledge, they might not need to teach at that time. Number one, they need to prepare themselves to do it.

Steve 8:49

But they also need to understand and this is what James is talking to him that the teacher that's going to be presenting God's word, there's going to be a stricter judgment, or another way to put it there, and the footnote is a greater condemnation. You and I, Glenn, there's going to be a stricter judgment or a greater condemnation for the things that we're doing here and the things that we're teaching. And that's exactly why we take this teaching as very, very serious, because we know that we're going to have to answer to the teaching that we're giving out in a more stricter way, related to this teaching that we have. So that's why we take it very, very serious.

Glenn 9:29

I know I do. It's very sobering and, to be honest, a little bit scary when I read this that says that a teacher will be held to a stricter standard and greater condemnation. It's a little scary as a Bible teacher. I think one of the reasons, or perhaps the main reason, is because the Word of God is just so important. The Word of God is very, very important.

Glenn 9:55

Handling it well is a very serious thing. Not to toot our own horns here, steve, but okay, we get together and do these podcasts and put these teaching things together. But we spent quite a bit of time prior to this trying to do our homework, trying to prepare, trying to handle it well. One person I heard years ago described it this way teaching and interpreting the Word of God is sort of like rewiring a building without turning off the main switch. You're handling something very powerful and you really don't want to handle it wrongly or something bad's going to happen. It's so beneficial to so many people that you want to handle it well. The last thing we want to do is disappoint our Lord and our God by not handling his word quite well. The Word of God is so important that think of, steve, if you had the most valuable thing you could think of, your most valuable possession, would you give it to just any old buddy to keep? If this was whatever possession you had, whatever material possession, if this was a treasure that to you, oh, this is irreplaceable. It's so valuable I'd make sure whoever's handling that was very, very careful.

Glenn 11:04

Teachers have a stricter judgment. I've seen churches, steve, that oh, we want smaller classes, we're going to split these classes up and have a lot of small classes so we can have these intimate conversations. But in doing so you dilute the teaching populace down to where some of these classes are just not handled well because we don't have enough teacher to go around. So if we were a leader, it's better to have larger class with a better teacher or smaller classes where you have intimate relationships. That's a judgment call from church to church. I would just caution the pastors and leaders out there don't dilute your teaching base because I don't think I've ever seen a church had too many really good teachers.

Steve 11:48

I would also give caution to someone who says oh, I feel that I'm led to teach, but yet they're not prepared and they don't study the word. They just listen to other people and formulate ideas from just listening to other people rather than actually going and studying the word. Now, I'm not saying that from a standpoint to be that I'm higher or greater than those people. I'm giving that as some practical advice, in that you're going to be held to a higher standard. James includes himself in this when he says we will incur a higher standard or a stricter judgment. He includes himself in this, along with everyone else. If you are called to teach, then also be prepared that it might be something that you're not going in and teaching adults right away. My particular testimony is that I did feel called to teach, but where I was called, when I went to the church and this was years after studying I said I'm willing to serve wherever the need is. There wasn't something readily available.

Steve 12:55

About six months later they said we have an opening in our preteen department with the preteen boys. Would you be willing to teach there? I said yes, that's where I started with young adults or young men, where I could handle easier subjects and where I could answer the questions for these preteens that were coming up. That helped me and then from there I moved into teaching adults in various ages of adults. Be prepared that, even if you are called of knowing that, it might not be that you're jumping right into adults. If you feel slighted because you say, hey, I want to teach, and number one, you're not asked right away. Or number two, you're not put into an adult class right away, if you feel slighted, my caution to you would be you need to go back and reconsider whether or not you truly have been called to teach.

Glenn 13:48

I know when I started teaching, I started out underneath an older, more experienced teacher and could watch me and guide me and things like that. I would encourage people to do that again. If we ask the question, why would God's commands say here let not many of you become teachers? I think one of the reasons is because, if we look at the New Testament, most of the books of the New Testament warn against false teachers. They warn against false teachers. The reason they were warning against false teachers is, even before the New Testament had finished being written, there were already false teachers in the churches. I mean, paul named some of them by name in his epistles. It says watch out for these people that they're going to shipper people's faith. There were false teachers that have been around from the first century up to today. One of the ways you eliminate some of the false teachers is to just okay, we don't want anybody and everybody here teaching. We want people that know they're called to teach, that have the gift of teaching or at least they're willing to do the preparation and learn underneath someone else.

