James Part 5

James 2 moves from the internal formation of faith to its public and communal expression. If James 1 establishes that genuine faith must be lived, James 2 presses the issue further: lived faith must be just. Here, James confronts favoritism, economic corruption, and a distorted understanding of belief divorced from obedience. The chapter stands as one of the clearest expressions of covenant ethics in the New Testament, firmly rooted in Torah, prophetic tradition, and the teachings of Jesus.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Messiah in Life podcast. This series on the Epistle of James is taught by Bishop Justin D. Elwell of Restoration Fellowship International, who also serves as the Messianic Rabbi of Messiah Congregation in Washington Mills, New York. From our congregational home, we invite you into a rich and practical study of one of the most direct and challenging writings in the New Testament. Over the coming months, each episode will carefully examine James's call to a living faith, a faith that endures trials, governs the tongue, pursues wisdom, and expresses itself through righteous action. Rooted in the scriptures of Israel and the teachings of Messiah Jesus, this study brings the message of James into clear focus for life today, forming disciples marked by integrity, mercy, and spiritual maturity. Thank you for joining us. Now pour yourself a tea or coffee, and may the word we hear shape the lives we live.

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Alright, James chapter two, beginning in verse one, James begins. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing comes in also, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, You sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man, You stand over there, or sit down at my feet? Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called? If you really, really fulfill the law according the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, Do not commit adultery also said, Do not murder. If you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. This is God's word. So chapter one is really a correction. It corrects us in our interior life, how we are approaching the life of faith, how we are applying and walking it out, how we're walking out the word of God, the reality of faith and the impact of faith on community, and how we should um interact with, not only before uh interact before the Lord, but also interact with each other, and what that looks like. How will we how will we respond when we're angry? Of course, we went into this in quite uh bit of detail. We have the triad of dyad, be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. For the anger of a man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness of and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word of God which is able to save your souls. And then he continues in verse twenty six if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, he has deceived his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit widows and orphans in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. So as we go out on mission, whatever the um identity of the person that we're reaching, uh we are to keep ourselves unstained, uninfluenced by the environment, uninfluenced by the sin, uninfluenced by the um the character or the weight of the situation that we find ourselves in. That is what is pleasing before the Lord, that we visit, as Messiah tells us, the least of these, whatever, whatsoever you've done to the least of these, my people, you have done unto me. So this is an inward correction, we might say. James 2 moves from that internal formation of faith into public and communal expression. Partiality is a major part of these first 13 verses of chapter 2. To be impartial, to not show partial, to not um be favorable to those who are um well positioned in the world, or those who are rich, uh, to the um disadvantage or the ignoring of those who are uh uh in a poorer position. This is where we recognize who we all are in the Lord. It's not the worldly circumstance that matters as far as our position, because in him and before him, we are all brought to the same place. So to show favoritism based on worldly advantage or even worldly disadvantage is not in keeping with the revelation of Scripture. So James 1 establishes that genuine faith, how it must be lived, what's it look like? And James 2 presses further into um lived faith that is just, that is righteous. So he confronts this issue of favoritism, how we might favor those who are in a better economic position. Um he addresses economic corruption uh and a distorted understanding of the belief uh or the understanding of that belief is divorced somehow from obedience. That's what we'll get into later in chapter two, the faith without works is dead argument. So the chapter stands as one of the clearest, if we're to look through the New Testament text, one of the clearest expressions of covenant ethics that we find. So it's firmly rooted in the Torah, it's prophetic, uh, it's rooted in the prophetic tradition as well as the teachings of Messiah. So when we look at this issue of partiality in these first 13 verses underlying chapter 2, we have a concept that's later in uh rabbinic uh tradition that's called Masopanim, which means to lift up the face. The lift up the face wasn't um isn't viewed in this context as being something that is a good thing. It's uh understood to be a favoritism, to show favoritism or partiality. So you're lifting the face of that person, you're honoring