The Message of James: The Commentaries to Buy

One more day on James stuff, but this day doesn't deal with the text. At least not directly. I want to suggest a few commentaries that preachers, seminarians, or interested laypeople should take note of and, in my opinion, consider buying as an investment in their biblical study.

Here are four.

• Moo, Douglas. The Letter of James. Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
• Hartin, Patrick. James. Sacra Pagina. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2003.
• Laws, Sophie. Epistle of James. Black’s New Testament commentaries. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993.
• Davids, Peter. James. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.

Let me attempt to shed some light on these commentaries. If you're buying only one, I recommend Doug Moo's. It is the most solidly evangelical and faithful to a conservative hermeneutic. Moo references the Greek text but in a way that non-Greek readers could follow with profit. He is a keen exegete and possesses a good idea for thematic composition. Patrick Hartin is a Catholic scholar. His inclusion on my list might surprise you, but he is a very sound interpreter of the Bible. If you can dismiss some of the liberal trappings of his work, then you will benefit from his surprisingly straightforward interpretation of the text. He interacts nicely with the Greek, so if that's your bag, you'll benefit. Sophie Laws I know very little about, but I found her commentary insightful. She was one of the few I read who picked up a theme similar to mine. Peter Davids is also basically unknown to me, though his work is critical and helpful. Together, these four commentaries would provide the preacher of James with a very solid base from which to cull insights and weigh ideas.

As I noted above, if you're buying only one, buy Moo's; if you're buying two, get Hartin's. Ralph Martin also has a solid commentary. There you go--that's a start toward figuring out this fun and potent little letter.

The Argument of James: Uncovering and Recovering the Double-Minded Man, Pt. 2

Here's the conclusion of this series. I'm not switching to extra-long posts, though I am attempting to make the case that the letter of James is fundamentally about uncovering and recovering the double-minded man. Congrats to Al, who read the previous piece all the way through. If someone else out there did as well, feel free to leave me a comment--what do you think of this thesis? Oh, and if you read nothing else, read the conclusion.

3:14-16 The Double-Minded Man Is Externally Godly But Inwardly Corrupt

In this passage, James implicitly indicts the double-minded man by claiming that he is “false to the truth.” In order to be false to the truth, one must claim to be of the truth, and thus the double-minded man claims to be of the truth. In practice, though, his life is motivated by bitter, prideful, self-interest.[1] Though he is called to be humble and gracious to others, and to put them first, he is primarily and dominantly self-interested. The result is “disorder.”[2] Martin contends that “This characterization points to persons who are “double-minded” and double-tongued. The result is “anarchy.”[3] When members of the Christian community put themselves first while remaining in it, they will create disorder, as their motives will clash with the motives of true Christians, and cause the church to be at cross-purposes. Thus we see that James highlights the destructive nature of double-mindedness. As noted above, this way of life does not merely affect the soul of the one who adopts it. It affects the entire community and poisons true ekklesia. The true Christian is the one who operates out of care for others and creates harmony and love; the divided man operates out of care for self and creates disharmony and hurt.

4:4 The Double-Minded Man Is a Friend of the World and an Enemy of God

Previous to this verse, James has sketched out a problem in the churches to which he writes: they are quarrelsome and self-interested. In living this selfish lifestyle, James says here that they have entered into “friendship with the world.” James is not teaching that these people have entered into actual friendships with lost people—though they may have done so—but is teaching that their principles are so worldly as to bring these double-minded people into close relationship with the spiritual realm of unbelief. This makes these people “adulteresses,” which implies that they do claim allegiance with God.[4] Dibelius points out the nature of this inconsistency, writing simply that “Love for God and love for the world are mutually exclusive.”[5] Rhoads concurs: “If God’s people become stained by the world and then are boastful and arrogant about it, they are confirmed an enemy of God.”[6] These commentators capture the increasingly sharp tone of James’s rhetoric. The double-minded are not merely doubters—they are God’s very enemies. God loves the true Christian, who lives for others and brings peace, not division, to the body. But He despises the double-minded man, the one whose love for the world and love for self so overwhelms his professed faith commitment that, in the end, his faith is not merely empty but is actually love masquerading as hate.[7]

