22 Now be doers of the Word and not only hearers deceiving yourselves. James 1:22 (translated from the NA28 Greek text to English)
In 1997, about three years before God moved my wife and I from the OKC area to Tulsa, our Pastor contacted me during the week and told me that he wanted me to fill in for him on Wednesday night after our weekly meal. That meant I would conduct a short Bible study and then have a question and answer period in which adults present could ask anything they wanted about doctrine or the Church or the Bible and I would attempt to answer it. The Bible study part was not a problem since I planned on simply using one I had prepared for another study that I had not yet taught. However, the Q & A was a bit unsettling. I had seen how that went. It was a bit like “Stump the Pastor.”
All went well until about the end of the Q & A session when I was asked what was really meant to be a doer of the Word and not a hearer only from James 1:22 and was that meant for everyone. The question was asked in the context of are there two levels of Christians? Are there simply believers and then disciples who take up their crosses and follow Jesus? Let me say that the discussion we had about this went over our allotted time about 30 minutes. The group in the room grew to about twice the number with which we started. I was most definitely in the minority position equating true believers with what our Lord said in Matthew 17:24-26; Mark 8:34-37 and Luke 9:23-25. Here is that passage from Matthew. <Continue reading post>