the face of that person, or lifting your own face toward that person. So this idea, of course, is deeply rooted in the Torah, Leviticus 19, 15, that we'll read in just a few moments. But this may be very well of an early understanding, or perhaps um before it was formalized into uh a rabbinic position. But we're not to ma sopanim, we're not to lift the head of the other in such a way as to show partiality to them. So as we look at chapter uh two and verse one, he says, My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Yeshua, the Messiah, the Lord of glory. And who is this Lord of glory, right? So we see how James is addressing not only the brethren, he'll he's done this several times so far, he'll continue this pattern throughout, my dear brothers, my brothers, and so on. In faith, how do we view people? How do we see people? How do we appreciate who they are? And how does that, or what does that cause us to do? And in our interactions with them, how do we view them? How do we um interact with them? So he begins with this contradiction, this very stark contradiction. Favoritism is incompatible with faith in the Lord of glory. You cannot show favoritism based on, and really the Torah tells us to not show favoritism to the poor because they're poor, or favoritism to the rich because they're rich. So we're to view each person as they are. So having um favoritism towards the wealthy is what he is using here, is incompatible with our faith in the Lord of glory. And of course, when we see this usage of glory, we're thinking back of Kavod. We're thinking about the presence of God who indwelt um the tabernacle or the temple to dwell among his people, to be the very center of the community. So is God truly dwelling in the midst of you if you are showing partiality? Uh you there's someone more important than you, you stand over there, or you sit down here at my feet. So to honor Messiah while dishonoring those made in the image and likeness of God is a theological inconsistency. It's a contradiction that is not in keeping with Scripture. And of course, it's difficult. We're human, we're all human. We don't always respond in every situation in the way that we should. So rather than falling into despair because of this, oh, I failed again, I showed partiality to this person or that, and not that person. We we go to verse 12 and we say, So speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. Right? So we've been shown grace, we've been shown mercy, and mercy triumphs over judgment. So the harsh judgment that we are probably giving to ourselves, that we are the verdict that we're rendering on our own behavior, we are given the chance, of course, to repent and to behave in a way that's more consistent with our faith the next time around, so we make adjustments. James isn't condemning us, James is instructing us, James is reorienting us, he's helping us to see what is the appropriate response in the faith community. So we've gone from a general view of who we are in chapter one to chapter two. What is this in the community of faith? What is this within the assembly? When we look at uh verse two, for if a man wearing a gold ring in fine clothing comes into your synagogue, into your synagogue, and a poor man in shabby clothing comes in. So he's setting this within the community of faith, literally, who are gathered. This is the gathering of the ecclesia. Okay, the ecclesia is the out are the outcalled ones. This has been generally rendered as church, and of course, there's a lot of misunderstanding about what the church is. The church is the people, it's not, of course, the building. But the ecclesia is those who are those who are called out. So they're called out from and to. So historically, what would happen is you would have someone who's announcing, someone who's announcing the the good news. They're they're announcing some type of news as they traveled through the village or the town. And they would call to uh call you to assembly, come to this place, come to the synagogue, come to this uh public square so that you can hear the news. So you were called out from where you were to the place that you would gather or assemble the synagogue. And in the synagogue, you have uh historically it was a house of prayer, it was a house of study, it was a house of judgment, so it was a betin, um, bet the fila, um uh a bit mitrash. So it was a place where all of these, and it was the same space, but how you used it um determined uh what you were doing there at the time. And when you were called together, how are you how are you interacting with, appreciating, and um honoring? Let's come right to the to the point of it. How are you honoring that person who is made in the image and likeness of God that is before you? So James is asking us a very serious question. Theologically, if we believe that we are the assembled, we are the assembled of God here, the ecclesia of God, and he is in our midst, he is in our midst, how should we respond to the human other that's coming in through the door? So the scenario James presents, this preferential treatment for the wealthy visitor. This is just the point of uh the point of uh of argument that he's laying before us. The treatment that we would give the wealthy um person over the poor person, this might be also alluding to litigation. Uh, when we look at verse four, um, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Now, that's not just the evaluation of the person that's before us, but it is also um in a bet-din, a place of judgment, a house of judgment, which was also the place of