5:12 The Double-Minded Man Speaks Duplicitously

In 5:12 James picks up a previous theme related to the double-minded man, namely, that this person possesses a word, meaning a way of speaking, that does not necessarily correlate with the truth. To put it simply, the divided man often says nai, “yes,” when he means ou', “no.” He is of two minds, after all, and thus his speech reflects two minds. He has some measure of devotion to things of God, and some measure of devotion to things of the world. This dichotomous mindset results in speech that is anything but clear and trustworthy. We may infer here from previous texts that the bipolar nature of the divided man’s speech is likely due to a strong impulse toward self-perpetuation. To put it plainly, the double-minded cares for himself, and thus says whatever is most helpful for him at any given moment and in any given situation. In a contemporary culture that almost prides itself on being duplicitous (see the celebration of the “little white lie,” for example), the power of this verse may initially be diminished. But this is a high-voltage passage. The one who speaks duplicitously will “fall under condemnation,” following C. Freeman Sleeper’s translation.[8] The divided person will suffer a great price—the greatest price—for his duplicity.[9] Those who say yes when they mean no, and vice versa, will be damned for all eternity because of their sin.[10] One’s speech is no small matter. Indeed, it reveals the deepest issues of the heart. The true Christian says what he means, and intends to bless those around him by clear, trustworthy communication. The divided man says whatever serves him best, and will meet a fearsome end.

4:8 and 5:19-20 The Salvation of the Double-Minded Man

In these last two passages, James offers hope for the double-minded. In 4:8 he refers explicitly to these people and calls them to salvation—“purify your hearts.” This text represents James’s direct address to the double-minded of the congregation to be saved. This is a direct appeal to the people whom James has addressed repeatedly in this book. In 5:19-20, James does not use the term dipsuchos but is, one could argue, concluding his book by calling not to the double-minded themselves but to their peers to rescue the lost in their churches. James in effect calls the Christians among his hearers to evangelize those in their community who give evidence of double-mindedness. Luke Timothy Johnson captures this reality when he writes that the Christians who encounter James’s message “are to be a community of mutual correction, turning those who err back to the right path (5:19-20), in effect doing for each other what James in his letter has tried to do for them.”[11]
It is the present author’s contention that this understanding of 5:19-20 makes much better sense of this passage than does a reading of the text that is not driven by the supposition that James’s letter is addressed to the divided person. If the letter of James is indeed driven by James’s concern for the double-minded man, then this closing passage caps off his discussion perfectly. He has excoriated the sin of the man of the two minds, he has warned him, he has told him directly that he is hell-bound, and now he calls for his congregational peers to evangelize and save them. This understanding of 5:19-20 fits perfectly with the text’s language. The divided man, we have already established, has some connection to truth. He even believes himself to be a Christian. However, he is clearly one who “wanders from the truth.” This is the very definition of the spiritual state of the double-minded man.[12] He stands near the truth, but he wanders from it.[13] As a result, he is altogether lost. The man of two minds is, in the end, a man of one mind.[14] Tragically, this mind is devoted to sin and self, and will reap the awful results of this devotion for all eternity.

Conclusion

The book of James is a misunderstood text. The majority of commentators miss its true focus, instead construing the thematic principle of the text in the most basic of terms. Failing to see the common threads of the argument introduced in 1:6-8, they conclude that the book is a basic call to obedience. It is the contention of this author that James is not a book without a theme, or a book merely about one of the most basic themes of the Christian faith—the need for obedience to God and love for Christians. No, the book of James puts forth a much more significant argument than this. It is a book with a powerful, textured, multi-faceted message to the double-minded person who professes faith in Christ. In his letter, James seeks to uncover the true spiritual condition of this man, and he seeks to recover him, to see him saved. This is the message of James, and this must be the message of our churches, as we call both the pagan and the nominal Christian to find salvation in the gospel of Christ, the truth the triumphs over all foes and that brings rest and unity to divided minds.


