It All Fits

Have you ever, as an adult, recalled something you learned as a child, but the truth of which is much more meaningful now?  Or how about something you heard somebody else knew, and when they passed it along to you, you were thankful they shared knowledge with you?  I'll spare you my examples, and I hope you have some thoughts running around in your head now of some specifics of your own.

It was no surprise to me, as I was reading the Bible last week, that God is un-changing, that the same God of the Old Testament was and is God in the new.  Yet, as I was studying through James 4, thinking about the book of James being the "Proverbs of the New Testament", the realization of just how much continuity is in the Bible struck me as though the concept was fresh. 

I had also just finished reading through 1 and 2 Kings, and I could not miss how idolatrous Israel and Judah had allowed their nations to become.  Oh, they still claimed to be followers of God, but has replaced their worship of Him with so many other idols.

James seems to speak wisdom but with teeth, not poetic like Proverbs, but actually chiding with the Church, using metaphors you would find in the Old Testament narrative and poetry books.  He calls the Church, allowing quarrels and struggles to mount due to self-obsessed interests, "ADULTRESSES".  Realize that he uses the feminine form of the word.  And notice the connotation.  One in adultery is truly an unfaithful lover, trying to hold on to the right object of faithfulness, while actually living faithful to something or someone else.

In the Old Testament, God considered His covenanted people as married to Him, or at least He expected them to live faithfully, just as a wife does regarding a husband.  In the New Testament, God is now dealing with the Church, believers in Christ, who as a group comprise the bride of Christ.  So believers also find themselves in a marriage relationship to God, also expected to live faithfully.

By referring back to the Old Testament, James perfectly ties two completely different eras into one unifying concept: we are to be faithful to God.  We are to put Him first above all else. 

James nails the problem we see even today, or maybe I should say especially today.  There is an ever-growing stack of idols in the lives of believers, obscuring the view of God, eclipsing, as it were, what should be the true object of our faithfulness.

When people looked at Israel, no doubt they say the idols, the high places, the pagan symbols, just like in any nation.  The God-followers could no longer be distinguished from the pagans.

When people today look at the Church, when they look at the lives of believers, when they get to know you and me, they see...................