worship. It was the place of assembly, as I just said. In the Beddin, um, you're to be impartial. It does not matter if the person before you is the biggest donor and he has the biggest gripe against the other person who you know might give a penny. Um, you're to be impartial in judgment and to rule rightly according to the facts that are presented to you. So this might be uh a reference to litigation that happens. Uh, it might be a reference uh strictly to those who are coming in for the purposes of learning of worshiping uh as well. So it confirms the idea, what we're seeing here in James's language and to assembly into synagogue is it confirms the idea that we see in Acts that we see in Paul's writings as well, that the first century um Jewish believers in the Messianic community um were still living within this uh functionally Jewish world, with Jewish communal life, uh Jewish communal norms, and so on. So the issue here, again, is not it's not hospitality. What it is is hierarchy. How are you viewing, and I'll explain this in just a moment, but again, you're seeing someone that's greater than, at least according to the worldly standard, and you were applying to them preferential treatment within the house of God based on their external merit of some sort. So in this case, it's assigning worth based on economic status. So there are cultural realities that are in play and kind of in the background here, especially among those who would have received this letter who grew up in, let's say, in a Hellenistic uh uh context. Um Jewish families living in the diaspora who uh adopted uh Greek or Roman customs. So the wealthy within the Greco-Roman world, of course, were honored much more than the lower classes. So uh in the sense of litigation, it was impossible for the lower classes to bring uh lawsuit against the upper classes, against the rich, the well-placed. Because even if it was in the sense of injury, this wealthy person had injured me. And see, my my leg is cut off and and he is holding the knife and my leg in his hand, it was seen that you were bringing the the uh lawsuit simply because you wanted some sort of economic gain from it. So it was forbidden. So there was uh built into the society itself, there was an advantage to the wealthy that are that that I think James is trying to persuade us away from. So the critique that James is giving us is consistent with, of course, the teachings of the Messiah. He didn't teach anything that was inconsistent with Messiah, but in the Sermon on the Mount in 5, verse 3, Matthew 5, verse 3, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now, this is not necessarily poverty, someone who's in poverty, but those who are humbled, those who are um who can appreciate who they are before a holy and living God, yes, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then he gives a warning, of course, to the wealthy, Luke 6 24. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. So James is exposes, or James I should say, exposes the temptation to align with a visible power rather than the covenant values that were given in scripture, how we are to think, act, behave, interact with, and so on. So there was a rabbinic teaching um that stressed the idea that those who love the Lord, and of course from Messiah we learn that the love of God is the very first commandment, that those who love the Lord would not and should not show favoritism. Now, again, we are imperfect, we will be inclined one way or the other from time to time. Um, but those who love the Lord should not and would not show favoritism. Luke 1915, or excuse me, Leviticus 1915 says this you shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. Now, of course, this is talking about in matters that are of dispute that need to be settled, it would come before the elders of the community, the judges of the community, in order that they discern what is uh the uh the proper disposition. But we are not to show partiality. We are to be um we are to be impartial and we are to judge rightly. So James reminds his readers that God has consistently chosen the poor over the rich uh in faith um and heirs uh to be heirs of the kingdom. And why is that? Well, you can look back through the Torah, you can look back through the prophets. Um, there's a great deal of thought regarding it. Now, that doesn't, of course, mean the wealthy are excluded from heaven, heaven forbid. Um, but there are certain challenges. Everyone faces challenges, and that's I think we miss the point here. There are certain challenges that the wealthy have regarding trusting in their wealth over the Lord. There are certain challenges that the poor face in um only discerning their lack and not their blessing. So every person in every position of life has some challenge uh in faith that they need to uh reorient their thinking, continue to rely on the Lord for whatever uh their circumstance would dictate the need is, and continue on and press on in faith in that regard. Um so James is really echoing the Torah, he's echoing the prophets, um where the Lord sides, we would say, with the oppressed against those who would exploit um the uh situation of those who are disadvantaged. And we see that in Deuteronomy 15 and Amos 5. So in Jewish thought, wealth, of course, is often seen as a blessing, it's not seen as a curse, but it was never the marker of righteousness. It was oh, look how wealthy they are. Clearly, they are a very good person. They're a righteousness. Righteous person. Now, that doesn't mean that the wealthy cannot be righteous, of course not, but