Footnotes (for the truly dedicated)

[1] Manton summarizes the passage helpfully: “James proves that such devilish wisdom as serves envy and selfish ambition cannot be good wisdom, for it brings about quite contrary effects—the one for holiness and meekness, the other for confusion and profanity.” Manton, James, 208.

[2] Timothy and Barbara Friberg offers three different types of disorder which this word can signify: political unrest, social unrest, and community disruption. Friberg, The Analytical Greek New Testament, Version Two [CD-ROM] (Cedar Rapids, IA: Parsons Technology, 1998), 862. The third seems the most appropriate definition in this context.

[3] Martin, James, 132. Also Moo, The Letter of James, 174.

[4] Barclay Newman defines the word as “unfaithful,” underscoring the relational nature of this adjective. Newman, A Concise Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament [CD-ROM] (New York: United Bible Societies, 1993), entry 4080.

[5] Dibelius, A Commentary on the Epistle of James, 220.

[6] Rhoads, “The Letter of James: Friend of God,” 483.

[7] J. W. Roberts captures this point when he opines that “A pleasure-loving, covetous, worldly Christian is a contradiction. Demas was in love with this present world and left Paul (2 Tim. 4:10).” Roberts, The Letter of James (Austin, TX: Sweet Publishing Company), 128.

[8] C. Freeman Sleeper, James, Abingdon New Testament Commentaries (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 139.

[9] Past commentators have focused too much in their interpretation of this passage on the meaning of the oaths that are sworn. James may well have a formal oath in mind here, but this is not the most important aspect of this passage. The most important facet is the fact that this verse speaks to the behavior of the man of two minds.

[10] Hartin, James, 262.

[11] Luke Timothy Johnson, “An Introduction to the Letter of James,” Review & Expositor 97.2 (2000): 165.

[12] Davids, James, 167.

[13] Moo thoughtfully notes that “to allow “the world” to entice us away from total, single-minded allegiance to God is to become people who are divided in loyalties, “double-minded” and spiritually unstable.” Moo, The Letter of James,194.

[14] Mayor, The Epistle of St. James, 146.

The Argument of James: Uncovering and Recovering the Double-Minded Man, Pt. 1

Since I posted on my James paper this week, I've had so many emails come in requesting the paper that I decided to post the textual part of it on this blog so that all can read it. Note that the following texts reflect the key theme of James, being the uncovering and recovering of the double-minded man, and that this is in no way an exhaustive summary of relevant texts but is merely a quick walkthrough of several key passages that relate to the suggested theme. Part 2 will be posted on Monday.

1:6-8 Portrait of the Double-Minded Man

In this section James introduces the concept of the double-minded man. In arguing that this passage forms the thematic basis for all that follows, we note that James apparently coined the Greek term dipsuchos (“double-minded man”).[1] His original thesis thus rests on an original term.[2] The fundamental characteristic of the double-minded man is that he is has his mind focused on two completely opposite realms. On one hand, he has some measure of faith in God and thus wishes to ask Him for things. On the other, he struggles with severe doubt of God and likely trusts himself more than a god who seems not to answer him. The result of this dichotomous thinking is that the double-minded man is “unstable,” in everything that he does.[3] In the passages to come, we will see that this introductory portrait does indeed describe the person James is targeting, as he is fundamentally characterized by a lifestyle that exists in tension between God-driven obedience and self-centered disobedience.