Glenn 14:56

The other thing that we learn here, steve, that I think is quite important, quite profound verse one let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such, we will incur a stricter judgment or, as you pointed out, a greater condemnation. That tells us that there's lesser condemnations and there's greater condemnations. There's stricter judgment and there's less stricter judgment. That tells us that God will judge people according to what he has given them. Not everybody gets judged exactly the same. Yes, we're all judged on whether or not we have faith in Christ, but he will evaluate people based on what he expects from them. This is a concept that comes up. One of the questions that comes up reasonably often is will God judge different sins differently? Is such a thing as a small sin and a greater sin? Well, here he talks about greater condemnations and, by implication, lesser condemnations. It says that false teachers will have a greater condemnation than some others.

Glenn 16:05

We can know this is also true in other places in the New Testament, luke, chapter 12, jesus tells a parable of a man who put his servants in charge and he goes away and when he returns he finds the servants disobeying. And the servants are expected to be ready. In Luke, chapter 12, verse 47 and 48, the man gives different punishments depending on how much was expected of the servants One of the concepts that taught there in Luke 12, and I think here in James 3, 1, is that to whom more is given, more is expected. To whom more is given, more is expected.

Glenn 16:45

My Christian friend, how much has God given you? How much knowledge of God's word or how much ability has God given you? My Christian friend, he will judge you according to the opportunities and the abilities and the gifts that he's given you. Use your gifts. It is a scary thing to get called before the living God and have him ask about what did you do with what I left you? That was the parables that Jesus taught more than once in the Gospels, which was he's going to come back and he's going to ask you what did you do with what I left you?

Steve 17:20

Glenn, what you're talking about, I think, is very important. I want to make a clarification for our audience. You're not talking about in relation to judgment as related to salvation. Correct Salvation is a yes or no question. We have salvation when we express faith in Jesus Christ, what he has done, and God counts that as righteousness. The faith that we have. That's a yes or no question.

Steve 17:46

This, what you've been talking about and describing, and what James is talking about here, is related to rewards or positions that we might have. In the parables, talking about the Millennial Kingdom, it says some will be rulers over one city, some will be rulers over multiple cities. Those are different types of rewards that people will have. I think that this is an area, glenn, that's not talked about a lot in churches or in sermons or even in small group Bible studies. It's just kind of something that's out there. I'm not quite sure why, but, yeah, we are all given gifts. Once we have salvation, we have the Holy Spirit is with us. If we don't follow the leadings that the Holy Spirit is giving us of things that the Lord wants us to do, then there's going to be some answers to that and then some of the judgments related to that and there's going to be some people that will lose possible rewards that they might have because they didn't follow through. But what you're talking about, again, clarification is not related to salvation, correct?

Glenn 18:55

Correct, correct, not talking about salvation at all. James, here in James 3.1, is talking about brethren, people within the congregation, within the assembly. He's saying let not many of you that are already inside the church, that are already saved, become teachers. Jesus parables that we pointed out, such as the one in Luke 12 is talking about his servants, people that are already being servants of the master, and he gives them things and he goes away and when he comes back he expects them to be working. He's not talking about the lost people, he's talking about people that are already saved. That's why here, steve, kind of getting back to James 3.1, not many of you become teachers.

Glenn 19:36

I think that sword cuts both ways. There's people that, on one hand and you've probably seen this too, steve, I've been in classes and churches with people that really didn't have any business teaching because they weren't any good at it or they didn't prepare or whatever. It's just they were just bad at it. I understand sometimes people get pressed into things because there's nobody else there, but on an ongoing, regular basis, if you're not going to be able and willing to do a good job handling the Word of God, then don't do it. But that sword cuts the other way too. There's people out there that are quite good at teaching but don't want to put in the time or the application to do it well, I think that verse here cuts that way too, when it says if you've been given the ability to teach, then you need to take that very soberly, very responsibly and actually hand out the Word of God, because you will receive a stricter judgment.

Steve 20:37

I think there's also a third category, glenn. Those are the people that are strong Bible scholars and they're also good communicators and they're good teachers and they're being led by the Spirit to teach, but they refuse to. They don't want to teach for whatever reason, maybe self-confidence, maybe they don't think they're adequate enough. But that's the third category, and my advice to those people are if you're being led by the Spirit to teach and you are a good scholar, then you're a good communicator, or at least you have the ability to become a good communicator, a good teacher, especially in a small group. Then please heed the Holy Spirit's leading and begin teaching.

Glenn 21:20

The next section is very descriptive. It'll take a little while to do so. We'll stop here for today, but one of the reasons that I love the Word of God is because of the literature that's in it. The next section here in the book of James talks about how to control our tongue. It has a lot of very descriptive language in it. One of the reasons I like it, steve, is because even I can understand what he's saying. He uses applications from everyday life and it becomes very descriptive on what we should do and very convicting.

Steve 21:53

if I might end, Our next section here is talking about many, many practical things that we need to heed.

Glenn 21:59

with what James is going to talk about, so we'll be here next time Reasonings of the Bible and we trust that you'll be with us as well.

Steve 22:05

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.