it's not the indicator of righteousness. So the Mishnah warns against honoring the rich simply because of their status. So James goes further. He's exposing the irony that those favored by the community, hey, you come in. Oh, God bless you. Welcome. He please take the seat of honor. Hey, scoundrel, get out of the way. You stink anyway. Get over there. So James is pointing out the irony here that the uh the leadership or what have you might uh favor uh those who are exploiting them in every other area of their life, those who may be oppressing them, those who might be suing them, simply because they came through the door, you now honor them in order to gain their favor. So there's really a kind of a two-way application here. Don't favor them in order to gain their favor, because our favor is uh first and foremost from the Lord, and he gives us the favor that goes before us. So James uh similarly warns, or excuse me, too busy thinking about James, but Yeshua Jesus similarly warns against seeking approval from those who wield that social power. We don't want it, we don't want to favor them in order to um have some sort of special um connection with them that would give us advantage in the social setting. Uh teaching instead that the greater, the great reward or the true reward comes from the Lord alone. Of course, he's speaking in uh of this in Matthew 6, 1 through 4. So there's a lot to unpack with that verse 5. Listen, my brothers, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man, you've dishonored the one who needs you to recognize who they are, and not the rich ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court. Are they the one are they not the ones who blaspheme the the honorable name by which you were called? What is that honorable name? Of course, that honorable name is the name of the Lord, the name of the Lord Messiah. Jesus Christ, our Lord, the Lord of glory. And this is why he frames this chapter. He opens this chapter in this way: show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, the Lord of the radiant glory, the covod, the heavy glory, the respectable glory that fills the tabernacle, uh, Exodus 40, that fills the temple, that fills us, that fills the place where we are assembled. Beautiful imagery and beautiful way of framing his thoughts here. So James anchors, James anchors his argument in what he calls the royal law. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19, 18. So the royal law is, if we were to look at this, what is this? What would we call this? It's um it's understood to be an imperial edict, right? It is it is on that level. In Rome, the emperor would give an edict, he would give the command, and it would be followed, it would be followed to the letter. So he is framing this again because he's writing primarily to those in the diaspora, those away from Judea, that are familiar with this language, the royal law. So not only is this given in the Torah, uh, love your neighbor as yourself, but of course, Messiah taught us this as well. And it's a command that is central to Jewish ethics. And the interesting thing is that there's no highlighting in the Torah scroll, there's no um, you know, bright light surrounding it saying, This one's important, people. This one is important. This is this is the one that's important. But you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So we we like to say that the the horizontal love that we have for the Lord, or excuse me, the vertical love that we have for the Lord, is demonstrated through the horizontal love that we have for the neighbor. And of course, the question, well, who is our neighbor? It's not the person that lives down the street and around the corner, right? A simple way of understanding that is, you know, our neighbor is simply the one we're seeing, the one that we see, right? So it doesn't matter if proximity to our house. What matters is that we're seeing them. And this speaks to what James is revealing in this chapter. So this is a central uh command or uh thought with in Jewish ethics, it's elevated by Messiah to the status of uh, and the second is like unto the first. Because again, um if we treat those uh uh around us as garbage, are we really loving the Lord? So it's inseparable from um the command to love God Himself, the Father Himself. So to avoid to violate it through favoritism is a transgression of the Torah, the law itself. So we cannot violate love your neighbor as yourself and expect that somehow we are not violating the Torah of God, the instruction of God. So James insists that the breaking of one part of the law renders one accountable for all. And that reflects a Jewish understanding of Torah itself as an integrated covenant, not a checklist of independent uh rules, but rather that the uh it how we view this, how we see this, how we understand it. He's showing us um how it was viewed in the first century from his perspective. So mercy and judgment are inseparable. As Messiah teaches, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. And for those of us in faith, so speak and act, so speak and so act, as he says, as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty, the law of freedom. And of course, we understand that to be um Paul references the law of Christ, that we have been set free, we have been justified by our Messiah. So we are um we are to view uh being in him uh and being faithfully in him, resting in him, as he will, when we stand to give account, that we will be found in him. So we will receive mercy. As it says, mercy triumphs over judgment. We will not receive