1:22-24 The Double-Minded Man Hears But Does Not Do

One of James’s central concerns is that his hearers would not only physically hear the word but that they would translate it into action. Not surprisingly, the double-minded man is the very antithesis of such desired behavior. The man of two interests is likened here to one who cannot focus long enough to even remember what he looks like. James’s tone here is clearly negative, and he views such mental flightiness with disdain. His focus here is on the immediacy of the double-minded man’s forgetfulness. He focuses on this immediacy by using the aorist tense first and then following it with a perfect tense, which according to Alexander Ross reveals both “the suddenness of the action and the permanence of the result.”[4] James’s frustration is built on past experience. The first and third aorists are both gnomic and thus convey not a one-time event but a timeless truth.[5] This condition of double-mindedness, characterized here by forgetfulness of the preached word, is no passing trend but has been a problem since faith was required of man.[6] The true Christian hears and does; the divided man hears and forgets.

1:26 The Double-Minded Man Is Religious But Not Godly

James returns again to the divided man in 1:26. Here he examines personal spiritual division through the standpoint of the tongue. James’s denunciations of the divided man grow increasingly specific as the letter progresses. The problem with such a person here is that he professes to be a godly person but takes no practical action toward that end. The end result is that he tricks himself. We should thus understand the divided man to be unconscious of his dangerous state. James teaches us that the man of two minds thinks that all is well and that he is religious. What he cannot see, though, is that his faith, his religion, is “worthless.”[7] Laws notes that this “adjective [was] often applied to pagan religion…which may give an extra pejorative thrust to James’s condemnation.”[8] Not only is the divided man’s “faith” nonexistent, it is inherently ungodly, and no better than pagan belief. If this is true, this is a strong condemnation indeed of the divided person, who fancies himself a Christian but is in reality a godless pagan.[9] It is as if God-glorifying religion had never entered his mind. Thus we see that the true Christian bridles his tongue and lives for God, while the double-minded man speaks freely and lives in deception.[10]

2:1-4 The Double-Minded Man Claims Impartiality But is Biased

This is a bone-chilling section, if one reads it carefully and from the standpoint that James’s burden is to expose the double-minded man in the midst of a congregation of true believers. We say this because the double-minded man does not merely affect himself for ill, but he spreads his poison among the church members. Here, James points out this dimension of double-mindedness in relation to partiality. James implicitly teaches that the true believer is impartial and peace-oriented in the congregation, while the divided man is partial and conflict-ridden. The divided man here is not explicitly spoken of, of course, but he is pictured through this disturbing scene. The facet of double-mindedness that James is pointing out is that it professes to hold faith in the barrier-shattering faith of Christ, but that it actually operates according to worldly standards of wealth and power. James says to the divided persons that they are “judging” and are controlled by “evil thoughts.” Hartin observes that diekrithete “refers to being divided within oneself and also “contains the concept of actively making distinctions among people and discriminating against others.”[11] The double-minded man, then, is one who, despite being a part of a community that exalts impartiality and embraces all, actively promotes discrimination in the church.[12] The true Christian acts in the same kind way towards all men; the divided man treats the rich with kindness and the poor with contempt.

2:14-17 The Double-Minded Man Claims Faith But Has No Works

The double-minded man is discussed in this section, though he is not named. Again, it is the present author’s contention that James has the divided man constantly in the front of his mind as he writes this letter, and thus there are numerous sections that illustrate spiritual division even if they do not make use of the term dipsuchos. Here double-mindedness shows itself in a faith that is alone and that has no works to buttress and prove it. The test is not impartiality, though it is related to it, but generosity. The double-minded man says that he loves those he claims as brothers and sisters, but when it comes time to demonstrate that generosity, his faith shows itself to be “by itself.”[13] Mayor concurs and notes that the “absence of fruit shows that it is not merely outwardly inoperative but inwardly dead.”[14] This is the correct meaning of this phrase—it is not that James is in fact suggesting that compartmentalization of faith and works is possible, but rather that faith without works is no faith at all.[15] This is the state of the divided man. The true Christian both believes and acts generously toward others based on his belief; the double-minded man produces no practical evidence for his faith, even while surrounded—and even approached—by the needy.