what we genuinely deserve, which is death, which is uh eternal punishment. That's what we genuinely deserve, but rather we will receive the um the verdict of justified because we're in Christ and he has already paid that penalty for us. Now, that doesn't, of course, Paul talks about this, it doesn't give less less license to go off and do what we want to do. We're to be obedient, we're to trust in the Lord, we are to uh demonstrate that we love him by obeying what he has given to us in his word. We're to grow and mature in that, we are to gather together. Uh, primarily, uh, it is a witness that the Lord is victorious, it's a lick a witness that Messiah has come, that Messiah has been resurrected, that we are gathering together to honor him, not for therapeutic um, you know, I just wrote about um regaining, reclaiming, I can't remember how I said it, but biblical masculinity. And one of the things over the last 50 years that we've seen through studies and and reports is that this kind of winsome, and I don't mean this to be derogatory in any way, it's just the framing of the responses, the feminization of the church, where you had this winsome kind of therapeutic, I'm okay, you're okay. And that really was a huge influence on the on the church. I'm okay, you're okay, which of course is not scriptural. Um, but that was something that that atmosphere where the the focus was taken off of the Lord and put on our ourselves. Um, and that was, of course, it became the seeker-friendly model and seeker-sensitive models and and those types of things. But we need to gather together primarily to worship Him. That is the principal function. Studying the Word of God is worship. That's always been the historic understanding of it. It is worship as much as song is worship. Gathering together to study the word of God is worship. Gathering together to receive the Eucharist or the table of Lord communion is worship because it is something that we are sacrificial, sacrificially unto him, and we are giving glory to him because he is worthy to receive it. And from that, when our attention is on him, we receive the benefit of um all that he has promised, right? So we don't fall into a place of um uh loathsomeness, maybe. We don't become uh forlorn, we don't become um uh downcast because we're looking up toward him. And that's what we need to remember so uh that is so important to our faith. So when we think about this uh the categories that that he is that James is giving to us in verse eight, if you fully, if you really fulfill, now the word fulfill here is of course the same language that is used in Matthew. Sorry, my beard is keeps touching the windscreen here, uh the pop filter. Um if you really, if you really fulfill, if fulfill is going back to uh Matthew 5 and 17, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill. Abolish, uh these were uh colloquial expressions that meant uh abolish meant to interpret incorrectly, where uh fulfill meant to interpret correctly. So if you really fulfill, if you really interpret correctly, if you really apply correctly the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing well. So he says, We're not doing perfect, you're not doing perfect, but you're doing well. Because again, James is very uh he's a realist when it comes to who we are, he understands perfectly who we are, and so we need to be um we need to follow that idea of how do we fulfill, how do we rightly apply, how do we rightly interpret, love your neighbor as yourself right now? What does that mean right now? And there's a lot of different um examples that we could give. Loving your neighbor as yourself is not always what the other person would consider to be the most beneficial thing for them. So we have to be uh thinking of that. It's again, it's loving them as yourself, the care that you would give yourself, but in light of the revelation of who the Lord is through his word. So there's a misconception in Jewish, uh excuse me, in Christian theology, misconceptions everywhere, we all have them. Um, a misconception in Christian theology regarding um this argument that James lays out. And that is that all of the 613 traditional uh commandments found in the Torah had to be kept perfectly by all individuals. Um, and they because they're misreading or misunderstanding what James is saying. For whoever shall keep the whole law, now the whole or all, um isn't isn't it used in the same sense that we use it in the English. Okay, so this is a place where sometimes our English gets in the way. So yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. Well, he's entered into a position of guilt, and that's what James is talking about. So James is referencing the royal law that is applied to all Israel, right? So it didn't matter if you were a priest, a man, a woman, a Levite, a stranger living within the land of Israel, you were to love your neighbor as yourself. So this is the normative behavior in covenant community. But if you commit adultery, but not murder, you're still a transgressor of the law of the Torah. You are now in a place of correction, you're a place in a place of judgment. So both of these break, whether you murder or whether you commit adultery, you are violating the royal law. Whether you bear false testimony or you covet your neighbor's house, you are breaking the royal law. So see how this loving your neighbor as yourself, the power behind it, the wisdom behind it, that we might not think of um violating it as that big a deal. Maybe it's not beta. But we look and see how all of these other um sins, all of these other things that we're commanded not to do, uh they don't stem from it, but they're examples of breaking that royal law. So we might say, well, we're not guilty of that. But James is saying, but if you don't do, if you do this, you're still guilty. You're still transgressed to the Torah. So his argument is uh within, let's say, the context of rightly applying the word of God to the word of truth, specifically not showing partiality as it's as it is expressed here, because that does violate love your neighbor as yourself. And he'll explain um or explains really that to show partiality is a lack of faith. We'll see that in the second uh part of the chapter from 14 to verse 26. So faith without works is dead is really an argument that you know, going back to showing partiality is a lack of faith, not doing the right thing, not obeying um the word of God is outside the realm of faith. And of course, Paul tells us that anything that is not done in faith is sin. So both Paul and James really say the same things, they just use uh different phrasing. But what Paul, or excuse me, but what James is saying here, um, if we're to look at it again within Jewish law, like we um looked earlier uh at the the um principle of masaopanim, of lifting and showing partiality, lifting the face of someone we're favoring. Um this is uh uh what's called a Kolvik Homer uh argument, light and heavy argument. Now, what this means, what James is doing, is what is applied to the lighter principle also applies to the greater principle. So this is the type of argument that he's given, giving to us so that we understand now. Uh let's see here. For he said, verse 11, do not commit adultery. For he who said do not commit adultery also said, do not murder. Now, for the purposes of uh argument, someone might say, Well, adultery is not murder. But it's applied. It's uh if there is in fact a lesser of these two, that would be the adultery act. But the principle that's applied to the act of adultery is also applied, which is in the argument considered lesser, would also be considered would also be applied to the greater, which is the murder. So, just as a matter of uh clarity. So his conclusion is in keeping with what we would call traditional Jewish thought. The Talmud says this, it's a it's a remarkable thought, and I think it is very, it's consistent with what we would read in the apostles. The Talmud says this one does not do even one transgression without denying the one who commanded it. Let me say that again. One does not even do one transgression without denying the one who commanded it. I can tell you from experience, there are many places where um while hiking, doing stupid things, that I was very attentive to not mess up. I was very focused on not slipping, not falling, not losing my balance, because in that case, to do so would have meant a lot of pain, if not in fact, death. So let's put this in the light of Paul tells us that the wages of sin is death. Now those are wages that that death, uh being in um in contact with death, even uh the decay of life is is in the the realm in the contact of death. But imagine if the moment you violated a command of God, you died. How much more attentive would we be if we knew we slipped up and we fall fell off this cliff and it would be instant death? How much more attentive would it be? One does not even do one transgression without denying the one who commanded it. Messiah said this if you love me, keep my commands. If you love me. And John tells us that the commands of God are not burdensome, they're not meant to be. It's quite often what we what we do with them that becomes the burden. How we wrap our own man-made ideas around them that becomes the burden. So historically, Judaism recognized 613 commands in the Torah. It depends on who you listen to and what time frame somebody was counting them. There's a few less, there's a few more, 613 is where we have landed. It's kind of the uh convention. Christian theology has put this into categories, the moral, ceremonial, and civil law. And of course, the objection is that these aren't categories that are in the Torah themselves, but for better understanding and to help us organize. Well, I mean, even in the even in the Talmud, we have um we have categories. It's funny because uh the rabbis will say modern rabbis will say we don't have systematic theology like the Christians do. By definition, the Talmud is systematized because it's organized tried by tractate and subject. But uh moral, uh ceremonial and civil laws, moral laws, obviously, uh, and anything on the interpersonal uh uh relation um and also the relation before the Lord. Ceremonial obviously has to do with the uh temple laws, the uh laws of Koshrus and so on, uh purity laws, and you find in Leviticus, and then of course civil laws. So the Torah doesn't specifically have these categorizations, mainly because, as I said, um a few minutes ago, um the understanding historically is that the Torah is an integrated covenant, it's not uh separated into Categories per se, but uh that does help our thinking. We are human, uh, we are influenced largely by uh Western constructs. So uh common Christian teaching regarding the commandments is that an individual was to observe and keep each and every one blamelessly. This again is a misreading of James. It preaches very well. You had to keep six, oh, you had to keep all of those 613 laws perfectly. It preaches well, but it's not scripturally true. Um in rightly dividing the word of truth, the word of God, you recognize that the commands in the Torah are not