3:8-9 The Double-Minded Man Blesses God But Curses Man

James offers his strongest attack on the double-minded man in these two terse verses. The dipsuchos is not mentioned, but his fundamental mindset is described. Possessing a tongue that, like his heart, is not truly redeemed, he simultaneously blesses God and curses man. This is not the mild problem we might initially think it to be in a quick skim of chapter three. Unlike our irreverent society, in which even many Christians take the Lord’s name in vain, in the Christian community of James’s day, blessing God was a serious matter indeed. Hartin notes that “To bless and praise God is the most important prayer one can make in the Jewish and Christian traditions,” and it is also quite possible that James is referring to an actual liturgical blessing of God in the synagogue.[16] If so, this blessing would have been a public declaration, an act that would have made a private cursing of fellow men all the worse by its hypocritical nature. The double-minded man of James’s conception is not only forgetful, partial, and greedy, but he is deeply hypocritical. A major test as to whether one is double-minded, then, is whether one is publicly godly—all smiles and amens on Sunday morning—and privately wicked, such that one curses one’s fellow man and savages those whom he does not like. The true Christian blesses both God and man, not only in word but in motive; the double-minded man blessed God and curses man, and shows the true nature of his heart.


Footnotes

[1] Joseph Thayer rightly indicates that the word has a different meaning here—“wavering”—than in 4:8, where it means “of two minds.” Thayer, Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament [CD-ROM] (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), entry 1450.

[2] Though Marie Isaacs helpfully points out that James’s concept of double-mindedness “echoes Jewish tradition in which “doubleness” was thought to be the very essence of sin.” Isaacs, “Suffering in the Lives of Christians: James 1:2-19A,” Review & Expositor 97.2 (2000): 187. See also Peter Davids, James, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 74. Virgil Porter, Jr. points out the connection to Christ’s teaching: “This concept of double-mindedness relates directly to Jesus’ words about being divided between two masters (Matt. 6:24).” Virgil Porter, Jr., “The Sermon on the Mount in the Book of James, Part 1,” Bibliotheca Sacra 162.647 (2005): 360. Thus we see that there is a rich background to this initial concept and statement by James.

[3] Moo nicely summarizes the point being made in this section: “It is what we might call “spiritual schizophrenia” that James criticizes in these verses explicitly and implicitly throughout his letter: a basic division in the soul that leads to thinking, speaking, and acting that contradicts one’s claim to belong to God.” The Letter of James, 63.

[4] Ross, The Epistles of James and John, 40.

[5] Following Hartin, James, 99 and Dibelius, A Commentary on the Epistle of James, 115.

[6] Thomas Manton pointed out long ago that “Many go from sermon to sermon and hear much, but do not digest it in their thoughts.” Manton, James, The Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1995), 98. This is clearly true of the divided man.

[7] Or “futile.” J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, (United Bible Societies [CD-ROM] 2003), entry 4124, 65.37.

[8] Laws, Epistle of James, 88.

[9] Davids gets to the heart of the matter when he notes that “Religion which does not have ethical results, particularly in this case control of the tongue, is totally useless before God: such faith is God, not salvific, as James will say later (2:20, 26).” Davids, James, 102. See also Virgil Porter, Jr., “The Sermon on the Mount in the Book of James, Part 2,” Bibliotheca Sacra 162.648 (2005): 480.

[10] Hartin, James,110.

[11] Hartin, James,118.

[12] Martin concludes along similar lines. “It may well be that James is tracing the sinful behavior described in vv 2-3 back to its source, namely a divided mind. The double-minded (1:8; 4:8) Christian is the one who fails to love and obey God wholeheartedly.” Martin, James, 63.

[13] Davids, 122.

[14] Mayor, James, 99, and Doerksen, who says sternly that “A compassion that consists only of words is sheer mockery.” Doerksen, James, 66.

[15] Stulac, James,109. Addison Eastman puts this problem eloquently: “in the matter of faith and works, as in the traditional marriage ceremony, we need the reminder, “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” Eastman, A Handful of Pearls: The Epistle of James (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978), 54-5.

[16] Hartin, James, 179.