intended to be uniformly applied in all times and all circumstances. So commands specific to men, and this is where we kind of wind this down. So if you have questions, feel free to put them in the uh chat. Commands specific to men were not to be kept by women, and vice versa. So if it's a command for a woman, uh it was not to be kept by a man. So men were not to keep the laws of Nida as specific to women. So uh she would be separated. I guess I have to say that, separated during um menstrual uh monthly cycles. I'm trying to think of the delicate way to say these. So during a monthly cycle, you would be separated. So there would be no contact sexually, there would be um very, very limited contact at all between the two so that you would not uh cross uh contaminate. So the husband's purity would not be made impure. Uh commands to the priests were not to be kept by non-priests. Commands for the king were not for the commoner. Uh, commands regarding the ban, the total war on the ice that were in the land, would not be extended to other people groups. Laws concerning the year of release, uh, the Shemitah or the Yovel, the Jubilee, would not be binding on lands outside of the promised land. And, you know, that is one of those things that sorry, I've got things beeping and booping. Um this was there was a very popular book that was published regarding the year of release in the last decade that was inconsistent with the understanding of what this, what the yoga uh what the Jubilee, excuse me, I'll get it eventually, what the Shemitah was, is not applied outside of the Promised Land. Now, can you derive very good agricultural practices from the Shemitah and apply those? Yes, absolutely. Letting the land rest, rotational um planting, and so on, all derivative of that command and good, uh, but it's not the same principle, the spiritual principle in practice as it is in the Torah itself. So, with all the commands found in the Torah, um, they all of the commands remain normative. In other words, this is what the Lord um reveals, what he commands, what he and it it it shows us what his expectation of who we are to be before him and before the world is, they're all given by God. Um, but it must be carefully studied. Each one must be carefully studied as to whether or not they are literally normative for the place that we're living in, the time we're living in the individual. If we were to look carefully at the 613 laws and to determine what would be specifically applicable today, uh we go from 613 to probably anywhere from 75 to 85 commands that are specifically in the Torah. We don't behave in a manner this dismissive of those that are not uh literally applied today. We still hold them in high regard. We learn principles from those commands, we learn um the character of the Lord, we understand the history, the culture, the context that that was produced by those commands. Um but we have to be mindful of that there, you know, and I I I like to put numbers out for people now. Phineas Dake, who was I think uh I think he was in the Pentecostal camp, if I remember correctly. Um you know, we have 613. That sounds like a lot, you know,$613 is cool, 613, you know, candy bars are cool. Um it sounds like a lot of commands. But if you were to look at the New Testament, Phineas Dake said there's a thousand and fifty. And those would be commands that are applicable to all believers at all times. So I've said this before that legalism is not a numeric condition, legalism is a cardiac condition. Legalism is a condition of the heart. So we have to be mindful of that. And James is doing an attitude adjustment on all of us. Chapter two, chapter one and chapter two is part of that um attitude adjustment. So what is important is the action in faith. When we look at how uh, again, going back, so verse 12, 2, verse 12, so speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. This idea of mercy and how we show mercy. We are to, when we apply grace, we apply grace. Uh, we live in grace, we grace goes before us, grace is our um is the orientation of our outlook on everyone that we interact with, and then that must be coupled with mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment, not for all, but for those as he's speaking to, those in the assembly, those who are, as in verse 2, coming into your assembly, those that are in the synagogue, those who are in the place of assembly where the ecclesia, those who have been called out come to. So it's the action of faith that is judged, not obedience to an unapplied command. So again, Paul tells us that anything that is done outside of faith is sin. Again, he's quoting Paul, Paul, Paul, but it's important because it connects to what James is saying specifically in chapter and verses uh 14 through 26. Uh Paul tells us 1 Corinthians 10 uh 31 that whatever we're doing, whether eating or drinking, do as unto the Lord, or whatever we are doing, do as unto the Lord. Because that is but it's that puts it in the category of faith. Therefore, what we're doing is in the category of faith. We're not in the category of sin, and we're doing it as unto the Lord. All right, I will um stop here because we covered basically what I was hoping to cover. Next week we will uh go into um verses 14 through 26, and we'll uh conclude chapter two, Lord willing. So for those who are listening on the podcast, the podcast will end right about now.

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Amen. Thank you for joining us, and until our next episode, may the Lord bless and keep you in the name of Messiah Jesus. Amen.